"Serge?--Paul, what are you saying?" And she gazed at him with a new fear in her eyes. "No," he said, with a rough, quick shake of the head, "I am not crazy. It is as I tell you. He has come here at risk of his life to get me out of the toils. The order he brings is, doubtless, forged. The uniform he wears without a right. It is bravely done----" He tried his best to instil life and warmth into his words, but they would not come to his bidding. They were only words. "But--" she said dazedly--"Yakutsk?" "Do you not see? That is only a blind like all the rest. Once clear of Kara we go where we will." "You have spoken with him?" "Only before Captain Sokolof. But I understand it all. Serge is Lieutenant Vinsky. I went to tell Sokolof that you would go with me." "Oh, Paul! How can we go?" she gasped. "We must, Hope. There is nothing else to be done. Serge's life is at stake." "Oh, why--why did he not come sooner--if he had to come? It is terrible his coming now." "Yes, it is terrible his coming now. It is God's will, dearest, and our hearts are void of offence. We must think now of Serge. It will try you hard in the morning, Hope." "I will be careful," she said, eyeing him breathlessly still, with wide, amazed eyes,----"But you will come too, Paul? We all go together?" "I must go. It is for me he came." "Does he not know I am here?" she gasped. "I cannot tell what he knows.----But--yes----he must understand. He knows I am Serge Palma here. He knows Madame Palma is here. He must have reasoned it all out.----Yes----I remember.----It was he who suggested that Madame might change her mind----" "Change her mind?" "And decide to go. Captain Sokolof did not believe you would face it." "He never had a wife." "I must try to speak with Serge," he said. "I must tell him. It will be terrible----" "Tell him how we waited, Paul. How we waited, and hoped, and despaired. And how we heard twice of his death----" "I will tell him all. It will be sore telling, Hope, and sore hearing." "Our hearts are clean, Paul." "God bless you, dearest, and forgive me for bringing this trouble on you." "Not so," she said quickly. "I share the blame if blame there is. Have I not shared the joy of it?" "God keep you, my dear heart," and he kissed her very lovingly and went out. And she sat looking into the future--the near and the far, with woeful eyes and tightened lips. He went straight to Sokolof's quarters, ostensibly to tell him that his wife would go on the morrow, but determined, if he could, to get speech alone with Serge. And so he became witness of a curious scene between the captain and the pseudo-lieutenant, a scene which, in very different ways, was highly creditable to both. It bore eloquent testimony to Captain Sokolof's good feeling. It spoke worlds for Palma's self-command.