The colour stole over Marie’s cheek. Was ever woman so unfortunately circumstanced as she—compelled to accept whatever this Englishman said about her? If he should go farther yet and say that she had promised to marry him, how could she refute his statement? “Did I redeem my promise?” Wilfrid assented. The Princess’s colour deepened. She longed to deny the action attributed to her, and yet—and yet—the story brought with it a certain relief to her perplexed mind. With drooping eyes, and speaking in a low tone, she said:— “I am glad you have told me this. It seems to settle a—a certain question. Seeing that I must be twenty-three or twenty-four years old, Pauline has—we have both—been wondering whether—you must not smile—whether ... I ... am ... married. And now I think I know. Were I a wife, a true wife, I could not have acted as you say I did.” Wilfrid thought this reasoning just, and was very glad to think it such. “You speak,” he smiled, “as if a husband would be a calamity.” “He might be—in present circumstances. You forget there are two Maries, the old and the new. The new, through no fault of her own, may turn her face from what the old one liked. Would it not be dreadful to be claimed as wife by a man whose appearance, in my present state of mind, might fill me with aversion? And I ... I ... kissed ... you? We were alone, I trust?” “Humph! I regret to say that in the very act we were surprised by no less a dignitary than the Czar, who, for reasons best known to himself, appears to have been playing the spy.” Here Wilfrid proceeded to relate how he had been challenged by the Czar, and how the duel had been averted by Pauline’s action; and to every part of the story Marie listened in wonder mingled with regret that she should have been the cause, however unwitting, of such trouble to Wilfrid. Vainly did she try to force her mind to recall the incident in the Sumaroff Gardens, and as Wilfrid saw her knitted brow and pained look, and guessed their cause, he urged her to cease troubling herself over the loss of her memory, but to leave its recovery to Time’s remedial hand. He himself tried his best to divert her thoughts, and by resorting to a string of pleasantries, he succeeded after a time in moving her to smiles, and once or twice to laughter, laughter so soft and sweet as quite to captivate Wilfrid, and to make him wish—for he never for a moment forgot the person of his great rival—that the Czar had been present to hear it. On betaking themselves to the castle again they found Pauline and Beauvais just returned from their visit to St. Petersburg. Great was Marie’s disappointment to learn that Prince Ouvaroff had, on the previous day, left for Berlin, being sent thither on some diplomatic business by Alexander. “So Princess Marie,” smiled Pauline, addressing her guest, “must remain a mystery to us for some time longer. It is unfortunate, but patience: Time reveals all things.”