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364 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.

Her Italian comrade passed into Russia through a different port, and in one of his most complete disguises. The countess and her maid, accompanied by Philip and a courier, went openly to St. Petersburg, where the young artist was duly introduced into the highest society by his illustrious patroness. Her visit was understood to be simply one of rest and social duty, e?i route for the scene of her husband's estates, whither some business of charity called her. Within a few days of her arrival she set out for the interior, or was understood to have done so ; but what happened was an enterprise of an entirely different character

The countess made her adieux, and disappeared from society and the world of St. Petersburg, prior to taking her place in the ranks of the Brotherhood, accompanied by Philip in a disguise which she had prepared for him ; but not before conjuring him to leave her and her as- sociates to return home, while he could return safe to his family and friends. But Philip had only one negative re- ply to all her warning, and in some strange, unaccount- able way, the woman who had been for years the com- panion of strong men bound together by patriotic oaths and emotions of revenge, found the infatuation which she exercised upon the voluntary young exile from London reflected back upon herself. She tried to think that fate had given to her the comfort of his companionship as some sort of recompense for past sufferings ; that fortune, perhaps, had placed him by her side as a new human im- pulse, an added arm in the great work which, Ferrari assured her, would be the signal for the coming millenium of their race and the overthrow of the Colossus of Despot- ism which threatened to bestride the civilized world.

Ferrari had of late over and over again expounded to Anna Klosstock (in whom, after all, his hopes of success in the latest enterprise of his career were centred) the tre-