“I have only a little time here,” she said, “but I would have you to know the whole truth.  I am this man’s wife.  He is not an Englishman.  He is a Russian.  His name I will not tell.”

For the first time the old man stirred.  “God bless you, Anna!” he cried.  “God bless you!”

She cast a look of the deepest disdain in his direction.  “Why should you cling so hard to that wretched life of yours, Sergius?” said she.  “It has done harm to many and good to none—­not even to yourself.  However, it is not for me to cause the frail thread to be snapped before God’s time.  I have enough already upon my soul since I crossed the threshold of this cursed house.  But I must speak or I shall be too late.

“I have said, gentlemen, that I am this man’s wife.  He was fifty and I a foolish girl of twenty when we married.  It was in a city of Russia, a university—­I will not name the place.”

“God bless you, Anna!” murmured the old man again.

“We were reformers—­revolutionists—­Nihilists, you understand.  He and I and many more.  Then there came a time of trouble, a police officer was killed, many were arrested, evidence was wanted, and in order to save his own life and to earn a great reward, my husband betrayed his own wife and his companions.  Yes, we were all arrested upon his confession.  Some of us found our way to the gallows, and some to Siberia.  I was among these last, but my term was not for life.  My husband came to England with his ill-gotten gains and has lived in quiet ever since, knowing well that if the Brotherhood knew where he was not a week would pass before justice would be done.”

The old man reached out a trembling hand and helped himself to a cigarette.  “I am in your hands, Anna,” said he.  “You were always good to me.”

“I have not yet told you the height of his villainy,” said she.  “Among our comrades of the Order, there was one who was the friend of my heart.  He was noble, unselfish, loving—­all that my husband was not.  He hated violence.  We were all guilty—­if that is guilt—­but he was not.  He wrote forever dissuading us from such a course.  These letters would have saved him.  So would my diary, in which, from day to day, I had entered both my feelings towards him and the view which each of us had taken.  My husband found and kept both diary and letters.  He hid them, and he tried hard to swear away the young man’s life.  In this he failed, but Alexis was sent a convict to Siberia, where now, at this moment, he works in a salt mine.  Think of that, you villain, you villain!—­now, now, at this very moment, Alexis, a man whose name you are not worthy to speak, works and lives like a slave, and yet I have your life in my hands, and I let you go.”

“You were always a noble woman, Anna,” said the old man, puffing at his cigarette.

She had risen, but she fell back again with a little cry of pain.