The day dragged slowly by, and the next followed like it. The O’Malachy was restless and uneasy, dividing his time between making up arrears of correspondence and watching the road which led up the mountain. To Nadia, who knew what he must be expecting, and what arrangements his letters were intended to make, this period of inaction was almost unbearable, but it was not until shortly before the funeral that she found how deeply the suspense had tried her. Feverishly anxious to go out, to do anything that might relieve the tension of the long hours, it cost her a flood of tears and a sharp wordy battle when she found that she was not intended to follow her mother to the grave. The O’Malachy was inflexible. In Ireland, he said, ladies never attended funerals, and he would not have things done otherwise than decently here because they were out on a God-forsaken hill in a desolate (he pronounced it daysolut) country. Too much exhausted to contend longer, Nadia yielded at last to the imperious dictates of propriety, and declining the landlady’s offer of her company, betook herself to solitude and a quiet corner of the inn garden. She had been sitting there for some time, in a spot quite concealed from any one in the house by bushes and an intervening angle of wall, and the sad procession had wound its way out of sight and hearing, when she was startled by a persistent rustling in the boughs of a large tree which overhung the parapet near her. At this season of the year it was bare of leaves, but its branches were still so thickly covered with ivy that they concealed the cause of the disturbance as completely as if they had been laden with their native foliage, and the effect was sufficiently alarming. In the strained state of her nerves, Nadia’s first impulse was to take to flight and seek refuge in the house; but she summoned up all her courage, and walked boldly towards the tree, asking, in the best Thracian she could muster-- “Is there any one here?” There was no answer, but she heard a further rustling immediately over her head, and looking up quickly, caught sight of a man peering at her through the screen of ivy. For a moment they remained staring at one another, and then the intruder, feeling apparently that there was no possibility of concealing himself further, bent down towards her, and asked in a low voice in German-- “The gracious lady is related to the Herr Oberst O’Malachy?” “Yes,” said Nadia, astonished by the contrast between the speaker’s dress and his words. His appearance was that of a wandering artisan seeking for work, but his voice was gentlemanly and his accent refined.