companion carried pistols in their pockets for use in case of need.
Their passports declared that the young woman belonged to the noble
class, and was the widow of a college assessor, her name being Maria
Solontseva, while the young man was a Pole, Kasimir Bodlevski.

The little ship was crossing the Gulf of Bothnia toward the coast of
Sweden.



VIII

BACK TO RUSSIA


In the year 1858, in the month of September, the "Report of the St.
Petersburg City Police" among the names of "Arrivals" included the
following:

_Baroness van Döring, Hanoverian subject.
Ian Vladislav Karozitch, Austrian subject_.

The persons above described might have been recognized among the
fashionable crowds which thronged the St. Petersburg terminus of
the Warsaw railway a few days before: A lady who looked not
more than thirty, though she was really thirty-eight, dressed
with simple elegance, tall and slender, admirably developed,
with beautifully clear complexion, piercing, intelligent gray eyes,
under finely outlined brows, thick chestnut hair, and a firm
mouth--almost a beauty, and with an expression of power, subtlety and