"Permit me," said the baronet, just as quietly, "to inform you that you are a liar. I think you will be able to hand me something that is of interest to us both." "I was not aware that I could," replied Boris, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice. Paul picked up again the six-shooter which he had laid carelessly at his side. "Try," he said, and his voice was gently persuasive. Just a flicker of vindictiveness crept into Boris' eyes, and under the suasion of firearms he turned again to the bag. After a few moments Paul, now schooled to infinite placidity, inquired for the second time if he had found anything. "Only a few papers," said Boris, crossly. "Pardon me," said the baronet, "if I am not mistaken you have found something that seems of interest to you. Be kind enough to hand it to me." The Russian turned about, and with a carefully-manicured hand offered Paul a photograph which Paul had seen protruding from his pocket. Paul took it and looked at it casually, though the muscles on his closed jaws stood out in a manner that was not wholly pleasant to look upon. It was, however, with unfathomable eyes that he surveyed the portrait before him. The photograph revealed the features of a girl with an astonishingly quiet face. Her cheeks were round and soft, and her chin was round and soft, too, but her mouth, a little full and pronounced, was distinctly sad and set. A pair of large eyes looked out upon the world unwaveringly and serenely, if a little sorrowfully, beneath a pair of finely pencilled, level brows, which formed, as it were, a little bar of inflexible resolve. A mass of dark hair was coiled upon the girl's head after the manner of early Victorian heroines. It was a face at once striking and wistful in its splendour. Paul looked up from the picture to Ivanovitch. "You," he said simply, "know everybody hereabouts. Therefore I feel confident that you will be able to tell me the name of this girl. That is all I ask you--at present." Boris laughed and then checked his laughter. "The lady," he said, "is Mademoiselle Vseslavitch, who, as you are probably aware, lives no great distance away." "So!" murmured Paul, and he nodded his head. "Yes," said Boris, "and if it is of any interest to you to know it, I propose to marry the lady." "Indeed!" said Paul. He placed the picture carefully in his breast-pocket. "You must forgive my being rude," he added, "but I should not now be in this country if I had not every intention of marrying the lady myself." Boris was a man used to being hard hit. He was steeled against cunningly and swiftly-dealt blows, such as he himself administered, but this declaration of Sir Paul's, that he intended to marry Mademoiselle Vseslavitch, took him quite back. "Oh!" he exclaimed softly, and his voice had a certain note of surprise in it. The baronet smiled a little grimly, but his eyes were as serene and as cold as ever. Boris's "Oh!" had told him much.