they are devoted to each other, those two! It is
beautiful to see such affection in these days when young people so often
seem to despise their parents."

It was strange, very strange. The more I tried to puzzle things out, the
more hopeless the tangle appeared. Why had Pendennis allowed her to
return alone to Russia, especially after she had come through such a
severe illness? Of course he might be attached to some other branch of
the League, but it seemed unlikely that he would allow himself to be
separated from her, when he must have known that she would be surrounded
by greater perils than ever. I decided that I could say nothing to this
garrulous woman--kindly though she was--or to any other stranger. I
dreaded the time when I would have to tell Mary something at least of
the truth; though even to her I would never reveal the whole of it.

The manager came to my room presently, bringing my money and papers, and
the miniature, which he had taken charge of; lucky it was for me that I
had fallen into honest hands when I reached Berlin!

He addressed me as "Herr Gould" of course, and was full of curiosity to
know how I got through, and if things were as bad in Warsaw as the
newspapers reported. Berlin was full of Russian refugees; but he had not
met one from Warsaw.

"They say the Governor will issue no passports permitting Poles to leave
the city," he said. "But you are an American, which makes all the
difference."

"I guess so," I responded, wondering how Loris had managed to obtain
that passport, and if it would have served to get me through if I had
started from the city instead of making that long _detour_ to Kutno.

I assured my host that the state of affairs in the city of terror I had
left was indescribable, and I'd rather not discuss it. He seemed quite
disappointed, and with a queer flash of memory I recalled how the little
chattering woman--I forget her name--had been just as disappointed when
I didn't give details about Cassavetti's murder on that Sunday evening
in Mary's garden. There are a lot of people in this world who have an
insatiable appetite for horrors,--when they can get them at second-hand.

"They say it's like the days of the terror in the 'sixties' over
again,--tortures and shootings and knoutings; and that the Cossacks
stripped a woman and knouted her to death one day last week; did you
hear of that?"

"I tell you I don't mean to speak of anything that I've seen or heard!"
I said, f