Count Obolensk had resided in London for a good many years. He occupied a magnificent house in the neighbourhood of Hyde Park, where he lived in almost regal style. He kept a retinue of servants. The furnishings and appointments of his princely abode were said to be unique; and he dispensed hospitality with a lavish hand. He was known to be wealthy, to be a member of a very old and influential Russian family, and at one time to have held a high political position in his own country. Here the general knowledge of his affairs ended; but there were vague and ill-defined impressions in the public mind that he had been expelled or had fled from Russia owing to some of those political causes which in Russia count for so much, but which in most other countries, or at any rate in England, would be
