When Marrion arrived in England just before Christmas she found a white world of snow. But it seemed to her not so white, so pure, so chill as that soft pall which had lain on Marmaduke Muir's grave on the Balkan heights, when, stopping at Varna on her way home on purpose to visit it, she had found it unrecognisable under the heavy snow. For the winter of '54-'55 was the severest on record, even in those southern mountains.

There had seemed no room there for her tears, her remorse, her pitiful plaint to be forgiven for trying to play Providence. So she had come away more stunned than ever.

After all her long years of self-sacrifice to find that every step she had taken was a mistake was bitter indeed; but to realise that if the child lived--and this time she meant to ensure that there should be no ransom of her life--she would have deprived Marmaduke's child of its birthright was agony.

Yet there was no escape. Even if Andrew Fraser had been forthcoming--and no news of him had come since Alma's heights were won--she still would not have made a claim. That was over and done with. She had promised the old man none should be made, she had persuaded Duke to do the same, and they must stand by their word.

She brooded and brooded over this until once more self-sacrifice became an obsession with her. Not even for the sake of his child should Duke's honour be smirched. Besides it might be a girl, and then it would not matter so much. Besides, and this clinched the question, even with Andrew it would be hard to prove a marriage; for during those few short years she had not troubled to act as a wife. The knowledge that she was married had been enough for both her and Duke; she had always been known as Mrs. Marsden. A lawsuit would be dreadful--was unthinkable.

No, she could do nothing to rectify her past mistakes. She must dree her weird--she could not get away from her past. In that, as in all things else, the doctor had been right. When the time came nearer she would follow his advice and go to Edinburgh to the man who had invented chloroform. Doctor Forsyth had said he was kind. She would tell him her story and beg him to let her die and save the child.

Meanwhile, there was the gold snuff-box, and it meant more to her now than when it was given. It meant that there would be someone kin to the child--someone who, perhaps, if her life was taken as toll, would look after it. She must try while there was yet time; that was her first charge.

She set to work at once, therefore, to arrange for a visit to Poland. The extraordinary likeness to her father of which he himself had spoken, which Doctor Forsyth had noticed, and which she also had seen, was too valuable an asset to be wasted. Yes, she would go over to the ancestral house, give the gold snuff-box into safe keeping, and ask, even beg, for recognition. Even if her father had been a widower, one of the sons might be married, there might be a woman with a pitiful heart to listen and sympathise. But ere she went she must write to Peter Muir. To begin with, she could assure him that his brother had been well looked after. And then she had nothing, positively nothing, of Marmaduke's; and Peter, knowing the care she had lavished on him all those years, might give her something. The ring he had always worn was what she craved most. In those long ago days, though there was not so very much difference in their heights, what he wore on his little finger had fitted her second. It had been too large for her third when he had wanted her to wear it in place of a plain gold band; so she had bidden him wear it instead--little tender memory which seemed so precious now.

So she wrote in the fine slanting caligraphy of the day a somewhat stilted little letter asking for what she wanted as a favour, not a demand, since "though I have a claim, I have no right."

In reply she received a friendly note.

"Dear Marrion,

"If you will come and see me I will give you the ring, and something else."

She had sent her letter to Peter's club, but this was dated from a house in Palace Yard. So she went there. It was a fine old house. A footman opened the door, a butler advanced to meet her, a majordomo out of livery stood half-way up the stairs. Very different this from the old days when the two brothers had been more or less out at elbows all the time; but now, of course, Peter was heir to the estates.

She found him, looking wretchedly ill, in a most luxurious study, and his weak face lit up at the sight of her in the friendliest of fashions.

"Sit down in a comfortable chair," he said, and there was a querulous note in his voice. "Really, in times like these, when, as the paraphrase runs, 'days are dark and friends are few,' and 'gathering clouds' are the normal outlook, it is a duty to be comfortable and bring up the average. When Marmaduke was--was here--he was for ever at me for extravagance. Hated the Jews and used to borrow from old Jack Jardine instead. Paid off something, but not all, I'm afraid; and Pitt, the virtuous Pitt--he owed him thousands. However, as I was saying, it's a duty nowadays to be comfortable, so I've any amount of post-obits out--to say nothing of kites. They're always coming back wanting a longer string or a new tail. But I don't care. The old man may outlast me, and anyhow I can't live long; so it's a short life and a merry one."

