Dan Derrington's Story

I had not encountered him for several years, and our last parting had
occurred in front of Browne's hotel, Piccadilly, standing near the
entrance from Albemarle street. As I received his card from the club
servant, the words he had uttered at that hour of parting returned to
me, for I had made a mental note of them, at the time regarding them as
being of much more import than was nakedly expressed, coming from such
a man. He had said: "I shall probably never return to St. Petersburg or
pass across the border of Russia again, Derrington; but I may, and
probably will some day, find myself in New York; when I do, you shall
know of it." That day when I received his card, the last words he had
uttered to me recurred to my mind, and it was with unmixed pleasure
that I presently greeted him. I knew that there had been a time when he
was high in place at the court of his native city, St. Petersburg; I
knew that he had been prominent in the favor of Czar Alexander, and I
had no doubt that he was so still, notwithstanding the positive
assertion once made by him that he would probably never pass the
borders of Russia again. But this was only another phase of the mystery
that surrounded him, and it belittled not at all my estimation of the
man's character, and the power he could sway if he chose to do so. How
deeply he was, even at that moment, in the confidence of the Russian
emperor, I was one day to understand, although the moment of
comprehension was many months distant from me then.