The dinner being over, Pauline sent for Dr. Beauvais,—her steward, as well as physician—who, on entering, seemed surprised at beholding the two on friendly terms again. “Now mind, sir,” said Pauline to Wilfrid, with an air of mock command, “no duelling with Dr. Beauvais, for I hear that you threatened him with one this morning.” “Dr. Beauvais, as a loyal servant of the Baroness, is a man for whom I have the highest respect.” “Then, in that case,” she smiled, “I can leave you safely with him. You will pardon my retiring, but I have not closed my eyes since the masquerade.” Upon her withdrawal Beauvais proposed a cigar, and the pair sallied forth from a portcullised archway. “I did not expect to see a feudal-looking castle in this part of Europe,” remarked Wilfrid. “An architectural whim of the first Catharine,” returned Beauvais. “Built in imitation of one in Livonia, that she had often admired when a peasant girl.” Before them in that faint, lovely twilight, which is the only night St. Petersburg has in the month of July, lay a smooth, verdant lawn, fringed by a dark pine-wood, whose vistas terminated in a distant shimmer of blue water. “If you are hesitating which way to go,” observed Wilfrid, “let us turn to the Silver Strand.” “Ah! Good! The view from that point is particularly fine.” It was not the view that Wilfrid was thinking of, but the remark overheard at the masquerade that the lady’s fan that had dropped into the river would be carried by the current to this strand; and an unaccountable impulse came upon him to verify the statement. Smoking and conversing, the two men strolled leisurely onward through a woodland path that finally opened upon a beach of glistening grey sand. The view from it, as the doctor had said, was very fine, so fine that Wilfrid forgot all about the fan. Pauline’s island of Runö was situated near the entrance of one of the deltoid arms of the Neva. Standing upon the Silver Strand and looking eastwards Wilfrid had before him a long perspective of broad water, its shores on each side dark with woods of birch and pine. Amid this night of groves gleamed many a white villa, whose twinkling lights were mirrored in the water. The beauty of the night had drawn the dwellers forth; gondolas glided to and fro; the laughter of men and women, mingling with the sweet strains of the guitar, came, mellowed by the distance, over the smooth, blue water. “A midsummer night’s dream,” murmured Wilfrid. Turning to his companion he found that _his_ eyes were set, not upon the river-view, but upon a part of the Silver Strand itself, and following the direction of the doctor’s gaze, Wilfrid saw, some distance away, and a few feet from the water’s edge, a recumbent figure bearing resemblance to that of a woman.