"I have hopes, Zora, and if I ever live to realize them, you shall benefit thereby."
"God bless and keep you, sir!"
"And may He give you heart and hope in your misery," replied he, again shaking her hands and returning to the hospital.
The next day Kanoffskie and his valet started with the government train that makes that terrible journey from St. Petersburg to Siberia twice every year, and at the end of three months they reached the capitol.
And, oh, what a relief it was to Barnwell, who had all but given up the hope of ever seeing a semblance of civilization again. How his heart thrilled as he nursed his hopes!
Kanoffsky seemed greatly altered, although for the past two months he had lost much of the nervousness produced by old Batavsky's death, as though from leaving the scene of it further and further behind.
His confidence in Barnwell seemed to grow stronger every day; but, on arriving at St. Petersburg, he obeyed the governor's instructions relative to reporting to the prefect of police, without an hour's loss of time.
This he did as a measure of personal safety as much as for his promptness in obeying orders, for he was determined to keep himself entirely above police suspicion.
Should he fail to do so, and it should come to the ears of the authorities, it might not only annul his leave of absence, but get him into other difficulty.
He had made up his mind never to return to his post of duty, and if he could not bring influence enough to bear upon the minister of war to get him another assignment, he resolved to take advantage of his year's leave of absence and escape the empire.