rightened.

"Of course!" he exclaimed in cordial tones. "I will support you with
all my heart. I will write up your mission in the _Review_, and I
will give you as many introductions as you need. What is your name,
again?"

"Sterling. Mr. Melchisadek Sterling."

The philanthropist nodded and touched a bell on his table.

"I will give you a letter," he said, as his secretary came in and
seated herself at the typewriter, "to the noblest creature I have
ever met, a woman of high birth and immense fortune who has devoted
herself to the cause."

And turning 'round in his chair he dictated to the attentive
secretary:

"_My dear Princess Y_----"

It needed all that command over my features which it has taken me
twenty years to acquire to conceal the emotion with which I heard
this name. Less than half an hour had passed since I had warned Lord
Bedale that the Princess would be the most formidable enemy in my
path, and now, on the very threshold of my enterprise, her name
confronted me like an omen.

I need not repeat the highly colored phrases in which the
unsuspecting philanthropist commended me to this artful and
formidable woman as a fellow-worker in the holy cause of human
brotherhood.

Not content with this service, the editor wanted to arrange a meeting
of his league or brotherhood, or whatever it was, to give me a public
send-off. As I understood that the meeting would partake of a
religious character I could not bring myself to accept the offer.

In addition to the letter to the Princess Y----, he gave me another
to a member of the staff of the Russian Embassy in London, a M.
Gudonov. He also urged me to call upon a member of Parliament, a
rising politician who is not unlikely to have a ministerial post in
the next government, and who has made himself known as an apologist
of the Czar's. But as I had good reason to know that this gentleman
was by no means a disinterested dupe, like Mr. Place, I prudently
left him alone.

On going to the Russian Embassy to have my passport vised I inquired
for M. Gudonov.

The moment he entered the room I recognized him as one of the most
unscrupulous agents of the notorious Third Section, one of the gang
who drugged and kidnapped poor Alexander of Bulgaria. My own
disguise, it is hardly necessary to say, was impenetrable.

This precious apostle of peace greeted me with unction, on the
editor's introduction.

"You are going to our country on a truly noble errand," h