It was early April, when Tolskoi reluctantly quitted Petersburg, and it was June before he returned.

The Court was still at the Winter Palace, for the winter season had been a long and cruel one, and even with the first days of June, summer advanced with but lagging footsteps, seemingly unwilling to awake the gay capital from its long frost-bitten sleep.

Political affairs also held the Emperor, whose presence in the metropolis was considered by his ministers to be a necessity; therefore, when Ivor shook off the dust of many days, travel and alighted from his coupÉ at the railway terminus, it was to see the familiar standard floating from the Winter Palace, and the tall lance-like spire of Petropavlovsk rising above the creeping waters of the Neva, and piercing the vivid blue of the sky beyond. The Troitski bridge and Boulevard-park were gay with passing traffic, and noisy with the cries of the flower vendors, whose trays and baskets overflowed with the blue violets of the Novgorod.

Tolskoi made his way at once to the Imperial Chancellerie, where he found Patouchki, as he had left him, seated at his desk and busy over what seemed to Ivor the identical despatches that had surrounded him two months ago. The only observable change in the chief's entourage lay in the open windows, and the softness of the west wind, as it stirred the papers with a gentle touch, and yet that had a bitter chill even in its caresses.

Patouchki, he thought, looked worn and harassed; the sallowness of the flesh tints, the deeper lines about his forehead and mouth, spoke of days and nights of ceaseless occupation and anxiety; and to Ivor, fresh from the almost limitless freedom of his wide frontiers, spoke also of the despotic rule and iron obedience with which those who serve Russia, must accept Russia's dictates.

The chief looked up, and greeted him as though but a day's separation lay between them.

"Ah, Ivor," he said, "so you are come back. You are welcome."

Ivor thanked him and turned towards his own desk, where lay neatly piled together various documents and papers, anticipatory of his expected return. Several newly cut quills were in the pen-tray, and a fresh unstained pad was opened invitingly. An amused smile came to the young man's face; it was all so absurdly natural and familiar; his absence of weeks faded away and became visionary and unreal, in this crude matter-of-fact light of official routine.

What did it matter to Patouchki that he, Ivor, had but just come from those distant, far-reaching steppes, where the shy game and wild animals flew before his footsteps, and the miles of low stunted forest ended only with the horizon line, to meet which the cold grey sky appeared to curve in an almost perceptible arch.

Standing alone, amidst his vast possessions, surrounded by a limitless silence, Tolskoi had better understood than ever before the meaning of the word freedom, and the unfathomableness of that undefined yet distinct craving for something higher and greater, than this world gives, which is implanted in every human heart. That vain, vague stretching after the unattainable, the blue flower of the mountains, the edelweiss of the Alps, which grows only on the heights of sacrifice and abnegation, and which, like the precious stone set with the jewels of suffering, is only attainable "to him that overcometh." Great indeed is his reward, "and his joy no man taketh from him."

Ivor had carried with him during all his long return journey by road and rail, a recollection of this wider outlook, and it gave him therefore somewhat of a moral shock to find the world of Petersburg—his world—busily engaged just as he had left it, not only not recognising any spiritual change in him, but not even aware of any better or higher aims than those attainable by intrigue, and shameless pandering to the powers of the moment.

Although he had stood face to face with God and Nature, for one brief moment, what was that to them? Here, in Petersburg, neither the Almighty nor Nature, had part or lot in the fierce, unending struggle called life.

With a shrug of his shoulders Ivor took his accustomed place, and as he broke the first seal felt the better influences fall from him, and the old power reassert itself.

If, as we are told, each soul has its fatal moment of choice, on which depends its final development, this was that moment for Ivor Tolskoi, and in accepting the old life with that careless gesture and cynical smile, he put from him for ever the higher calling that might have been his, and set his feet in the downward path of deterioration.

After a short interval of silence, Patouchki turned towards him with his old imperiousness of manner, and said, abruptly:

"About this woman, Tolskoi, this AdÈle Lamien, whom you avow you saw. So far we have been unable to obtain any trace of her here, or learn anything concerning her movements; while on the other hand Count Mellikoff sends repeated messages of confidence as to his assured success, and the infallibility of his approaching coup de main. So after all, my dear Ivor, you must have been the victim of a delusion. It is impossible for AdÈle Lamien to be in Petersburg without the Chancellerie's knowledge."

"I was not mistaken, chief," replied Ivor, quietly. "I saw AdÈle Lallovich with my own eyes. Hers is not a face to be easily mistaken, and I would rather trust to my own instincts, than to Count Mellikoff's written assertions. Answer me one question, chief: has Vladimir Mellikoff ever, to your knowledge, seen AdÈle Lallovich?"

"Really, Tolskoi, that is a strange question," answered Patouchki; "frankly, I have never had occasion to ask him. The woman's face was common property to all Petersburg, at one time, through the photographers, and considering how well Count Vladimir knew Stevan Lallovich, it is but natural to suppose his opportunities for seeing his mistress were numerous."

"Pardon me, chief, if I differ from you on one or two points," replied Ivor, with unwonted gravity. "In the first place, you must admit that Stevan Lallovich did not for some time regard AdÈle Lamien in the light of a mistress. He married her, remember, according to the ceremonies of the Church of Rome, and it was not until his passion for her grew cold, that he sought Imperial interference. He kept her exclusively at his villa across the Neva, and so long as he upheld her position as his wife was over-scrupulous in his care of her. I have reason to believe that not one of Count Stevan's boon companions, even Vladimir Mellikoff, was ever admitted to her presence. The marriage was secret and kept so, and as long as the infatuation lasted Lallovich showed nothing but respect to her. We know how sudden was the Imperial ukase, and how little prepared she must have been for it, was shown by the tragic vengeance that overtook him. You understand then, chief, why I prefer to trust to my own instincts rather than to Count Mellikoff's assertions. I did once see AdÈle Lallovich in her happier days, and I am not likely to mistake her face now, even though disfigured by shame and crime."