Looking at his hectic flush and with a damp cold of his hands fresh on the touch of hers Marrion did not feel inclined to combat his easy philosophy.

"And your father?" she asked.

Peter shrugged his shoulders.

"As usual, only more so." He paused and spoke more seriously. "Of course Marmaduke's death cut him to the quick. But I won't speak of that--I can't. He was the only one--and I believe it was the same with the Baron. He showed it in anger. Won't see or hear of me, yet I'd do my best for him. 'Pon my soul, that old man has been the curse of all our lives."

Marrion sat silent. In a way it was true. The old spider had enticed more flies than he knew of into his net. But for her desire that Marmaduke should not fall foul of his father----

But that way lay madness. She was beginning to learn that she could scarcely trust her own judgment. The whole thing was so pitiful that reason seemed impossible.

"And may I have the ring?" she asked, in order to change the venue.

"You can have that, and a good deal more besides," replied Peter Muir, giving her a queer look as he rose to go to a despatch-box that lay on the table and which Marrion recognised as Marmaduke's.

"When this thing came home," he continued, searching in it. "Oh, here is the ring!" (He handed it to her, and she thrilled at the touch of it, as she would have thrilled to the touch of the man who had worn it.) "I did not look over the papers very carefully--I hadn't the heart; but when I was looking for that ring yesterday, I found--something--which interests you."

He held out an envelope and she took it indifferently; few things really interested her nowadays. It was addressed to Major Muir at his club, and a vague wonder as to what it could contain crossed her mind as she took out the paper it contained.

Then she sat silent staring at it helplessly, for it was Duke's counterpart of their marriage bond which she thought she had seen burnt to ashes on that night when Marmaduke had said, "You have made me feel like a scoundrel!"

How idle, how unreal this world was! Could one be sure of anything? Could one be certain that everything was not a dream?

Peter's voice roused her.

"Of course it doesn't make much difference to us now. Marmaduke left a very few pounds, and your third as wife wouldn't amount to anything. But there is his portion when the peer dies, and I can't see why my young oaf of a cousin who will come in eventually should have it; for even if I outlive my father I shall have enough for my time. And you were--well, you were a brick to Marmaduke--and to me, too. You always denied this marriage: but I had a notion it was only denial. There is no reason, therefore, why you shouldn't use this--it is proof positive of marriage, and if I were you I would. You are the only survivor and therefore have the action; besides, it would annoy the old man extremely, and, upon my soul, he deserves all he can get."

He had struck the wrong chord. To Marrion, absorbed in the one enthralling question as to whether Marmaduke had known of this survival or whether he had not, the suggestion that she was the sole arbiter came as a shock.

"We agreed," she said slowly, "to annul the marriage. He thought--I know he thought--this paper had been burnt; and it doesn't make any difference to our intention that it wasn't. And then we promised, we both promised your father no claim should ever be made. Because Duke is dead is that any reason----"

She rose suddenly, walked to the fireplace, and threw the envelope and its contents on the fire.

"That is what Duke meant," she muttered to herself helplessly.

Peter Muir watched her with a half-cynical, half-admiring smile.

"Well, you know best, my dear. And, of course, I personally would never let you come to want." The capable woman looked at him, the incapable man, with wondering tolerance. "Still, I must say I am disappointed. I should like to have seen the governor's face when you sprang it upon him. Remember he is the villain of the piece and, as I said, deserves everything he can get."

"That may be," replied Marrion, "but can't you see we were all at fault? And we have to pay for it. We must--you can't get rid of the past."

She said the words over and over to herself, and it was not till she reached her lodgings that she realised fully that the past had claimed the future. Yet what else could she have done? If she had only known what Duke would have said! Had he found out the paper, or had he not? Was that the reason why in those short ten days of heaven he had never, never, never alluded to the past? And yet that heavenly present had become the past too, and had stretched out into the future. Had she been taken by surprise? Had she made another mistake?

