Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/323

Rh grace of all her movements, combined to render her the most perfect woman I had over met — perfect in all, alas! save speech and hearing, of which, with such dastard wantonness, she had been deprived.

She touched her red lips with the tip of her forefinger, opened her hands, and shrugged her shoulders with a sad gesture of regret. Then turning quickly to some paper on the little table at her side she wrote something with a little gold pencil and handed it to me. It read —

"Surely Providence has sent you here! Mr. Woodroffe must have followed you from England. He is my enemy. You must take me from here and hide me. They intend to send me into exile. Have you ever been in Petersburg before? Do you know anyone here?"

Then when I had read, she handed me her pencil, and below I wrote —

"I will do my best, dear friend. I have been once in Petersburg. But is it not best that we should escape at once from Russia?"

"Impossible at present," she wrote. "We should both be arrested at the frontier. It would be best to go into hiding here in Petersburg. I believed Woodroffe to be my friend, but I have found only this day that he is my enemy. He knew that I was in Kajana, and was in Abo when he learnt of my escape. He went with two other men in search of us, and discovered us that night when we sought shelter at the woodcutter's hut. Without making his presence known he waited outside until you were all asleep, and then he got in