“She will perhaps tell you of the strange romance that surrounds her—­a mystery which I have not yet been able to fathom.  She is a Russian subject, although she has been educated in England.  Baron Oberg himself is, I believe, her worst and most bitter enemy.”

“Ah! the Strangler!” she exclaimed with a quick flash in her dark eyes.  “But his end is near.  The Movement is active in Helsingfors.  At any moment now we may strike our blow for freedom.”

She was an enthusiastic revolutionist, I could see, unsuspected, however, by the police on account of her high position in Petersburg society.  It was she who, as I afterwards discovered, had furnished the large sums of money to Kampf for the continuation of the revolutionary propaganda, and indeed secretly devoted the greater part of her revenues from her vast estates in Samara and Kazan to the Nihilist cause.  Her husband, himself an enthusiast of freedom, although of the high nobility, had been killed by a fall from his horse six years before, and since that time she had retired from society and lived there quietly, making the revolutionary movement her sole occupation.  The authorities believed that her retirement was due to the painful loss she had sustained, and had no suspicion that it was her money that enabled the mysterious “Red Priest” to slowly but surely complete the plot for the general uprising.

She compelled me to remove my coat, and tea was served by a Tartar footman, whose family she explained had been serfs of the Zurloffs for three centuries, and then Elma exchanged confidences with her by means of paper and pencil.

“Who is this man Martin Woodroffe, of whom she speaks?” asked the Princess presently, turning to me.

“I have met him twice—­only twice,” I replied, “and under strange circumstances.”  Then, continuing, I told her something concerning the incidents of the yacht Lola.

“He may be in love with her, and desires to force her into marriage,” she suggested, expressing amazement at the curious narrative I had related.

“I think not, for several reasons.  One is because I know she holds some secret concerning him, and another because he is engaged to an English girl named Muriel Leithcourt.”

“Leithcourt?  Leithcourt?” repeated the Princess, knitting her brows with a puzzled air.  “Do you happen to know her father’s name?”

“Philip Leithcourt.”

“And has he actually been living in Scotland?”

“Yes,” I answered in quick anxiety.  “He rented a shoot called Rannoch, near Dumfries.  A mysterious incident occurred on his estate—­a double murder, or murder and suicide; which is not quite clear—­but shortly afterwards there appeared one evening at the house a man named Chater, Hylton Chater, and the whole family at once fled and disappeared.”

Princess Zurloff sat with her lips pressed close together, looking straight at the silent girl before her.  Elma had removed her hat and cloak, and now sat in a deep easy chair of yellow silk, with the lamplight shining on her chestnut hair, settled and calm as though already thoroughly at home.  I smiled to myself as I thought of the chagrin of Woodroffe when he returned to find his victim missing.