It happened in Russia in the ’seventies, when the struggle between the Revolutionists and the Government was at its height.
The General-Governor of a district in South Russia, a healthy-looking German with drooping moustaches and a cold look on his expressionless face, dressed in a military uniform, with a white cross at his neck, sat one evening in his cabinet, at a table on which were placed four candles with green shades, looking through and signing papers left for him by his secretary.