ron only."

"But I tell you he will not see you. We have so many persons here with
secret information concerning Finnish conspiracies against our Russian
rule. Why, if his Excellency saw everyone who desired to see him, he
would be compelled to give audience the whole twenty-four hours round."

At a glance I saw that this elegant Colonel, who seemed to take the
greatest pride over his exquisitely kept person and his spotless
uniform, did not intend to allow me the satisfaction of an audience of
that most hated official of the Czar. The latter was in fear of the
dagger, the pistol, or the bomb, and consequently hedged himself in by
persons of the Colonel's type--courteous, diplomatic, but utterly
unbending. After some further argument, I said at last in a firm tone:

"I wish to impress upon you the extreme importance of the information I
have to impart, and can only repeat that it is a matter concerning his
Excellency privately. Will you therefore do me the favor to take my name
to him?"

"His Excellency refuses to be troubled with the names of strangers," was
his cold reply, as he turned over my card in his hand.

"But if I write upon it the nature of my business, and enclose it in an
envelope, will you then take it to him?" I suggested.

He hesitated for a short time, twisting his mustache, and then replied
with great reluctance:

"Well, if you are so determined, you may write your business upon your
card."

I therefore took out one, and on the back wrote in French the words
which I knew must have the effect of obtaining an audience for me:

"_To give information regarding Miss Elma Heath_."

This I enclosed in the envelope he handed to me, when, ringing a bell,
he handed it to the footman who appeared, with orders to take it to his
Excellency and await a reply. The response came in a few minutes.

"His Excellency will give audience to the English m'sieur."

Then I rose and followed the footman through several wide corridors
filled with palms and flowers, which formed a kind of winter-garden,
until we crossed a red-carpeted ante-room, where two statuesque sentries
stood on guard, and the man conducting me rapped at the great polished
mahogany doors of the room beyond.

A voice responded, the door was opened, and I found myself in a high,
beautifully-painted room, with long windows hung with pastel-blue silk
with heavy gilt fringe, a pastel-blue carpet, and upon the opposite wall
a great canopy of ric