Then he kissed it as reverently as a devotee of old might have kissed a sacred relic, and then he attached the oval miniature to a chain of alternate links of azurine and gold, and hung it round his neck inside his tunic, registering a mental vow that if death came before he once more wore the golden wings, it should find it lying nearest his heart. “This,” he said, speaking to himself, as he took Isma’s photograph up from the table, and looked fondly upon the radiantly lovely face that looked out from its frame, “is evidently not intended for me. Isma doesn’t say who it’s for, but I fancy that there is some one on board the _Ithuriel_ who has a very much better right to it than I have. I wonder if Alexis is in his room?” So saying, he left his cabin and found his friend still deep in the perusal of two lengthy letters from his father and mother. “So you have had letters from home as well, old man? I hope they’ve been as pleasant reading as mine have,” he said, going to the couch on which Alexis was sitting, and holding one hand behind his back. “Yes, they’re from my father and mother, and so they can scarcely be anything else, so far as what they do say. It’s what they don’t say that gives me the only cause to find fault with them. But still that, I suppose, would be expecting too much under the circumstances.” He ended with something very like a sigh, and Alan replied as gravely as he could-- “And what might that be, my knight of the rueful countenance? Don’t you think the Council have treated us splendidly, and given us a glorious opportunity of winning back all that the daughter of the Tsar has robbed us of?” “Of course, I do,” replied Alexis, looking up at him with a flush on his cheeks. “But for all that there is one thing still, something that I am not ashamed to say I value above everything else that I have lost or can regain.” “And that is--?” “Well, to put it plainly,” replied Alexis, the flush deepening as he spoke, “these two letters don’t contain one single word about Isma. Now you know what I mean. Of course, I am ready to do everything that the Council may call upon us to do, and the moment that I know I have won back the right to wear the golden wings will be the proudest of my life, but it will be far from the happiest if I only go back to Aeria to find Isma another man’s wife, and what else can I think when they don’t so much as mention her name?” “Be of good cheer, my friend,” replied Alan with a laugh, putting one hand on his shoulder, and taking the other from behind his back. “You will never find that, I can promise you. I am the bringer of good tidings. There, take those and feast your eyes and your heart on them in solitude as I have just been doing on something else.” So saying he put Isma’s letter and photograph into Alexis’ hand, and without another word left him to gather courage and comfort from them as he had himself done. CHAPTER XV. OLGA IN COUNCIL.