It seems strange that he should have been there to watch our going so carefully.  Without wishing to treat with levity the just timidities of Imperialists all the world over, I may allow myself the reflection that a woman, practically condemned by the doctors, and a small boy not quite six years old could not be regarded as seriously dangerous even for the largest of conceivable empires saddled with the most sacred of responsibilities.  And this good man, I believe, did not think so either.

I learned afterwards why he was present on that day.  I don’t remember any outward signs, but it seems that, about a month before, my mother became so unwell that there was a doubt whether she could be made fit to travel in the time.  In this uncertainty the Governor-General in Kiev was petitioned to grant her a fortnight’s extension of stay in her brother’s house.  No answer whatever was returned to this prayer, but one day at dusk the police-captain of the district drove up to the house and told my uncle’s valet, who ran out to meet him, that he wanted to speak with the master in private, at once.  Very much impressed (he thought it was going to be an arrest) the servant, “more dead than alive with fright,” as he related afterwards, smuggled him through the big drawing-room, which was dark (that room was not lighted every evening), on tiptoe, so as not to attract the attention of the ladies in the house, and led him by way of the orangery to my uncle’s private apartments.

The policeman, without any preliminaries, thrust a paper into my uncle’s hands.

“There.  Pray read this.  I have no business to show this paper to you.  It is wrong of me.  But I can’t either eat or sleep with such a job hanging over me.”

That police-captain, a native of Great Russia, had been for many years serving in the district.

My uncle unfolded and read the document.  It was a service order issued from the Governor-General’s secretariat, dealing with the matter of the petition and directing the police-captain to disregard all remonstrances and explanations in regard to that illness either from medical men or others, “and if she has not left her brother’s house”—­it went on to say—­“on the morning of the day specified on her permit, you are to despatch her at once under escort, direct” (underlined) “to the prison-hospital in Kiev, where she will be treated as her case demands.”

“For God’s sake, Mr. B., see that your sister goes away punctually on that day.  Don’t give me this work to do with a woman—­and with one of your family too.  I simply cannot bear to think of it.”

He was absolutely wringing his hands.  My uncle looked at him in silence.

“Thank you for this warning.  I assure you that even if she were dying she would be carried out to the carriage.”

“Yes—­indeed—­and what difference would it make—­travel to Kiev or back to her husband.  For she would have to go—­death or no death.  And mind, Mr. B., I will be here on the day, not that I doubt your promise, but because I must.  I have got to.  Duty.  All the same my trade is not fit for a dog since some of you Poles will persist in rebelling, and all of you have got to suffer for it.”