“What?” stammered the professor, as he gazed in astonishment at his lovely visitor, holding both her hands in his meanwhile. “Can it be possible that this is my dear little friend Feodorovna Sziszkinski? Ach! yes, it must be; there can be no mistaking that charming face!” And he forthwith kissed his fair visitor on both cheeks, in true continental fashion. “Welcome, my dear child, welcome a thousand times to England,” continued the professor, beaming benignantly at his visitor through his spectacles. “And how is your father and my dear friend, the colonel?”
“Ah, Professor, would that I knew!” answered the girl, as tears sprang to her eyes. “I fear the worst for him. I am in bitter trouble about him; and it is on that account that I have sought you. My father had a foreboding that trouble was in store for us, and only a few weeks ago he said to me, ‘Child, if anything should happen to me, and you are plunged into trouble or difficulty, seek out our dear friend, von Schalckenberg. He will help you, if any man can.’”
“Of course, of course,” answered the professor, beaming more benevolently still, if that were possible, upon his visitor. “Your father and I are old, staunch, and tried friends; and he does me no more than justice in feeling that he, or his daughter, may absolutely rely upon me to do gladly the utmost in my power for either of them. Now, sit down, little Feodorovna, and tell me all about it.”
The girl, with a sigh of relief and renewed hope, sank into the chair that the professor placed for her, and began by asking—
“Did you ever, while in Saint Petersburg or elsewhere, meet a certain Count Vasilovich, Professor?”
“Often, my dear; much more often, indeed, than I at all desired,” answered the professor.
“He is a bad man, Feodorovna; a thorough-going scoundrel, without a single redeeming trait. Has he anything to do with your trouble?”
“Alas, yes! he has everything to do with it, dear friend,” answered Feodorovna. “It was my misfortune to meet him last winter at a ball at the Imperial Palace, and from that moment he began persistently to press his odious attentions upon me. My dear father saw, with the utmost alarm, the unfortunate turn that affairs had taken, and warned me against the count. Not that any warning was necessary, for I seemed so clearly to divine the nature and character of the man at a glance, that nothing would have induced me to afford him the slightest encouragement.
“For a time the count contented himself with following me everywhere, and making violent love to me upon every possible occasion; but at length, about two months ago, finding that his attentions were so clearly distasteful to me that there was no prospect whatever of his suit being successful, he began to threaten—vague, covert threats at first, but afterwards so outspoken that I felt I must fly from Saint Petersburg, and seek safety in concealment. I spoke to my dear father about it, and he—distressed as he was at the prospect of being compelled to part with me—agreed that my only hope of safety lay in flight; and twenty-four hours later I was, as I hoped, safe in the house of a friend at Boroviezi. But on the day following my arrival at this refuge, one of my father’s servants, named Petrovich, appeared with the information that on the night of my flight from Saint Petersburg, a domiciliary visit had been paid by the police to our house, and my father had been dragged off to the fortress prison of Peter and Paul, and that search was everywhere being made for me.
“I had not the least doubt that this was the work of Count Vasilovich; but, feeling myself to be quite safe where I was, and knowing the count’s power and influence at the palace, my whole anxiety was on my father’s account, for Vasilovich is not only unscrupulous, he is mercilessly vindictive, and I feared that, finding himself baulked in his desire to get me into his power, he would wreak his vengeance on my father. And, oh, Professor, my fears proved to be but too well founded; for, five days later, Petrovich appeared again with the information that my father had been convicted of high treason, and was even then being hurried away south to Odessa, at which port he was to be placed, with a large number of other unfortunates, on board a convict-ship for transportation to Sakhalien.