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 has brought you to me, is urging—the impossible. She does not know it, or cannot realise it, or will not—what you will; but, mark me well, my days in this ungrateful country are numbered. You will not use the information I give you—but I have resolved to abdicate."

"To abdicate?" I cried, for this was news indeed.

"Yes; to abdicate. That is my fixed and irrevocable resolve. Had you brought me the promise of help from England, I would stay and fight it out, and strive to realise those high hopes with which, under God, I declare I accepted the throne. But what can I do alone, or almost alone, against a people who plot and plan to depose or murder me, who have tired already of the puppet ruler which other Powers imposed upon them, and against the cursed canker of this Russian intrigue? In all the land I cannot now tell who is friend and who foe. In my very household the air reeks with conspiracy and intrigue. I know not whether any man I meet by chance may not be sent to do murder. I never lie down at night without wondering whether I shall see the next morning's sun. I never taste a meal without the thought of poison. I never speak a word without the expectation that it will be carried to the ears of my implacable and ruthless foes. And never a sun rises and sets again without I know that the deadly work of corruption has been carried a stage farther."

"Such thoughts as these, your Highness, grow by brooding."

"Good God, man, they are the natural germs with which this Eastern air is crowded and polluted. No, no; these are no idle fears. Russia is relentless, and I am powerless to resist her. I will not be her tool. I could stay in safety and in what the world calls pomp