ied, warningly. Her would-be captor shrunk back, and before he had
recovered from his surprise Marie Lovetski darted past him towards the
door. She seized the handle to wrench it open, then saw that all was
lost. The door was locked and the gendarme had removed the key. There
was a fierce struggle, in which one of the officers was dangerously
wounded, but eventually they secured her, and within two months Marie
Lovetski set out to traverse the same dreary road over which the Count
had gone long before when she was a mere child.

"Ivan Rachieff, the masquerader who had whispered into Count Lovetski's
ear the fate to which he was consigned, was at that time a young attache
at the Court of the Czar. The zeal which he displayed in hunting down
the autocrat's enemies rapidly brought promotion, so that when Marie
Lovetski was exiled he had risen to be a general of the Russ army, and
specially chosen for the duty of heading the Cossacks who conducted the
exiles over the Siberian wastes, while among his subordinates was Paul
Somaloff, who held a position scarcely inferior to his own.

"Convicted of a double offence, Marie Lovetski was condemned to walk the
whole of that wearisome distance among criminals bound for the mines,
while the political exiles were somewhat less harshly treated. General
Rachieff had been warned that a band of discontents had threatened to
attempt the rescue of the prisoners, and special powers of life and
death were granted to him. By long forced marches he hurried the exiles
on, scarcely giving them a few hours' rest each night when they arrived
at their halting-places on the route.

[Illustration: "SHE THRUST THE COLD BARREL OF A PISTOL INTO THE
GENDARME'S EAR."]

"It was with a deep feeling of sorrow at his inability to lessen her
sufferings that Paul Somaloff glanced many times on the way at Marie
Lovetski. In spite of the strange position in which he found himself,
his love for the woman was by no means lessened, but increased each day
as he saw to his dismay how plainly her strength was failing as he
looked upon the woman's haggard countenance, who was wearily dragging
her limbs forward over the frozen wastes. One day Marie Lovetski's
condition became so serious that Somaloff begged General Rachieff to
order the fetters which bound her wrists to be removed, receiving in
reply a refusal as contemptuous as it was decisive. All that day the
exile's secret lover walked moodily on, racking his brain