was said into
Siberia--and in due course the Princess resumed her place in society
and at Court, as though nothing were amiss.

Nevertheless, from that hour, as I have every reason to know, her
life was really that of a slave to the head of the secret police. She
appeared to go about unfettered, and to revel in the enjoyment of
every luxury; but her time, her actions, and the vast wealth
bequeathed to her by her husband, were all at the disposal of her
tyrant.

Time after time, in half the capitals of Europe, but more especially,
of course, in that of Russia, I had come on traces of this terrible
woman, not less terrible if it were true that she was herself the
most miserable victim of the system of which she formed part.

But singularly enough, though I had heard so much of the Princess I
had never actually found myself pitted against her. And, more
singularly still, I had never met her.

From this it will be gathered that I experienced a sensation of more
than ordinary curiosity and even apprehension as I presented myself
at the house in the Nevsky Prospect, and asked to be admitted to the
presence of its mistress.

"Her highness is on duty at the Palace to-day," I was told by the
chamberlain who received me in the inner hall. "Her carriage is just
ordered to take her there. However, I will take up your letter, and
inquire when her highness can see you."

I sat down in the hall, outwardly a calm, stolid Briton, but inwardly
a wrestler, wound up to the highest pitch of excitement and impatient
for the sight of his antagonist.

To pass the time suitably, I took my guide-book out of my pocket and
began to read. The book opened at Herr Baedaker's description of the
gloomy fortress of the Schluesselburg, the dreaded prison of the foes
of the Czar.

The description did not tend to soothe my nerves, conscious as I was
that the woman I was about to meet could consign me to the most
noisome dungeon in the fortress by merely lifting her little finger.

I was just closing the book with an involuntary shudder when I heard
a light, almost girlish, laugh from above. I looked hastily, and saw
the woman I had come to measure myself against standing poised like a
bird on the top of the grand staircase.

As I rose hurriedly to my feet, taking in every detail of her superb
yet delicate figure, her complexion like a blush-rose, her lustrous
eyes--they were dark violet on a closer view--and the cloud of
rippling gold that fr