ving so blindly, so
desperately, to fling off the yoke that crushes them! Then it was that,
with the noble courage that distinguishes her above all women I have
ever met, she refused to carry out the orders given her; more than that,
she has twice or thrice saved my life from other attempts on it. I have
long been a member of the League, though, save herself, none other
connected with it suspected the identity of a certain droshky driver,
who did good service at one time and another."

His blue eyes twinkled merrily for an instant. In his way his character
was as complex as that of Anne herself,--cool, clever, courageous to a
degree, but leavened with a keen sense of humor, that made him
thoroughly enjoy playing the role of "Ivan," even though it had brought
him to his present position as a state prisoner.

"That reminds me," I said. "How was it you got caught that time, when
she and her father escaped?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I had to choose, either to fly with them, and thereby endanger us all
still further, or allow myself to be taken. That last seemed best, and I
think--I am sure--I was right."

"Did you know the soldiers were coming?"

"No. That, by the way, was Selinski's doing,--Cassavetti, as you call
him."

"Cassavetti!" I exclaimed. "Why, he was dead weeks before!"

"True, but the raid was in consequence of information he had supplied
earlier. He was a double-dyed traitor. The papers she--the papers that
were found in his rooms in London proved that amply. He had sold
information to the Government, and had planned that the Countess Anna
should be captured with the others, after he had induced her to return,
by any means in his power."

"But--but--he couldn't have brought her back!" I exclaimed. "For she
only left London the day after he was murdered, and she was at Ostend
with you next day."

"Who told you that?" he asked sharply.

"An Englishman I saw by chance in Berlin, who had met her in London, and
who knew you by sight."

He sat silent, in frowning thought, for a minute or more, and then said
slowly:

"Selinski had arranged everything beforehand, and his assistants carried
out his instructions, though he, himself, was dead. But all that belongs
to the past; we have to deal with the present and the future! You know
already that one section of the League at least is, as it were,
reconstructed. And that section has two definite aims: to aid the cause
of freedom, but also to minimize