He wrote for ever dissuading
us from such a course. These letters would have saved him.
So would my diary, in which from day to day I had entered both
my feelings towards him and the view which each of us had taken.
My husband found and kept both diary and letters. He hid them,
and he tried hard to swear away the young man's life. In this
he failed, but Alexis was sent a convict to Siberia, where now,
at this moment, he works in a salt mine. Think of that, you
villain, you villain; now, now, at this very moment, Alexis,
a man whose name you are not worthy to speak, works and lives like
a slave, and yet I have your life in my hands and I let you go."
"You were always a noble woman, Anna," said the old man, puffing
at his cigarette.
She had risen, but she fell back again with a little cry of pain.
"I must finish," she said. "When my term was over I set myself
to get the diary and letters which, if sent to the Russian
Government, would procure my friend's release. I knew that my
husband had come to England. After months of searching I
discovered where he was. I knew that he still had the diary,
for when I was in Siberia I had a letter from him once
reproaching me and quoting some passages from its pages.
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