“Professor Kennedy,” he whispered, “there is some deviltry afoot.  The Russian autocracy would stop at nothing.  Kharkoff has probably told you of it.  I am so weak——­”

He groaned and sank back, overcome by a chill that seemed to rack his poor gaunt form.

“Kazanovitch can tell Professor Kennedy something, Doctor.  I am too weak to talk, even at this critical time.  Take him to see Boris and Ekaterina.”

Almost reverently we withdrew, and Kharkoff led us down the hall to another room.  The door was ajar, and a light disclosed a man in a Russian peasant’s blouse, bending laboriously over a writing-desk.  So absorbed was he that not until Kharkoff spoke did he look up.  His figure was somewhat slight and his face pointed and of an ascetic mould.

“Ah!” he exclaimed.  “You have recalled me from a dream.  I fancied I was on the old mir with Ivan, one of my characters.  Welcome, comrades.”

It flashed over me at once that this was the famous Russian novelist, Boris Kazanovitch.  I had not at first connected the name with that of the author of those gloomy tales of peasant life.  Kazanovitch stood with his hands tucked under his blouse.

“Night is my favourite time for writing,” he explained.  “It is then that the imagination works at its best.”

I gazed curiously about the room.  There seemed to be a marked touch of a woman’s hand here and there; it was unmistakable.  At last my eye rested on a careless heap of dainty wearing apparel on a chair in the corner.  “Where is Nevsky?” asked Dr. Kharkoff, apparently missing the person who owned the garments.

“Ekaterina has gone to a rehearsal of the little play of Gershuni’s escape from Siberia and betrayal by Rosenberg.  She will stay with friends on East Broadway to-night.  She has deserted me, and here I am all alone, finishing a story for one of the American magazines.”

“Ah, Professor Kennedy, that is unfortunate,” commented Kharkoff.  “A brilliant woman is Mademoiselle Nevsky—­devoted to the cause.  I know only one who equals her, and that is my patient downstairs, the little dancer, Samarova.”

“Samarova is faithful—­Nevsky is a genius,” put in Kazanovitch.  Kharkoff said nothing for a time, though it was easy to see he regarded the actress highly.

“Samarova,” he said at length to us, “was arrested for her part in the assassination of Grand Duke Sergius and thrown into solitary confinement in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul.  They tortured her, the beasts—­burned her body with their cigarettes.  It was unspeakable.  But she would not confess, and finally they had to let her go.  Nevsky, who was a student of biology at the University of St. Petersburg when Von Plehve was assassinated, was arrested, but her relatives had sufficient influence to secure her release.  They met in Paris, and Nevsky persuaded Olga to go on the stage and come to New York.”