With great caution he approached the place, keeping in the deep shadow of the bank until we came exactly opposite the flanking-tower.  In the lighted window I distinctly saw a dark figure of someone appear for a moment, and then my guide struck a match and held it in his fingers until it was wholly consumed.

Almost instantly the light was extinguished, and then, after waiting five minutes or so, he pulled straight across the lake to the high, dark tower that descended into the water.  The place was as grim and silent as any I had ever seen, an impregnable stronghold of the days before siege guns were invented, the fortress of some feudal prince or count who had probably held the surrounding country in thraldom.

I put my hand against the black, slimy wall to prevent the boat bumping, and then distinguished just beyond me a small wooden ledge and half-a-dozen steps which led up to a low arched door.  The latter had opened noiselessly, and the dark figure of a woman stood peering forth.

My guide uttered some reassuring word in Finnish in a low half-whisper, and then slowly pushed the boat along to the ledge, saying: 

“Your high nobility may disembark.  There is at present no danger.”

I rose, gripped a big rusty chain to steady myself, and climbed into the narrow doorway in the ponderous wall, where I found myself in the darkness beside the female who had apparently been expecting our arrival and watching our signal.

Without a word she led me through a short passage, and then, striking a match, lit a big old-fashioned lantern.  As the light fell upon her features I saw they were thin and hard, with deep-set eyes and a stray wisp of silver across her wrinkled brow.  Around her head was a kind of hood of the same stuff as her dress, a black, coarse woolen, while around her neck was a broad linen collar.  In an instant I recognized that she was a member of some religious order, some minor order perhaps, with whose habit we, in Italy, were not acquainted.

The thin ascetic countenance was that of a woman of strong character, and her funereal habit seemed much too large for her stunted, shrunken figure.

“The sister speaks French?” I hazarded in that language, knowing that in most convents throughout Europe French is known.

“Oui, m’sieur,” was her answer.  “And a leetle Engleesh, too—­a ve-ry leetle,” she smiled.

“You know why I am here?” I said, gratified that at least one person in that lonesome country could speak my own tongue.

“Yes, I have already been told,” was her answer with a strong accent, as we stood in that small, bare stone room, a semicircular chamber in the tower, once perhaps a prison.  “But are you not afraid to venture here?” she asked.

“Why?”

“Well—­because no strangers are permitted here, you know.  If your presence here was discovered you would not leave this place alive—­so I warn you.”