Patouchki had listened attentively to Tolskoi's remarks; he replied to them by a slight gesture and the words:

"Granted all that you say is true, Ivor, I fail to see how not knowing personally this unfortunate woman is any real disadvantage to Count Mellikoff. He has every facility for tracing her, and we know by experience that the last evidence to build upon in such a quest is personal appearance. It needs but the adjuncts of paint, powder, and a wig, to deceive even Lucifer himself. No, no, that troubles me but little; what is more of an anxiety is my inability to trace in any way the accomplice who first assisted AdÈle Lamien out of Russia, and who now—placing credence upon your words—has accomplished her return. Could I but put my hand on that accomplice, I would soon unearth the criminal."

Ivor made no reply save by a significant smile, and the slightest possible shrug. Patouchki noticed both, and felt irritated at the implied dissension expressed by them.

"You have doubtless some theory to advance upon this also," he said, sharply; "perhaps you will have the goodness to impart it to me."

"I do not know if my deductions may be dignified by so specific a title as theory, chief," Ivor replied, imperturbably; "I was but working out a small sum of calculation, which is at your service. In December last, Stevan Lallovich was murdered, and the woman calling herself his wife—though a suspect, and closely watched as such—disappeared, vanished absolutely. In the following January, Count Mellikoff, at the request of the Chancellerie, undertook a mission of discovery in the United States, whither the woman, according to trustworthy evidence, was supposed to have flown. Two months elapse, and nothing is discovered or revealed; meantime, you receive satisfactory, if vague, reports from Count Mellikoff, and the Chancellerie is lulled to inaction for the time being. At the end of March, I meet AdÈle Lallovich face to face in the heart of Petersburg, where she has arrived without the knowledge of the Chancellerie, or its agents. That is my problem, chief; now to its solution. The same powerful influence—whose word was law, whose will was coercion—that got this woman out of Russia at a critical moment, has again been successful in sending her back to Petersburg, at a time when suspicion was thrown off its guard, and when Petersburg was a safer hiding-place than New York. That is my theory, chief, so far as I have worked it out."

Patouchki did not speak for several moments. He sat looking straight before him, the furrows wrought by anxiety and care plainly visible on his sallow, stern, set face.

The shadow of Ivor's veiled meaning was not lost to his quick perceptions; but he put it from him as unworthy of debate, and turning again to the young man said, even more sternly than before:

"I would advise you to be careful, Ivor, in your own interests; it is best to say less than you know, still less than you suspect. To me you may speak freely, indeed, I desire you to do so; but beyond these walls, have a care. What further conclusions do you draw from your elaborate premises?"

Ivor, with a quick flush at the suggestion of sarcasm in Patouchki's voice, replied quietly:

"But one, and to you, chief, my deductions may seem both absurd and impossible. You will remember the circumstances of the murder, and you will, I am sure, concur with me, when I assert that to plan and accomplish such a crime could not have been the sole unaided work of a woman. There must have been a bolder and surer brain behind, one who had sufficient reason to make the perpetration of the murder serve as a double revenge. Very well then, granting such was the case, who would be better fitted or more competent to assist the accomplice in crime in her flight, than he who had helped her to her revenge? Self-preservation would render this shielding power compulsory, where she was concerned; for, once she fell into the hands of the Chancellerie, not her life only, but his, would be the forfeit. I have no doubt, chief, that he who helped AdÈle Lallovich across our frontier, has conveyed her back again, and—for a reason."

Tolskoi, as he finished, walked slowly across the room and back again, halting beside Patouchki. The latter looked up at him with a strange drawn expression upon his face. There was complete silence for a few moments; when the chief spoke it was in a very different voice to his usual harsh tones.

"And you would suspect——"

"I suspect no one, chief," answered the young man, his blue eyes flashing coldly. "I would only suggest that it is a strange coincidence at least, that shortly after Count Mellikoff's arrival in America, AdÈle Lallovich should reappear in Petersburg."

He said no more, but turning abruptly, walked back to his desk.

Patouchki sat immovable for a long time. Ivor's suggestion had fallen upon him with almost crushing certainty, while mingled with the sense of humiliation and irritation at being outwitted, was also the feeling of pain and sorrow that he, who had thus outwitted him, should be the one in whom he had most implicitly trusted.

Like Olga Naundorff, there appeared to him no room for doubt. Ivor's very appearance, his boyish insouciance and frank bearing, were but additional witnesses to that other's treachery. And yet, and yet, could it be true? Should he not do well to wait just a little longer before condemning the absent? Could he but find the woman, could he but put his hand upon her! Were she really in Petersburg now, what greater evidence of perfidy could he desire, with those damning proofs in the shape of recent despatches and cables lying now on his desk? He turned at last, and spoke with apparent effort.

"Tolskoi, your warning is understood. Find me the woman, here in Petersburg, and I shall then know how to act."

"I will find her," replied Ivor, with stern brevity; and, accepting Patouchki's words as a dismissal, he bowed and left the room.