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82 came to the door himself, and showing me in through a room where he and his wife had been having their evening meal, ushered me into a room beyond. I noticed his calm, philosophical face as that of a man who had evidently endured mental strain with stoical fortitude; but his wife, more nervous than he, showed signs of former anxiety. It seemed strange indeed that I should be sitting in company with two members of high Russian society, now ostracized by exile to Siberia, and stranger still to partake of their intelligent conversation on topics of human interest. First of all I was interested to know what sort of restrictions were placed upon the exile's liberty. I found that he was not allowed to leave the district in which he resided, and that every week he had to sign his name in a book kept at the house of the chief "Nachalink." With that exception his life was free. He had money and he could live as he liked and go where he wished within that district, but he was continually watched by spies, who dogged his footsteps wherever he went. I was surprised to find that he, too, had caught the fever of modern commercialism, which is beginning to run throughout Siberia. He related to me how he had acquired gold concessions on the Mongolian frontier and was hoping to find capital to float a syndicate for working them next year. This was not at all my idea of the life of a Siberian exile. Instead of being made to work himself in the galleries of the gold mines till death released him from his chains, the exile now floats syndicates to work these mines.

He spoke little about himself, and I thought it best not to draw him; so we kept to the one topic that was foremost in my mind—namely, Siberia and the