Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/142

 when it did, and that it would make so many differences?" There was a long pause." Poor girl, she was not used to such sufferings. And I brought them on her." He showed me a photograph. "Look," he said, "and please take this. I have put the address of her brother and sister in England on the back. I have sent her and the little baby to Helsingfors. She is very ill. Her spine is packed in plaster of Paris. I sold everything that was left and gave her fourteen pounds, all I could raise. I sent her to England to her family. I hope she will arrive safely."

I looked incredulous at the courage and, I must confess, what looked like the folly of it. "Has she a British passport?" I asked. "She is now a Russian, you know, since her marriage with you, and she may have difficulties in getting into England. They are frightened of Bolsheviks in England." "No, she has no passport," he said, "but I am sure the British Consul will be kind and help her home. I am sure of it. She too has absolute confidence in her country's Government, and would be utterly amazed to receive any unkindness from it."

With my own experience of passport difficulties in mind I marvelled at such faith. I have since learnt that it has been amazingly justified, and that the poor girl is safe at home. Her husband also learnt it before we left him. "But go back