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BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. 57

Entirely accepting this view of the case as the denoue- ment of her visit, Anna sat down and calmly awaited the order for her lover's release.

Petronovitch, having written, read it to her, and as she held out her hand for it he flung his arms round her, snatched the knife from her bosom, and at the moment that angry voices were heard in altercation at the door (one of them the voice of Ferrari), he dragged her into an adjoining room, where the'crash of a heavy door closing behind her silenced except, let us hope, for heaven the cry of a broken heart.

CHAPTER X.

.

THE DEATH-BLOW OF THE KNOUT.

IT seemed as if the curse of the Lord had fallen upon the house of Klosstock and upon all the chosen of Czarovna. The light was suddenly gone out. That good Providence which for years had watched over the ghetto now turned from it, and there fell upon it the winter of misery, perse- cution and death. They bowed them to the east and prayed for succor, and there came fire and sword from the west.

In the middle of the night when Anna was held in a terrible bondage Nathan Klosstock was fettered and re- moved. Morning saw him on his way to the House of Preventive Detention at St. Petersburg, en route for what is called administrative exile This kind of captivity has for the authorities none of the inconveniences of public or even private trial. The prisoner disappears from the world. Neither friend nor foe may know him again. It is possible for his identity to be as thoroughly wiped out in this way as if he were secretly murdered and buried in an unknown grave. He has been changed from a man into a