three hundred citizens who are sworn to revolt to-morrow.
The appointed day is fast drawing near, for in ten minutes the
great clock will chime the midnight hour, and then, Count
Lovetski--_Siberia!_'

"His listener stared in blank amazement, then, regaining his composure,
he replied:--

"'So the plot is discovered? I am no coward. When is it settled for me
to set out?'

"'At the last stroke of the hour a drosky will await you at the main
entrance. The palace is guarded by the soldiery. The others do not start
immediately; you are the leader, and will be ready, doubtless.'

"'Quite,' answered Lovetski, for he knew resistance would be useless. He
quietly passed his sword to the masker, who took it, smiled again, and
disappeared in the crowd. One by one the followers of the Count were
singled out by the strange messenger of the Czar, and when the
masquerade was over three hundred exiles followed the track of the
sledge in which their leader had been hurried away a couple of hours
before them on the long, dreary journey to Tomsk.

[Illustration: "SIBERIA!"]

"Lovetski was refused the privilege of communicating his whereabouts to
his wife, who shortly after this event died, leaving their daughter to
the care of strangers. Before long a rumour reached the capital that the
Count had been shot while attempting to escape in disguise, and this was
eventually found to be true.

"Scarcely had Marie Lovetski reached womanhood when she joined a
political movement, fired with a mad resolve to avenge her father's
death, and within a year her name appeared among those on the list of
suspects, whose every action was closely observed. A Russian officer of
high rank, Paul Somaloff, who had more than once made her an offer of
marriage, begged her to remember the fate which overtook Count Lovetski,
but the bare mention of it only made the woman more inexorable. The end
which everyone foretold soon came, for, seated one day in the midst of
treasonable correspondence, Marie Lovetski was surprised by three
gendarmes, who burst into her apartment. She tore the letter into
fragments before they could stop her, then scattered the pieces over the
floor. One of the gendarmes, motioning to his companions to pick them
up, moved towards her and attempted her arrest. For one moment the woman
stood at bay, then thrust the cold barrel of a pistol into the
gendarme's ear.

"'Raise but a hand or move an inch nearer and I will shoot you!' she
cr