"Don't go right up to the station. Turn into the Liteinoi Prospect to the left, and put me down there. Drive quickly, and I'll pay double fare."
He whipped his horses, and we turned into that maze of dark, ill-lit, narrow streets that lies between the Vosnesenski and the Nevski, turning and winding until we emerged at last into the main thoroughfare again, and then at last we turned into the street I had indicated—a wide road of handsome buildings where I knew I was certain to be able to instantly get another drosky. I flung the man his money, alighted, and two minutes later was driving on towards the Alexander Bridge, traveling in a circle back to the hotel. Time after time I glanced behind, but saw nothing of the Baron's spy, who had evidently gone to the station with all speed, expecting that I was leaving the capital.
I found Elma in her room, ready dressed to go out, wearing a long traveling-cloak, and in her hand was a small dressing-case. She was pale and full of anxiety until I showed her the slip of paper which Otto Kampf had given me with the address written upon it, and then together we hurried forth.
The house to which we drove was, we discovered, a large one facing the Fontanka Canal, one of the best quarters of the town, and on descending I asked the liveried dvornick for Madame Zurloff, the name which the "Red Priest" had written.
"You mean the Princess Zurloff," remarked the man through his red beard. "Whom shall I say desires to see her?"
"Take that," I said, handing to him the piece of paper which, beside the address, bore a curious cipher-mark like three triangles joined.
He closed the door, leaving us in the wide carpeted hall, the statuary in which showed us that it was a richly-furnished place, and when a few minutes later he returned, he conducted us upstairs to a fine gilded salon, where an elderly gray-haired lady in black stood gravely to receive us.
"Allow me to present Mademoiselle Elma Heath, Princess," I said, speaking in French and bowing, and afterwards telling her my own name.
Our hostess welcomed my love in a graceful speech, but I said—
"Mademoiselle unfortunately suffers a terrible affliction. She is deaf and dumb."