“There is no pity in the world,” she began--and then kept on, gasping with hysterical excitement. “No pity at all. I thought that you at least had a heart--but you are as cold--I never asked for mercy in my life that I was not denied. Even when I humiliated myself before Olivia Berkeley.” In the midst of her own frenzy of despair, she saw something in Pembroke’s face that forced her to stop there. She was trembling violently and gasping for breath. Every moment he thought she would break into cries and screams. He took her firmly by the arm and led her to a side door, and out to where the street was blocked with carriages. Madame Volkonsky submitted without a word. It was useless. He was always so prompt. He had no hat, nor had Madame Volkonsky any wrap around her. He called for the Russian Minister’s carriage, and in a moment it came. He placed Madame Volkonsky in it, and she obeyed him silently. Her head hung down, she wept a little, and was the picture of despair. “Now, wait for the Minister,” he said to the coachman--and he sent the footman for Madame Volkonsky’s wrap. Then he went back in the house, and through the drawing-rooms until he saw Volkonsky. “You had better go at once to your wife. She is waiting in her carriage,” he said. Volkonsky did not take time even to bid his host good-night, but slipped out, Pembroke a little behind him. When they reached the carriage, Madame Volkonsky was inside weeping violently. Pembroke had not got her out a moment too soon. Volkonsky looked at Pembroke for a moment. “Madame has not her wrap,” he said. “She has a mantle of sable that cost--ah, here is the footman with it.” Pembroke turned away sick at heart. Within a week the Grand Duke’s visit was over, and the Russian Legation was suddenly turned over to Ryleief. The Minister was ill, and his doctors ordered him to the south of France. The day before Madame Volkonsky left Washington, a parcel was delivered into her hands. It was a rouleau containing a considerable sum of money. There was nothing to indicate where it came from. “It must have cost a good deal of self-denial for Pembroke to send me this,” she said, after counting the money. “He is not a rich man. It will perhaps serve me in some dreadful emergency”--for she had learned to expect dreadful emergencies by that time. CHAPTER XVIII. WASHINGTON society did not see much of Pembroke that winter. He worked very hard, and in the afternoons he took long, solitary rides. Sometimes in his rides he would meet Olivia Berkeley, generally with her father, and often Miles was with them. Then he would join the cavalcade, and exert himself to be gay--for it cannot be denied that he was not in very good spirits at that time. It is one thing to perform an act of rigid justice and another to take pleasure in it. Madame Volkonsky’s last words rang in his ears.