Two hours later the transit had been accomplished and Preston Wynne was resting in the high-ceiled room where once the King of “many watches” had slept. The doctors’ opinion before their departure the next morning--by means of another special train, their valuable presence being peremptorily required in Paris--was to the effect that “Mr. Harrington” would in all human probability recover consciousness within the next few hours. They would, as promised, despatch a medical student _de troisième année_ to Salvières, as also an orderly, to take full charge of the patient and accompany him to America, were the voyage decided upon. Money, they were told, was no object, and so they might well believe when thinking of the plethoric cheques folded in their respective pocket-books! Hope of complete or even partial recovery, they repeated, there was none--none whatsoever--and it was with a heavy heart that Tatiana, after seeing them off, turned her steps to the sick-room. Her feelings were hardly to be analyzed as she came to the bedside and looked long and intently at the boyish face on the low, hard pillow scarcely elevating it from the smoothly drawn sheet. With his eyes closed, his hair swept back from the forehead, very white, and breathing very softly, Preston Wynne seemed to have recovered some of childhood’s lines. He was barely twenty-six, but just then he gave the impression of sixteen rather, and Tatiana sighed. “What a pity,” she murmured; and quite in spite of herself, for she was a singularly merciful and forgiving woman, she felt a sudden wave of disgust sweep over her as she thought of Laurence lying in princely state in the old chapel, and of this her fifth and last victim. Basil, Piotr, Marguerite, Neville, and now this poor young stranger who had, according to his own broken and wandering words, tried to resist her fascination. Had any one ever heard of such inconceivable ill-fortune, of such persistent mischance, as had befallen those who had loved her? Well, she had paid the price; not only of her peculiar reading of the plighted faith, but of that fault, perhaps far more heinous yet--a total lack of heart, of gratitude, and of motherhood. Still Tatiana could not bring it upon herself to say the “repose in peace” which comes so readily to Russian lips whenever they think of those that are no more, and, slipping into an arm-chair at the foot of Preston’s bed, she sat, her eyes fixed upon the quiet figure before her. A bunch of sun-rays, clean-washed by the storm, was thrusting its golden points through the lace of the undercurtains, and after a while Tatiana turned her eyes toward them, though her thoughts were far away. She did not notice the passing of the hours, and the light was beginning to veil itself when she suddenly became aware that Preston was awake and looking straight at her, perfectly calm and reasonable.