She shivered, and for a second her face wore a look which Dickson
never forgot, the look of one who has looked over the edge of life
into the outer dark.

"There were certain jewels of great price which were about to be
turned into guns and armies for our enemies. These our people
recovered, and the charge of them was laid on me. Who would
suspect, they said, a foolish girl? But our enemies were very
clever, and soon the hunt was cried against me. They tried to rob
me of them, but they failed, for I too had become clever. Then they
asked for the help of the law--first in Italy and then in France.
Ah, it was subtly done. Respectable bourgeois, who hated the
Bolsheviki but had bought long ago the bonds of my country, desired
to be repaid their debts out of the property of the Russian crown
which might be found in the West. But behind them were the Jews,
and behind the Jews our unsleeping enemies. Once I was enmeshed in
the law I would be safe for them, and presently they would find the
hiding-place of the treasure, and while the bourgeois were clamouring
in the courts it would be safe in their pockets. So I fled.
For months I have been fleeing and hiding. They have tried to kidnap
me many times, and once they have tried to kill me, but I, too, have
become clever--oh, so clever. And I have learned not to fear."

This simple recital affected Dickson's honest soul with the
liveliest indignation. "Sich doings!" he exclaimed, and he could
not forbear from whispering to Heritage an extract from that
gentleman's conversation the first night at Kirkmichael.
"We needn't imitate all their methods, but they've got hold of the
right end of the stick. They seek truth and reality." The reply
from the Poet was an angry shrug.