Twilight deepened into night, and the rain fell heavily, yet I still paced the wet flags in patience, my eyes ever seaward for the light of the vessel which I hoped bore my love.  My presence there aroused some speculation among the loungers, I think; nevertheless, I waited in deepest anxiety whether, after all, Elma and Hornby had not disembarked at Helsingfors.

Soon after ten o’clock a light shone afar off, and the movement of the police and porters on the quay told me that it was the vessel.  Then after a further anxious quarter of an hour it came, amid great shouting and mutual imprecations, slowly alongside the quay, and the passengers at last began to disembark in the pelting rain.

One after another they walked up the gangway, filing into the passport-office and on into the Custom House, people of all sorts and all grades—­Swedes, Germans, Finns, and Russians—­until suddenly I caught sight of two figures—­one a man in a big tweed traveling-coat and a golf-cap, and the other the slight figure of a woman in a long dark cloak and a woolen tam-o’-shanter.  The electric rays fell upon them as they came up the wet gangway together, and there once again I saw the sweet face of the silent woman whom I had grown to love with such fervent desperation.  The man behind her was the same who had entertained me on board the Lola—­the man who was said to be the lover of the fugitive Muriel Leithcourt.

Without betraying my presence I watched them pass through the passport-office and Custom House, and then, overhearing the address which Martin Woodroffe gave the isvoshtchik, I stood aside, wet to the skin, and saw them drive away.

At eleven o’clock on the following day I found myself installed in the Hotel de Paris, a comfortable hostelry in the Little Morskaya, having succeeded in evading the vigilance of the spy who had so cleverly followed me from Abo, and in getting my suit-case round from the Hotel Europe.

I was beneath the same roof as Elma, although she was in ignorance of my presence.  Anxious to communicate with her without Woodroffe’s knowledge, I was now awaiting my opportunity.  He had, it appeared, taken for her a pleasant front room with sitting-room adjoining on the first floor, while he himself occupied a room on the third floor.  The apartments he had engaged for her were the most expensive in the hotel, and as far as I could gather from the French waiter whom I judiciously tipped, he appeared to treat her with every consideration and kindness.

“Ah, poor young lady!” the man exclaimed as he stood in my room answering my questions, “What an affliction!  She writes down all her orders—­for she can utter no word.”

“Has the Englishman received any visitors?” I asked.

“One man—­a Russian—­an official of police, I think.”

“If he receives anyone else, let me know,” I said.  “And I want you to give Mademoiselle a letter from me in secret.”