“Sergei, my love,” said she, when the evening repast had been served and the servants had withdrawn, and they were nestling side by side upon the luxurious divan, “Sergei, my love, something is troubling you. My woman’s heart tells me that some secret grief is eating out your soul. Will you not tell your Olga what it is? Will you not let me share your grief?” “Olga, dearest,” said Sergei, gazing at her with troubled eyes, while sudden pains shot through his heart, “Olga, dearest, how can I tell you what I know will grieve you and bring great sorrow upon her whom I love and cherish more than myself?” “Tell me,” she pleaded; “am I not your wife? Did I not swear to be the partner of your joys and sorrows? Tell me your burden; and no matter what it is, I shall help you bear it.” “Well, then,” answered he, “since you urge me, I shall tell you. Know, then, I am a Jew. Your husband, the great General Pavlowitz, is but one of that abhorred race, one of those wretched pariahs whom the Emperor and the people alike despise—a ‘Zid.’ Is it not sufficient cause for grief that the high-born Olga de Mitkiewicz should be tied to such a one, that he should be able to call her wife?” Olga looked at him with eyes in which a curious light shone. “What folly you speak, Sergei,” she said. “How can you call yourself a Jew? To be sure, I know, and when I gave you my hand I knew, that Hebrew blood flows in your veins; but it is now many years since you renounced the sinful heresy of Judaism and were baptized into our holy Greek Church in the chapel of the monastery of St. Sophia. How, then, can you call yourself a Jew, since the church and our gracious Emperor recognize you as good a Christian as any of us? Put away these foolish thoughts, dear Sergei, and let not the fact of your Hebrew descent trouble you in the least; and be assured that it does not diminish my love for you in the slightest degree.” Sergei gazed with tear-stained eyes for a moment at his wife, and then spoke in a voice choking with emotion: