"Sleepin' mongrels," muttered the Duke. "All right; but don't you ever speak to him again. Do you hear?"
He blared out the order in a regimental manner, and Leah nodded.
"Yes, dear," she said meekly, "we must draw the line somewhere."
Jim nodded and gloomed, and rumbled something about Aksakoff that certainly was not a benediction. Then he harked back to his leading question, which had not yet been answered. "Why did you go to Southend?"
"Katinka, who had rescued Demetrius from Sakhalin Island, made me go to see him. I had to obey, else there might have been trouble. The man was ill on board Strange's steamer."
"Strange? Thought we paid the cad."
"We did." Leah frowned at the recollection of the sum. "But he had some liking for Demetrius, and helped him to escape, worse luck."
"Come now, don't say that. Siberia----" Jim shuddered. "Beastly place, Siberia."
"Nonsense. The climate is quite decent if you make up your mind. I don't believe those convict creatures suffer so much as they say."
She told the lie without sign of emotion, but all the same felt an inward qualm at the memory of the doctor's terrible narrative.