"She will come to herself if we give her time," was all she got for her pains, and then she would try her hand on her patient in the inner room with equal fortune. The days passed very slowly in that narrow little room, but after all those months of arduous travel Hope was content simply to lie still, and would have been still more content if she could have lain without thinking. For much thought concerning the pass she was in tended only to confusion and tribulation of mind. Madame Roskova was kindness itself, but to Hope's quivering anxieties there was danger to their present tranquillity in the very plenitude of her thoughtfulness. "Wouldn't you like to tell me all about it, my dear?" Madame would ask, in so sympathetic a voice that Hope could hardly resist it. For it was the thing of all others that would have relieved her own mind and the situation in every way. But Paul had decided otherwise, and he doubtless understood things better than she. And Madame's very next words confirmed the wisdom of his decision. "There is trouble of some kind between you, I can see, and there is nothing eases one's mind like a good talk." And therein lay the danger. For what was said in the inner room might well get outside under similar compulsion, and all their lives would be in peril. So--"The only trouble is that I am a weaker thing than I thought, dear Madame Roskova," Hope made shift to answer. "Da!" said Madame. "Weaker! And you come five thousand miles with the convoys, and been giving yourself away all the time, I'll be bound." "It tells upon one afterwards," said Hope wearily. "When one is in it one just goes on and on. But afterwards it all comes back upon one in a heap. It seemed to me at first that if I lay still all the rest of my days it would not be too long to rest, but your kindness and the quiet are giving me new life. I am very, very grateful." "Well, well!" said Madame, permitting no evidence of repulse. "You know your own business best, my dear. But don't starve him to death. Good men are none too plentiful, and Serge Petrovitch is much above the average. He thinks of every one else before himself, and many of us wouldn't be here but for him. And when one sees him sore and troubled one cannot but feel for him. He loves you as much as ever, my dear. I can see it in his eyes," and if the little room had not been so dim she would have seen the sudden tumult of colour that flickered tremulously over the sweet, pale face. Again and again, with the persistency of a much-puzzled woman, she returned to the charge, and did her best to arrive at a proper comprehension of this strange married pair; and that not simply for the satisfaction of her womanly curiosity, but that she might do what she could to make matters straight between them.