She threw herself on her bed and cried quite foolishly, until perforce, being physically unable to cry any more, her mind reasserted itself and thought came again.

One thing seemed clear. She could not possibly tell what Duke knew or did not know; she could not be sure what he would have thought; and she would have no more of trying to impose her views on him.

That being so, the only person who had any say in the matter was Lord Drummuir. For the sake of the heir he might absolve her of the promise. But the child might be a girl, it might not live. Finally she began to cry again softly, silently; the tears that count for utter soul-weariness. And in truth she was weary--the one thing that seemed clear being that she had failed; that she had mismanaged everything, that everything seemed in a hopeless tangle. She was, in sober truth, very near the limit of perfect sanity when, with a passport secured through Peter Muir's Vienna influence, she started for Krakowitz, the village on the Russian side of the Carpathians, near which the Pauloffski estates lay. It was a difficult journey--one which she had judged rightly had better be undertaken at once; but the change did her good, and she was almost herself again before it came to a conclusion; yet as the sledge with its tinkling bells and four horses toiled up the last hill or two she felt depression come upon her again. The outlook, supremely beautiful, was still melancholy to a degree. Snow, snow everywhere. The towering peaks, the valleys, the pine forests all burdened with it, like Marmaduke's grave had been. A light burden, but so cold--so deathly cold!

As the sledge dashed up the steep narrow drive and the pine trees that swept their snow layered branches overhead some of their burden fell in soft masses on Marrion's furs.

The driver turned round with a smile and said in Russian:

"That is absolution from sin, Excellency."

Curious answer to her thoughts, and with the answer came a remembrance, "Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow."

And the remembrance brought confidence. Perhaps, after all, the tangle consequent on her playing Providence might be going to be straightened out.

The front door of the unpretentious tower, with a building like a barn built on to it, that stood magnificently on a little plateau overlooking the valley with a faint glimpse of plain beyond, was wide open, and at it, standing against, but not leaning upon the pilaster, was the most striking figure of a woman Marrion thought she had ever seen. Extreme old age had set its mark on the lined face, with thin white hair drawn under a lace lappet; but the figure was that of a girl of twenty. Extraordinarily tall, massive in proportion, but upright as a dart and with activity in every curve and line.

The lady gave a dignified bow as Marrion, still closely veiled as protection from the bitter cold, came up the steps.

"Princess Pauloffski?" she asked tentatively in French, for it was impossible to think the figure that of a servant.

"I am Princess Pauloffski," was the dignified reply in slightly guttural French.

"Might I speak with you for a few minutes?" continued Marrion nervously.

The Princess smiled.

"Ah, you are English! My son Paul was a long time in England or Scotland," she replied in better English than her French. "You must be cold; come in and take off your wraps."

A few rapid words in the country dialect sent driver and sledge round to the stables while Marrion, with an unforeseen thrill of pleasure, recognised that this beautiful old princess must be her grandmother.

"I was looking for my sons and daughters who are dead," said her hostess quietly as she led the way into the house. "The dead always come back with the snow--and I have so many."

Despite the warmth of the wide passage heated by a huge stove Marrion felt a slight shiver run through her. How had her grandmother learnt to speak of the dead as if they were alive?

As she passed on to a sitting-room where a great fire of pine logs was burning on an open hearth Marrion removed her veil and threw off her heavy fur cloak.

So, as she came out of the dark passage into the sunlight that streamed through the sitting-room windows, she stood revealed. The effect was not nearly as startling as she had anticipated, but it was far more overwhelming.

The old face lit up with sudden pleasure, the thin old hands were stretched out--

"Sacha!" she said. "Darling, after all these years! And you never came before. Paul did--and he was your twin--though he has only just gone, Sacha! I have wanted you so often."

The tears sprang to Marrion's eyes.

"Dear lady," she said, taking the outstretched hands and holding their chilliness of age in her warm clasp, "I am not Sacha. I am Paul's daughter!"

