Wilfrid wondered whether his grand duchess was distinguished by this peculiarity. He hoped not, for Pauline’s pearly little shell of an ear was prettier than Vera’s. “I suppose,” he observed, “that all the members of the Imperial Family bear this Muscovite mark?” “Not so, for the dynasty has scarcely a drop of true Russian blood, and is rather proud of the fact. ‘I am a German, not a Russian,’ said the Czar Ivan; and so have all his descendants said.” Pauline hitherto had been bright and lively, but all her brightness and liveliness went in a moment when she saw Wilfrid open a small album that lay upon the table. “You may look,” she said, with a heavy sigh, for Wilfrid, on seeing the nature of its contents, had closed the book. “Indeed, I would rather that you read it.” Wilfrid opened the album again, and found it to contain melancholy souvenirs of the Reign of Terror in the shape of private letters written by some of Pauline’s friends, who had fallen victims to the guillotine; written, many of them, on the very eve of execution. Their style, direct from the heart, as was natural with persons at the point of death, gave to these letters a pathos that would have touched the heart of the least emotional. “Those letters are dear to me,” said Pauline. “They are the fuel that keeps the fire of my patriotism burning. Every day I read them, in order to prevent me from ever loving the Republic, that Republic that put my friends to death.” With somewhat melancholy feelings, Wilfrid closed the album, admiring, as he did so, the creamy white of the binding. “Is this the famous Torjek leather,” he asked, passing his forefinger over its smooth surface. Pauline’s answer took a singular shape. She bent forward, and laying hold of Wilfrid’s hand lifted it and drew the finger that had touched the book slowly down her cheek, accompanying her action with a weird smile. “Is not the touch the same?” she asked; and, without giving him time to answer, she continued, “You have heard of the Princess Lamballe?” “Good heavens! Do you mean that——?” “Did you ever see her at the Tuileries in the days of the old _régime_?” “No, but——” “Well, from to-day you can say that you have had the honour of touching her skin!” Knowing that among the eccentricities of horror produced by the French Revolution human tanneries had a place, Wilfrid had no need to ask more with that binding, white and lustrous, staring him in the face.