reading and placed my arm tenderly about her slim waist, she
raised her beautiful face to mine to receive the passionate kiss I
imprinted upon those soft, full lips.

"This, of course, makes everything plain," exclaimed Jack. "Polovstoff
was a very liberal-minded and upright official who was greatly in the
favor of the Czar, and a serious rival to Oberg, whose drastic and
merciless methods in Finland were not exactly approved by the Emperor.
The Baron was well aware of this, and by ingeniously enticing him on
board the _Iris_ he succeeded by handing that small bomb concealed in a
cigar--a Nihilist contrivance that had probably been seized by his
police in Finland--in freeing himself from the rival who was destined to
occupy his post."

"Yes," I said with a sigh. "The mystery is cleared up, it is true, yet
my poor Elma is still the victim." And I kissed my love passionately
again and again upon the lips.

CONCLUSION

Nearly two years have now gone by.

There have been changes in holy Russia--many great and amazing changes
consequent upon war and its disasters. Russia is no longer the great
power that she once was supposed to be. Many events that have startled
the world have occurred since that day when I first enfolded my silent
love within my arms. One of them is known to you all.

You read in the newspapers, without a doubt, how the Baron Xavier Oberg,
the persecutor of Finland, the enemy of education, the relentless foe of
the defenseless, the man who ordered women to be knouted to death in
Kajana, the heartless official whom the Finns called "The Strangler,"
was blown to pieces by a bomb thrown beneath his carriage as he drove to
the railway station at Helsingfors on his way to have audience with the
Emperor.

The secret truth was that the "Red Priest" decreed that Oberg should
die, and the plot was swiftly put into execution, and although five
hundred arrests were made the police are unaware to this day of the
identity of the person who directed it, or of who threw the fatal
missile. From pillar to post the revolutionists have been hunted by the
bloodhounds of police, yet the "Red Priest" still lives on quietly in
Petersburg, and the Princess Zurloff, still unsuspected, devotes the
greater part of her enormous income to the cause of freedom.

Of Jack and Muriel I need only say they were married about three months
after Elma's return from Russia, and at the present time they are
living on the outsk