Princess Pauloffski drew back and passed her hand over her eyes.

"Excuse me. I forget. I live so much alone and my dead come to see me so often when there is snow. But if you are not Sacha----" She took a step forward and scanned her visitor narrowly. "You say you are Paul's daughter--an English daughter--did he then marry over there? For it is true you are his daughter--even his twin was not more like. Come, sit down, child, and tell me how you come by Paul Pauloffski's face?"

It was almost incredible! Marrion as she obeyed her grandmother's gesture felt inexpressible relief. Here there was no haggling, no questioning. She was taken literally on her face value. It was a haven of rest.

Together they sat on the quaint old settle as if they had known each other for years, while Marrion told her tale. She produced the golden snuff-box, with its glittering monogram, and laid it in the old Princess's lap; but she merely glanced at it. Her chilly old hands were busy detaining the hand that had laid it there--the hand that was still alive.

"Yes, Paul is dead," she murmured, half to herself. "Sacha died first when she was so beautiful, like you. And Paul's wife died, and now his two sons are gone; there is none left but me, and I am very old. And now you come--tell me more, child!"

And Marrion went on with the story. It was like a dream to be sitting there in the streaming sunlight heart to heart as it were with someone of whose very existence she had been unaware but one short half-hour before.

"Was he a commoner or noble?" asked the old princess quickly, when Marrion mentioned her marriage.

"He had no title then," began the latter.

The old fingers tightened their curiously protecting clasp.

"Then you are still Princess Pauloffski! I am glad," was interrupted with satisfaction. "We of this house do not change our names when we marry beneath us, as I did; for, my dear, this, the soil"--she waved her other hand in an all-embracing gesture--"was my father's, and my father's father's. My husband was a good kind man. I loved him--but---- Go on, child."

And Marrion went on.

"Now, God be praised!--God in His High Heaven be praised!" cried the old Princess exultantly. "And you here--braving the cold, spending your life!" She seized a little brazen bell that lay on the table beside her and rang it violently. A very old maid-servant appeared, and was addressed volubly in patois. But that many orders were given Marrion judged by the frequent bob curtsey of the domestic who finally trotted out in great haste.

"Not one word more, darling!" cried the old woman, forgetful of everything save abounding sympathy. "Quick, to the fire! Toast your feet--so! Lean back on the cushions! Make yourself quite comfortable. Remember you have to think of someone besides yourself." She dragged an armchair closer to the hearth with all the strength of youth. She bustled the cushions to shape; she removed Marrion's hat and finally kissed her softly on the forehead with a murmured, "God bless you both!"

It was too much. Marrion dissolved into slow quiet tears. For the first time since Doctor Forsyth had told her why she must go home she felt really that she was blessed amongst women--yea, amongst women like this one!

"But you don't know!" she half sobbed. "You haven't looked to see. I may be an impostor."

"Not with that face, dearie," beamed the old Princess. "Cry on! The tears will warm your heart. It has been cold, I expect, and little ones don't thrive when the heart above them is cold. Ah, here comes Magda with the posset!"

And Marrion drank something hot and spicy and delicious while the mistress discoursed to the old serving-maid and the old serving-maid finally fell at Marrion's feet and positively worshipped her.

It was all so bewildering, so unexpected, that Marrion just lay back and let the slow tears trickle down her cheeks in quiet orderly fashion. The puzzledom, the regrets of the last few months, seemed to vanish. For a while, in stress of these new emotions, she forgot even her grief for Duke.

But as the two women, the old and the young one, sat and talked after the sledge had been sent away, and Marrion had been simply commanded to remain for at least a week to rest, there was enough of grief and to spare in their conversation, besides Marmaduke's death--over which the Princess was vaguely sympathetic--since, though he had been a British soldier, he had, by the decree of Providence, not drawn his sword as an enemy. And Marrion had been as an angel of mercy healing Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics without distinction. Had she not closed the eyes of her own father?

