In breathless eagerness I read as follows:
"Is it true, dear love--for I call you so in return--that you were
impelled towards me by the mysterious hand that directs all things? You
came in search of me, and you risked your life for mine at Kajana,
therefore you have a right to know the truth. You, as my champion, and
the Princess as my friend, have contrived to effect my freedom. Were it
not for you, I should ere this have been on my way to Saghalien, to the
tomb to which Oberg had so ingeniously contrived to consign me. Ah! you
do not know--you never can know--all that I have suffered ever since I
was a girl."
Here the statement broke off, and recommenced as follows:
"In order that you should understand the truth, I had better begin at
the beginning. My father was an English merchant in Petersburg, and my
mother, Vera Bessanoff, who, before her marriage with my father, was
celebrated at Court for her beauty, and was one of the maids-of-honor to
the Czarina. She was the only daughter of Count Paul Bessanoff,
ex-Governor of Kharkoff, and before marrying my father she had, with her
mother, been a well-known figure in society.
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