uring the night Paul was awakened—for a moment he thought he heard the sound of some struggle in the hall outside his door, and the sound of excited whispers. Then a woman's voice, in low, forceful tones, penetrated the stillness, and Paul heard distinctly:

"Come away, for God's sake!"

Then all was still.

Verdayne was no coward—but his fingers closed instinctively on the butt of the revolver that he had placed within easy reach. Puzzled, he lay awake for a time in the darkness, but finally nothing further happening, he fell asleep once more.

When he awoke the grey dawn was creeping into his windows and he rose immediately, anxious to escape the eerie atmosphere of the house, and begin the final stage of his journey. What an uncanny lot these Russian beggars were, to be sure.

He determined to leave as unceremoniously as he had come, and wrote a hasty note which he placed upon his dresser where it could easily be seen. As he stole quietly down the long hall, in an attempt not to awaken the household, he came suddenly upon Mademoiselle Ivanovitch seated in a chair drawn into a windowed recess. She started as he came upon her, but instantly recovered her calm poise of the evening before.

Paul apologized for the stealthy manner of his leave-taking, pleading the necessity of an early start.

She listened to him patiently, then glancing over her shoulder to see that she was not observed, "Forgive my being so blunt," she said, "but I think you are playing an exceedingly dangerous game. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose."

Paul turned to her almost sharply and said: "Are you sure that I have nothing to gain?"

She looked at him quickly, and her eyes were startled; the brilliant colour had left her face. Then she caught the baronet by the coat.

"Sir Paul," she cried in a low voice, "you are a young man. Do not destroy your life for a piece of folly. Cut yourself adrift from this while there is still time. Turn back, and never come to this wicked country again."

Paul took her hand and looked at her kindly. "Thank you, thank you very much. But I am moved to go, my dear lady," he said.

She made no answer to Paul's calmly voiced determination, save a despairing gesture, then turned silently away, and Paul, after a moment, continued on his quiet departure. The faithful Baxter had roused the driver in good season and was waiting at the steps as Paul emerged from the door. If he, too, had had an interruption in his slumbers, he gave no sign.

The driver, with an awkward jerk of his head, which Paul interpreted as a salutation, whipped up the horses, and once more they were on their way.

Not till Paul had ridden some distance did it strike him that the lady of the copper coloured hair had used his real name.

"The devil!" he said aloud, "how could she have known me?" But rack his memory as he would, he could not recall ever having seen her before.

What did she mean anyhow, with her words of ill-omen? He could not guess. It was all a mystery.

Paul was scarcely in a happy frame of mind that day. He liked to see his difficulties plain before him rather than to be hemmed about with mysteries that he could not understand. And difficulty seemed to be piling itself upon difficulty.

Much, of course, remained to be explained. He was not sure of the different parts which the weirdly associated people whom he had met that afternoon played in Boris's game. The young man Michael, with the large, cruel, red hands, was probably Boris's principal striking force in times of trouble. Boris himself, he imagined, furnished the brains.

But what of the red-haired woman? That she had her part allotted to her in the strange drama unfolding itself Paul could not doubt. But what part?

Paul hardly believed that she was really Boris's sister.

But what tie bound her to him? What tie kept her within the confines of this strange collection of human beings?

For a moment Paul's heart grew light within him. Was she his wife? If he could but establish that, then Boris's boast that he would marry Mademoiselle Vseslavitch was vain indeed.

Sir Paul was, indeed, confronted by a very Gordian knot of problems. He laughed a little as he made the simile to himself, until he reflected that he was not an Alexander armed with a sword who could disperse the problems at one blow. His, indeed, would be the laborious task of unravelling them one by one; nor could he see any better way than by beginning at the very beginning, which, so far as he was concerned, meant a full knowledge of Boris's intimates and surroundings.

Not indeed till his guide turned and told him, some hours later, that they were nearing the Vseslavitch house did Paul put the matter out of his mind, and then, as they swung into a long avenue bordered with pines, his thoughts were all for the lady whom he sought.

The house was a very old one, built of stone and massive oaken timbers which showed the ravages of many years.

Paul gazed almost affectionately at the rambling mansion as it disclosed itself to his eager eyes—for did it not shelter the one who was for him the dearest lady in the whole world?

The door opened quickly in answer to his knock and Paul found himself in a great hall furnished with a lavishness which surprised him, in such an out of the way corner of the world. On the lofty walls hung priceless old engravings, and paintings on silk, with marvellous needlework cunningly aiding the artist's brush. Paul had seen such ancient works of art in the great Continental museums—but never a collection like this. Bear-skin rugs lay strewn about the floor, and as he warmed himself at the huge porcelain stove—for it was a cool morning—he admired them with all the enthusiasm of an ardent sportsman.

He turned, as a door opened at the further end of the room, and there at last stood his dear lady. With quick strides Paul reached her and pressed her hand to his lips. She made no objection to his salutation—perhaps that custom was too prevalent in her own country to bear much significance.

As she first gazed at him a glad smile lighted her face—and then she grew quite sober.

"Ah!" she said, "you have disobeyed. How could you?"

"Dear lady," answered Paul, "you imposed on me the only command I could not follow. Surely I may be forgiven, I hope, for entering the Promised Land?"

She smiled at him—almost sadly, Paul thought, and then she said, with a far-off look in her wonderful eyes, as if she forgot his presence for the moment—

"It is passing strange—that events should take this turn—that you should have come at this time. There are, I know now, divinities that shape our ends." And then she turned to Paul and said quickly:

"What madness has brought you here? My friend, believe me, you should never have followed me. This one day you may stay—because I'm weak—and then, I beg of you, go while there is yet time."

