"I am going to Moscow, Hope Ivanovna. I have got an appointment there. It is not much, but it may lead to more." "You will be missed here. Will you still be able to carry on the work there?" "Oh, surely. I hope to have still larger opportunities. My work will lie among the very poor, and there is never any lack of them." "It would grieve me to think of you dropping it." "I will carry it on as you would have it, Hope Ivanovna, as long as I am able. When you have set it in one's heart it would be as hard to drop it as it would be to forget yourself." "There is so much to be done and so few to do it," she said earnestly. "You are always busy?" "Always busy." "And quite happy?" "Quite happy. I have no time for anything else." "I am glad," he said quietly. "If ever I can serve you in any smallest thing, I beg of you to let me know." "There is no one I would sooner turn to for help, Paul, if that time should ever come. I wish----" She looked wistfully at him, and he knew that she was wishing it was in her power to do something to brighten his own path in life. But the only thing she could have done she had not seen well to do, and nothing else was possible. "God be with you, Hope Ivanovna, and give you every good." He stooped and kissed her hand, and she bent and kissed his forehead. "Would you not stop and see Serge----" "No, I thank you, Hope Ivanovna. I leave to-night, and I still have some calls to make," and he was gone. She told Palma of his visit, when he came in, and he, in his hearty way, regretted that she had not kept him to dinner. "It's ages since we met, and we used to be good friends at one time. Let me see--" and his eyes rested thoughtfully on Hope's face, as he cast back in his mind--"yes--I don't think Pavlof and I have met since our marriage. I suppose that was it. I don't believe Paul Ivanuitch has ever quite forgiven me for carrying off the prize. But really, you know, I was not to blame. Was I now?" "No, you were not to blame, Serge, and I'm quite sure Paul Ivanuitch bears no malice. He will be very lonely in Moscow. I cannot help feeling sorry for him." "Oh, he'll soon make heaps of friends." But Hope knew better, and her own great happiness set his lonely way in deeper shadow in her thoughts. For she was happy. In marrying Serge Palma she had given but small consideration to her own feelings. And Palma, perfectly aware of that, had set himself diligently to win her to himself. He had tried at first, in the quietest and most unobtrusive manner possible, to introduce into her life new elements of interest, which might, he hoped, in time wean her from those labours among the poor and downtrodden which she looked upon as her great work in life.