'MY LITTLE GIRL.'
HE suggestion was a good one, and the dinner to which the two sat down had a steadying effect on the nerves of the younger man. He became calmer, and when they returned to his rooms he was able to bear his part in a long, earnest, quiet talk over events past and to come.
The talk lasted far into the night, and before they parted it was settled that Litvinoff should leave for Servia in two days, taking with him certain important papers from Petrovitch to another of the Nihilist leaders. That he should there wait instructions, and should enter Russia by the southern frontier, and rejoin the circle at St Petersburg, leaving his assumed name at Belgrade. That the following imaginative announcement should be inserted in as many English papers as possible for the special edification of the Russian Embassy.
'Count Michael Litvinoff left London for Dover this morning, en route for Belgrade. He was accompanied by Countess Litvinoff, an English lady to whom he was secretly married some time ago. Count Litvinoff, so well known to many of our readers through his "Social Enigma," his "Hopes and Fears for Liberty," and his many revolutionary brochures, has never been a familiar figure in London society, his literary labours having compelled him to live in strict retirement. It will be remembered that he was the hero of an adventure on the Russian frontier some years ago, was wounded, captured, and sent to a Russian prison, from which he escaped to England.'
It was also settled that the money for the journey should be taken from the remainder of the Litvinoff capital.
When Litvinoff began to speak of the money he had spent and the debts he had incurred, Petrovitch stopped him with,—
'I'll see to your debts—and what is gone is gone. Don't let us waste words over that.'