"I knew that he was dead," said the firm old voice, "though he was only reported as missing; for he came back as the children of this old house always do come back to see it once more. Alexis and Danish both came also--they were fine young fellows, and I wept when the news came; but they died as Pauloffskis should die, fighting for the master. And I have wept--dear heart! how I have wept to think that never again would a real son of the real race rule over the barren acres; for, see you, there are no near collaterals. The Pauloffski men die young, fighting, as my sons and grandsons died. But now"--she clasped her hands ecstatically--"now there will be an heir."

"Supposing it is a girl," suggested Marrion, half laughing, half crying.

The old woman swept her hands out in an indignant unconcern.

"What matters it? A child is ever a child! Ever a chip of the old block, ever a fresh root of an old race. We have no Salic law here in Russia. A princess is as a prince; mayhap better for the old acres, as she does not spend so much money!"

Marrion, accustomed to the rigid rules made by men, listened amazed and interested; but indeed every word that fell from Princess Pauloffski's lips seemed to tighten the bond between them.

She had often wondered when she found herself--as she had done so often--at loggerheads with her milieu whether she was like her father. Now she knew that she had inherited even her faults from this strange weird old woman who lived a lonely life amongst the pine forests, who saw dead people and yet ruled her domains with absolute despotism. Marrion had never had a really intimate woman friend before. She found one here, and, as if by magic, all her doubts and fears vanished. There was but one thing she kept to herself, and that was the possible difficulty which might arise in proving the future little Prince or Princess Pauloffski's title, if legal proof of his or her parents' marriage was not forthcoming. But it was only a possible difficulty. For all she knew in this land where women seemed to stand equal with men, a right coming to a child through its mother might be inalienable. She did not know. She did not care to ask. For the time being, she was happy as never before in all her life she had been happy. The ten days' paradise with Duke had not been of this world. But even so it had been restless. The happiness had been felt. Here one did not think, did not feel. One was content.

So she wandered with the old Princess, her grandmother--who, though she was past eighty, still walked like a girl--through the pine woods. She visited the peasants' cottages where, after voluble discoursings, the women always fell at her feet and worshipped her. She came back to frugal meals and quiet evenings, when the Princess would discourse over every subject under the sun; for she was a great reader and brought a shrewd feminine wit to bear on most problems. And the most startling thing about it was that never for one instant did she admit the slightest inferiority due to her sex.

"Men think so," she would say, "but they are wrong. By nature they are hunters and fighters and thinkers. It is the women who manage the affairs. It will be better for the world when this is recognised."

In those days this was rank heresy, and even Marrion hesitated to admit its truth. But the most remarkable thing about her grandmother was the stable youthfulness of her outlook. Nothing seemed to affect it. Death itself made way for her strong personality.

So the days passed to weeks, the weeks to more than a month, and Marrion still lingered. A very different heritage this from the storm-set cliffs, the rich fields of Aberdeenshire. And a different ancestress this from the wild, wicked old man, spinning his spider's-web round his very children.

Should she, after all, go and ask him to let her break her promise for the sake of the heir? Would it not be better to let the heirship of evil slip, and choose the heirship of good?

The question was still undecided when, after many delays, she set foot on English ground again. And then the first thing to meet her eyes in the newspaper was the death of Marmaduke, sixteenth Baron Drummuir. There was a whole column about his many virtues; a vague reference to "sprightly youth" summing up his vices. The article ended thus: "The title descends to the late peer's third son Peter, who, we regret to learn, is in a very delicate state of health. None of the late lord's sons having any issue, the heir presumptive is a distant cousin, etc."

Marrion felt vaguely relieved. Unless Andrew Fraser turned up--and he, she knew, if he saw Marmaduke's child, would move heaven and earth to establish his claim to the title--she was quit of Drummuir. But had she any right to be quit of it? The old arguments for and against came back; she began to worry over them once more, especially when the verdict of the Edinburgh specialist to whom she told her tale with passionate assurances that a child's life was always more valuable than a woman's, came succinctly and to the point.

"In this case, my dear lady, the question does not appear to me to enter. With care I see no reason why both should not survive."

It was something of a shock, for it materialised many doubts, many difficulties.