'I had no idea,' he said, 'that the little brochure would ever be heard of outside the country for whose children it was written; but since the question is asked me so frankly to-night, I will answer as frankly—Yes, I wrote it.'
An approving murmur ran through the room, and the foreigner rose again. He was sorry again to trouble Citizen Litvinoff, but was he right in supposing (it had been so reported) that the discovery of this pamphlet by the Russian Government had occasioned Count Litvinoff's exile?
Litvinoff was very pale as he answered,—
'Yes; it was that unhappy pamphlet which deprived me of the chance of serving my country on the scene of action, and which lost me a life I valued above my own—that of a fellow-countryman of the audience which I have the pleasure of addressing to-night—my secretary and friend, whom I loved more than a brother.' His voice trembled as he ended.
There was another round of applause, and, no more questions being forthcoming, the meeting broke up, and people stood talking together in little groups. Richard was discussing a knotty economic point with a sturdy carpenter and trades unionist, and Roland, close by, was earnestly questioning a French Communist to whom Litvinoff had introduced him, and was receiving an account of the so-called murder of the hostages very different from any which had appeared in the daily papers of the period, when the Count came up to them.
'Excuse me,' he said, 'I am désolé; but I shall be unable to stay longer. You will be able, doubtless, to pilot yourselves back to civilisation, and will pardon my abrupt departure. I have just seen someone going out of the door whom I've been trying to catch for the last three months, and I'm off in pursuit.'
And he was off. As he passed a small knot of youths outside the door they looked after him, and one of them said with a laugh, 'Blest if I don't believe he's after that handsome gal. What chaps these foreigners are for the ladies.'
The discerning youth was right. He was after that girl—but though he followed her and watched her into the house where she lived, he did not speak to her.
'Think twice before you speak once is a good rule,' he said to himself, as he turned westwards, 'and I know where she lives, at any rate.'