"That is more cheerful by a long way," Godfrey said to himself as the man, who had maintained absolute silence on each of his visits, left the cell. "No doubt they have been making a lot of inquiries about me, and find that I have not been in the habit of frequenting low company. I should not have had these indulgences if they hadn't. Well, it will be an amusement to keep this fire up. The wood is as dry as a bone luckily, or I should be smoked out in no time, for there is not much ventilation through that narrow loophole."
The warmth of the fire and the additional blanket made all the difference, and in a couple of hours Godfrey was sound asleep. When he woke it was broad daylight, and although he felt cold it was nothing to what he had experienced on the previous morning. At about eleven o'clock, as near as he could guess, for his watch and everything had been removed when he was searched, the door was opened and a prison official with two warders appeared. By these he was conducted to the same room where he had been first examined. Neither of the officers who had then been there was present, but an elderly man sat at the centre of the table.
"Godfrey Bullen," he said, "a careful investigation has been made into your antecedents, and with one exception, and that not, for various reasons, an important one, we have received a good report of you. Ivan Petrovytch tells us that you work in his office from breakfast-time till five in the afternoon, and that your evenings are at your own disposal, but that you generally dine with him. He gave us the names of the families with which you are acquainted, and where, as he understood, you spend your evenings when you are not at the Skating Club, where you generally go on Tuesdays and Fridays at least. We learn that you did spend your evenings with these families, and we have learned at the club that you are a regular attendant there two or three times a week, and that your general associates are:" and he read out a list which included, to Godfrey's surprise, the names of every one of his acquaintances there. "Therefore we have been forced to come to the conclusion that your story, incredible as it appeared, is a true one. That you, a youth and a foreigner, should have had the incredible levity to act in the way you describe, and to assume the disguise of a person absolutely unknown to you, upon the persuasion of a woman also absolutely unknown to you, well-nigh passes belief. Had you been older you would at once have been sent to the frontier; but as it is, the Czar, to whom the case has been specially submitted, has graciously allowed you to continue your residence here, the testimony being unanimous as to your father's position as a merchant, and to the prudence of his behaviour while resident here. But I warn you, Godfrey Bullen, that escapades of this kind, which may be harmless in England, are very serious matters here. Ignorantly, I admit, but none the less certainly, you have aided in the escape of a malefactor of the worst kind; and but for the proofs that have been afforded us that you were a mere dupe, the consequences would have been most serious to you, and even the fact of your being a foreigner would not have sufficed to save you from the hands of justice. You are now free to depart; but let this be a lesson to you, and a most serious one, never again to mix yourself up in any way with persons of whose antecedents you are ignorant, and in future to conduct yourself in all respects wisely and prudently."
"It will certainly be a lesson to me, sir. I am heartily sorry that I was so foolish as to allow myself to be mixed up in such an affair, and think I can promise you that henceforth there will be no fault to be found in my conduct."
In the ante-room Godfrey's watch, money, and the other contents of his pocket were restored to him. A carriage was in waiting for him at the outer door, and he was driven rapidly to the house of the merchant.
"This is a nice scrape into which you have got yourself, Godfrey," Ivan Petrovytch said as he entered. "It is lucky for you that you are not a Russian. But how on earth have you got mixed up in a plot? We know nothing about it beyond the fact that you had been arrested, for, although a thousand questions were asked me about you, nothing was said to me as to the charge brought against you. We have been in the greatest anxiety about you. All sorts of rumours were current in the city as to the discovery of a plot to assassinate one of the grand-dukes at the Opera-house, and there are rumours that explosive bombs had been discovered in one of the boxes. It is said that the police had received information of the attempt that was to be made, and that every precaution had been taken to arrest the principal conspirator, but that in some extraordinary manner he slipped through their fingers. But surely you can never have been mixed up in that matter?"
"That is what it was," Godfrey said, "though I had no more idea of having anything to do with a plot than I had of flying. I see now that I behaved like an awful fool." And he told the story to Petrovytch and his wife as he had told it to the head of the police. Both were shocked at the thought that a member of their household should have been engaged, even unwittingly, in such a treasonable affair.
"It is a wonder that we ever saw you again," the merchant's wife exclaimed. "It is fortunate that we are known as quiet people or we might have been arrested too. I could not have believed that anyone with sense could be silly enough to put on a stranger's mantle and hat!"
"But I thought," Godfrey urged, "that at masked balls people did play all sorts of tricks upon each other. I am sure I have read so in books. And it did seem quite likely—didn't it now?—that an officer should have come up to meet a young lady masked whom he had no chance of meeting at any other time. It certainly seemed to me quite natural, and I believe almost any fellow, if he were asked to help anyone to get out of a scrape like that, would do it."
"You may do it in England or in France, but it doesn't do to take part in anything that you don't know for certain all about here. The wonder is they made any inquiries at all. If you had been a Russian the chances are that your family would never have heard of you again from the time you left to go to the opera. Nothing that you could have said would have been believed. Your story would have been regarded by the police as a mere invention. They would have considered it as certain that in some way or other you were mixed up in the conspiracy. They would have regarded your denials as simple obstinacy, and you would have been sent to Siberia for life."
"I should advise you, Godfrey," Ivan Petrovytch said, "to keep an absolute silence about this affair. Mention it to no one. Everyone knows that something has happened to you, as the police have been everywhere inquiring; but there is no occasion to tell anyone the particulars. Of course rumours get about as to the action of the Nihilists and of the police, but as little is said as possible. It is, of course, a mere rumour that a plot was discovered at the Opera-house. Probably there were an unusual number of police at all the entrances, and a very little thing gives rise to talk and conjecture. People think that the police would not have been there had they not had suspicion that something or other was going to take place, and as everything in our days is put down to the Nihilists, it was naturally reported that the police had discovered some plot; and as two of the grand-dukes were there, people made sure it was in some way connected with them.
"As nothing came of it, and no one was, as far as was known, arrested, it would be supposed that the culprit, whoever he was, managed to evade the police. Such rumours as these are of very common occurrence, and it is quite possible that there is not much more truth in them this time than there is generally; however, of one thing you may be sure, the police are not fonder than other people of being outwitted, and whether the man for whom they were in search was a Nihilist or a criminal of some other sort you certainly aided him to escape. You are sure to be watched for some time, and it will be known to the police in a very few hours if you repeat this story to your acquaintances; if they find you keep silence about it, they will give you credit for discretion, while it would certainly do you a good deal of harm, and might even now lead to your being promptly sent across the frontier, were it known that you made a boast of having outwitted them.
"There is another reason. You will find that for a time most of your friends here will be a little shy of you. People are not fond of having as their intimates persons about whom the police are inquiring, and you will certainly find for a time that you will receive very few invitations to enter the houses of any Russians. It would be different, however, if it were known that the trouble was about something that had no connection with politics; therefore, I should advise you, when you are asked questions, to turn it off with a laugh. Say you got mixed up in an affair between a young lady and her lover, and that, like many other people, you found that