"Terrible!" I gasped, glancing round at those dark stone walls that seemed to breathe an air of tragedy and mystery. The old castle had, I supposed, been turned into a convent, as many have been in Germany and Austria. Back in feudal times it no doubt had been a grand old place. "And have you been here long?" I asked.
"Seven years only. But I am leaving. Even I, used as I am to a solitary life, can stand it no longer. I feel that its cold silence and dreariness will drive me mad. In winter the place is like an ice-well."
The fact that the Baron was ruler of Finland amazed me, for I had half-expected him to be some clever adventurer. Yet as the events of the past flashed through my brain, I recollected that in Rannoch Wood had been found the miniature of the Russian Order of Saint Anne, a distinction which, in all probability, had been conferred upon him. If so, the coincidence, to say the least, was a remarkable one. I questioned my companion further regarding the Baron.
"Ah, m'sieur," she declared, "they call him 'The Strangler of the Finns,' It was he who ordered the peasants of Kasko to be flogged until four of them died—and the Czar gave him the Star of White Eagle for it—he who suppressed half the newspapers and put eighteen editors in prison for publishing a report of a meeting of the Swedes in Helsingfors; he who encourages corruption and bribery among the officials for the furtherance of Russian interests; he who has ordered Russian to be the official language, who has restricted public education, who has overtaxed and ground down the people until now the mine is laid, and Finland is ready for open revolt. The prisons are filled with the innocent; women are flogged; the poor are starving, and 'The Strangler,' as they call him, reports to the Czar that Finland is submissive and is Russianized!"
I had heard something of this abominable state of affairs from time to time from the English press, but had never taken notice of the name of the oppressor. So the uncle of Elma Heath was "The Strangler of Finland," the man who, in four years, had reduced a prosperous country to a state of ruin and revolt!
"Cannot I see her?" I asked, feeling that we had remained too long there. If my presence in that place was perilous the sooner I escaped from it the better.
"Yes, come," she said. "But silence! Walk softly," and holding up the old horn lantern to give me light, she led me out into the low stone corridor again, conducting me through a number of intricate passages, all bare and gloomy, the stones worn hollow by the feet of ages. On we crept noiselessly past a number of low arched doors studded with big nails in the style of generations ago, then turning suddenly at right angles, I saw that we were in a kind of cul de sac, before the door of which at the end she stopped and placed her finger upon her lips. Then, motioning me to remain there, she entered, closing the door after her, and leaving me in the pitch darkness.
I strained my ears, but could hear no sound save that of someone moving within. No word was uttered, or if so, it was whispered so low that it did not reach me. For nearly five minutes I waited in impatience outside that closed door, until again the handle turned and my conductress beckoned me in silence within.
I stepped into a small, square chamber, the floor of which was carpeted, and where, suspended high above, was a lamp that shed but a faint light over the barely-furnished place. It seemed to me to be a kind of sitting-room, with a plain deal table and a couple of chairs, but there was no stove, and the place looked chill and comfortless. Beyond was another smaller room into which the old nun disappeared for a moment; then she came forth leading a strange wan little figure in a gray gown, a figure whose face was the most perfect and most lovely I had ever seen. Her wealth of chestnut hair fell disheveled about her shoulders, and as her hands were clasped before her she looked straight at me in surprise as she was led towards me.
She walked but feebly, and her countenance was deathly pale. Her dress, as she came beneath the lamp, was, I saw, coarse, yet clean, and her beautiful, regular features, which in her photograph had held me in such fascination, were even more sweet and more matchless than I had believed them to be. I stood before her dumbfounded in admiration.