house. No answer whatever was returned to this prayer, but one day at
dusk the police-captain of the district drove up to the house and told
my uncle's valet, who ran out to meet him, that he wanted to speak with
the master in private, at once. Very much impressed (he thought it was
going to be an arrest) the servant, "more dead than alive with fright,"
as he related afterwards, smuggled him through the big drawing-room,
which was dark (that room was not lighted every evening), on tiptoe, so
as not to attract the attention of the ladies in the house, and led him
by way of the orangery to my uncle's private apartments.

The policeman, without any preliminaries, thrust a paper into my uncle's
hands.

"There. Pray read this. I have no business to show this paper to you. It
is wrong of me. But I can't either eat or sleep with such a job hanging
over me."

That police-captain, a native of Great Russia, had been for many years
serving in the district.

My uncle unfolded and read the document. It was a service order issued
from the Governor-General's secretariat, dealing with the matter of the
petition and directing the police-captain to disregard all remonstrances
and explanations in regard to that illness either from medical men or
others, "and if she has not left her brother's house"--it went on to
say--"on the morning of the day specified on her permit, you are
to despatch her at once under escort, direct" (underlined) "to the
prison-hospital in Kiev, where she will be treated as her case demands."

"For God's sake, Mr. B., see that your sister goes away punctually on