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372 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.

be a clue to her association with some of the worst enemies of Russia, and indeed, they believed she was an accom- plice in the murder of General Petronovttch at Venice.

At present these charges were indefinite, and might possibly be difficult of proof ; but they were considered to be strongly exemplified by the strange disappearance of the countess from Russia. She had arrived in St. Peters- burg some few days before the failure of the latest dynamite plot, had observed the usual polite ceremonies of the Court, had been seen at the opera, and was a guest at a semi-official reception on the night before the nefarious scheme of the Propagandists was to have been consum- mated. From that moment there was no trace o,f her. She had disappeared as completely as if she had never existed. And the complete system of espionage that belonged to the police had failed to come upon the slight- est clue ; the telegraph had flashed inquiries and descrip- tions in every direction throughout Europe, but without result. They had hoped that the young Englishman, the prisoner Forsyth, would have been able to throw some light upon her proceedings and habits. Had he been a Rus- sian subject it was possible that more than the ordinary pressure would have been exercised to obtain confessions from him ; but he probably spoke the truth when he said that he did not know what had become of her, and he did not disguise for a moment that he had traveled with her from Venice to Paris, from Paris to New York, from New York to Havre, thence to St. Petersburg. Indeed, there would have been no object in his denying this, because one of the so-called Brotherhood of the Dawn had con- fessed it.

" Under pressure ? " asked Chetwynd, accepting the cigarette which the Assistant Minister had politely offered him.

11 Probably," said the official.