into such an agreement as this are in favor of the destruction of all existing institutions. I suppose you know," he continued, "that when your President Garfield was assassinated, the columns of 'The Will of the People' [the organ of the Russian revolutionists in Geneva] were bordered with black as a token of grief and sympathy, and that the paper contained an eloquent editorial condemning political assassination as wholly unjustifiable in a country where there are open courts and a free press, and where the officers of the government are chosen by a free vote of the people?"
"No," I replied; "I was not aware of it."
"It is true," he rejoined. "Of course at that time Garfield's murder was regarded as a political crime, and as such it was condemned in Russia, even by the most extreme terrorists."
Our conversation was interrupted at this point by the entrance of three young men and a lady, who were introduced to us as Mr. Lobonófski's exiled friends. In the appearance of the young men there was nothing particularly striking or noticeable. One of them seemed to be a bright university student, twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, and the other two looked like educated peasants or artisans, whose typically Russian faces were rather heavy, impassive, and gloomy, and whose manner was lacking in animation and responsiveness. Life and exile seemed to have gone hard with them, and to have left them depressed and embittered. The lady, whose name was Madame Dicheskúla, represented apparently a different social class, and had a more buoyant and sunny disposition. She was about thirty years of age, tall and straight, with a well-proportioned but somewhat spare figure, thick, short brown hair falling in a soft mass about the nape of her neck, and a bright, intelligent, mobile face, which I thought must once have been extremely pretty. It had become, however, a little too thin and worn, and her complexion had been freckled and roughened by exposure to
