to enter a respectable house."

"Perhaps he is really some escaped criminal?" suggested Mr.
Shrewsbury, tentatively.

Mrs. Selldon hesitated. Then, under the cover of the general roar
of conversation, she said in a low voice:-

"You have guessed quite rightly. He is one of the Nihilists who
were concerned in the assassination of the late Czar."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mark Shrewsbury, much startled. "Is
it possible?"

"Indeed, it is only too true," said Mrs. Selldon. "I heard it only
the other morning, and on the very best authority. Poor Gertrude
Morley! My heart bleeds for her."

Now I can't help observing here that this must have been the merest
figure of speech, for just then there was a comfortable little glow
of satisfaction about Mrs. Selldon's heart. She was so delighted to
have "got on well," as she expressed it, with the literary lion, and
by this time dessert was on the table, and soon the tedious ceremony
would be happily over.

"But how did he escape?" asked Mark Shrewsbury, still with the
thought of "copy" in his mind.

"I don't know the details," said Mrs. Selldon. "Probably they are
only known to himself. But he managed to escape somehow in the