The strange iteration of his earlier warning made Paul wonder.

"Tell me," he cried, as he looked searchingly into her face, "what hidden meaning lies beneath your words? And those of the red-haired woman at the home of Boris Ivanovitch?" And he repeated to her the other's warning—almost identical with hers.

"Oh!" she gasped, and grew quite white, "you did not stay at that house? And yet you are here? Thank God for that." Then, though Paul pressed her, she would say no more.

"Come," she said after a brief pause, "my brother is in the library. You must know him." And she led the way through a short passage to a room beyond.

A handsome man of about thirty-five, who resembled Mademoiselle strikingly, rose as they entered.

"Peter," she said, "this gentleman is Sir Paul Verdayne. He is an old friend of the Countess Oreshefski. I met him at her house in Paris. Sir Paul will be our guest—until to-morrow," she added.

The young man grasped Paul's hand warmly.

"A friend of the good Countess is most welcome," he exclaimed. "I am only sorry that your stay is to be so short."

Clearly, Mademoiselle was determined that Paul should not remain with them long.

"Will you pardon me, Sir Paul," the young man continued, "if I leave you on my sister's hands for the moment? Our overseer wishes to see me on a matter of some importance and I shall not be free until luncheon."

While he was speaking a large man entered—a wonderfully fine specimen of Russian manhood. As he stood there, proud but respectful, his flaming red beard falling over his broad chest, he looked like some Viking who had just stepped out of an old myth.

"Alexander Andrieff, our overseer," Peter explained, and the man bowed low to Paul.

"And now, Natalie, if you will entertain Sir Paul for the next hour he will perhaps overlook my rudeness."

"Not at all, sir," Paul interrupted, "I am the one who should apologize for having so imposed upon your hospitality." And with Mademoiselle Vseslavitch he retired.

So her name was Natalie! Paul liked the name—it seemed to fit her excellently. And he looked lovingly at the charming girl beside him.

"We will take a stroll in the garden, if it pleases you," she suggested.

Paul was delighted. They stepped outside the house into a large enclosure surrounded by a high stone wall. Beyond a small lake which filled the center of the garden, they came to a seat hidden by screening shrubs from the windows that gave upon the spot.

As they sat there under that wonderful Southern sky, with the air laden with the perfume of countless cherry blossoms, Paul felt that he had been translated into fairy-land, and he was almost afraid to speak lest he break the spell and suddenly find himself back in blasÉ Western Europe again.

He took her hand gently in both of his. It was a beautiful hand, so white and tender and aristocratic. On the third finger was a ring with a blue antique; on her forefinger—worn in the Russian fashion—a diamond. It seemed a talisman to Paul, and as he looked at it he was happy. Feeling the touch of these fingers, his reason stopped dead and a sweet dream came over him—the continuation, as it were, of some interrupted fairy-scene.

"Beautiful Princess!" he whispered softly, as he leaned toward her pale, smiling, gentle face.

Her delicately curved red lips played with mingled melancholy and happiness, and almost childish impulse; and when she spoke, the words were deeply toned, sounding almost like sighs, yet with rapid and impetuous utterance, like a warm shower of blossoms from her beauteous mouth.

"My lover," she said, and Paul's heart leaped with wild joy at the words, "my lover for this one day—listen while I tell what I can hide from you no longer."

And then with halting words she told him of her peril.

"That house where you stayed last night," she said, "it is the home of my cousin Boris," and a sudden shudder passed over her as she spoke the name. "He has long wished to marry me—and I have steadfastly refused; I cannot tell you how I loathe him. It was to escape his importunities that I went to Switzerland—and alas! now I have come back, at the order of the Tsar, who commands me to yield to him." She paused. Paul drew her close in tender sympathy.

"I thought once," she went on, "when I left Paris a week ago, that I could force myself to do this hateful thing. A faithful subject must obey the Tsar. But now I know not what the outcome will be. I cannot make up my mind to consent—and Boris grows more impatient every day. Tell me," she turned her wonderful eyes up to Paul—"what manner of people had he with him?"

And Paul described to his lady the villainous Michael with the red hands, and Virot, the oily Frenchman. And as he told of Mademoiselle Ivanovitch, the red-haired woman, the lady's lip curled scornfully.

"A tissue of lies!" she cried. "Those men are the scum of Europe, blackguards of the worst type—the kind Boris has always gathered round him from his boyhood. And the woman—bah!—he has no sister. She is but a mistress he would have long since cast off were it not that she sometimes is of assistance in his wicked plans."

Then Paul told her of the disturbance of the night before, and of his encounter with the woman that very morning.

Natalie clasped Paul's hand—he thrilled beneath the sudden tightening of her fingers.

"Ah!" she breathed, in sudden agitation, "they must in some way have known your mission all the time. I tremble when I think of the peril you were in. Boris is hot-headed, and it must have angered him almost beyond endurance when he knew that he entertained a rival beneath his own roof. Some men, it is said, have entered that evil house never to be seen more by mortal eyes."

Paul tried to quiet her fears. But, though she soon grew calmer, he saw that a great dread still lay upon her. And even when they returned to the house, she started apprehensively at every sudden sound.

Paul found brother Peter to be indeed a most gracious host. He had been educated in England, it appeared, and like Paul was an Oxford man. Indeed, the two found many things to talk about, for Peter well remembered the stories he had heard of Paul's record as an oarsman on the 'Varsity eight—traditions of the sort that are handed down from year to year unto succeeding classes.

But as they talked, Paul noticed that Peter's eyes often rested with a troubled look upon his sister. In fact, it seemed to Paul that a black shadow of direful portent hung over them throughout the meal.