.

"I will tell you all," and she looked straight at Heritage. "I do not
think you would be cruel or false, for you have honourable faces....
Listen, then. I am a Russian, and for two years have been an exile. I
will not now speak of my house, for it is no more, or how I escaped,
for it is the common tale of all of us. I have seen things more
terrible than any dream and yet lived, but I have paid a price for such
experience. First I went to Italy where there were friends, and I
wished only to have peace among kindly people. About poverty I do not
care, for, to us, who have lost all the great things, the want of bread
is a little matter. But peace was forbidden me, for I learned that we
Russians had to win back our fatherland again, and that the weakest
must work in that cause. So I was set my task, and it was very
hard.... There were others still hidden in Russia which must be brought
to a safe place. In that work I was ordered to share."

She spoke in almost perfect English, with a certain foreign precision.
Suddenly she changed to French, and talked rapidly to Heritage.

"She has told me about her family," he said, turning to Dickson. "It is
among the greatest in Russia, the very greatest after the throne."
Dickson could only stare.

"Our enemies soon discovered me," she went on. "Oh, but they are very
clever, these enemies, and they have all the criminals of the world to
aid them. Here you do not understand what they are. You good people in
England think they are well-meaning dreamers who are forced into
violence by the persecution of Western Europe. But you are wrong. Some
honest fools there are among them, but the power--the true power--lies
with madmen and degenerates, and they have for allies the special devil
that dwells in each country. That is why they cast their nets as wide
as mankind."

She shivered, and for a second her face wore a look which Dickson never
forgot, the look of one who has looked over the edge of life into the
outer dark.

"There were certain jewels of great price which were about to be turned
into guns and armies for our enemies. These our people recovered, and
the charge of them was laid on me. Who would suspect, they said, a
foolish girl? But our enemies were very clever, and soon the hunt was
cried against me. They tried to rob me of them, but they failed, for I
too had become clever. Then they asked for the help of the law--first
in Italy and then in France. Ah, i