n, for a person once in that rumbling vehicle is, as you know,
lost for ever to the world. I watched her from the window being placed
in that fatal conveyance, and then I think I must have fainted, for I
recollect nothing more until I found myself upon the floor, with the
gray dawn spreading, and all the horrible truth came back to me. My
mother was gone from me for ever!

"In sheer desperation I went to the Ministry of the Interior and sought
an interview with the Baron, who, when I told him of the disaster,
appeared greatly concerned, and went at once to the Police Department to
make inquiry. Next day, however, he came to me with the news that the
charge against my mother had been proved by a statement of the woman
Shiproff herself, and that she had already started on her long journey
to Siberia--she had been exiled to one of those dreaded Arctic
settlements beyond Yakutsk, a place where it is almost eternal winter,
and where the conditions of life are such that half the convicts are
insane. The Baron, however, declared that, as my father's friend, it was
his duty to act as guardian to me, and that as my father had been
English I ought to be put to an English school. Therefore, with his
self-assumed title of uncle, he took me to Chichester. For years I
remained there, until one day he came suddenly and fetched me away,
taking me over to Helsingfors--for the Czar had now appointed him
Governor-General to Finland. There, for the first time, he introduced me
to his son Michael, a pimply-faced lieutenant of cavalry, and said in a
most decisive manner that I must marry him. I naturally refused to marry
a man of whom I knew so little, whereupon, finding me obdurate, he
quickly altered his tactics and became kindness itself, saying that as I
was young he would allow me a year in which to make up my mind.

"A week later, while living in the palace at Helsingfors, I overheard a
conversation between the Governor-General and his son, which revealed to
me a staggering truth that I had never suspected. It was Oberg himself
who had denounced my mother to the Minister of the Interior, and had
made those cruel, baseless charges against her! Then I discerned the
reason. She being exiled, her fortune, as well as that of my father,
came to me. The reason they were scheming for Michael to marry me was in
order to obtain control of my money. I saw at once how helpless I was in
the hands of that unscrupulous pair, and I recognized, too, su