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would fill him with rapture. Now that the thing had come at last, he felt it so natural and simple, that he almost forgot the many thousand miles and the many perils of the journey which separated the expectation from the reality. The tame experiences of exile disappeared from his thoughts, and he was once more in St Petersburg, with all its well-known surroundings, as if he had left it but yesterday.

In this matter-of-fact mood he faced the important questions contained in George’s letter, and felt angry with his friend for supposing that he would be persuaded so easily. No, not he. He thoroughly approved of the new acts of revolutionary terrorism, but he did not like their interpretation. The tendency of the League towards centralising all power in the hands of the Executive Committee was decidedly distasteful to him. The first thing he would try, would be to persuade his friend of the danger of such a course.

His brain began to work, and gradually he grew warm over the argument, as he strode with quickened step up and down his room.

A loud knocking suddenly interrupted his soliloquy, and recalled him to reality. It came through the floor from the lodger below, whose forbearance had been exhausted by his mad striding to and fro. With the help of a broomstick he was telegraphing an angry message to his neighbor upstairs.

“Ah,” exclaimed Andrey, “it is Monsieur Cornichon. The good man wants to sleep, and does not care a fig whether the Russian revolution goes the right or the wrong way!”

He stopped abruptly to signify his apology, and stood motionless until the knocking ceased. As he did not want to go to bed, and could not keep quiet as long as he was on his feet, he determined on taking a short walk in the beautiful spring night. He put out the lamp, and, leaving the room locked, hid the key as usual under the mat.