A handsome boy of eight or nine bounded into the room, his fair hair streaming over his fur jacket, and his bright face glowing with exercise and excitement. “Softly--softly, my boy,” said his father. “Papinka, they are coming!--they are coming!” he shouted, confident that the importance of his tidings justified any amount of haste and clamour in their delivery. “Who are coming, my dear boy?” “Sledges, papinka, sledges! Three of them!” he cried breathlessly. “From the south!” “Do not let us be too sure,” Ivan said quickly to Clémence. “They may be only, after all, from some neighbouring settlement.” “They are from the south, papinka,” the boy repeated. “They have signal-flags. Matvei saw them in the moonlight, quite plainly.” “_I_ must see them too,” said Ivan, hastily putting on his furs again. It was true. Their long isolation was over. Tidings and letters and friends from the outer world had reached them at last. Much more and better--Clémence sprang forward with a cry of joy as a rough, sealskin-coated figure entered the room. “Is it thou,--is it really _thou_, Henri?” she asked between smiles and tears. “Yes, my own sweet sister, it is I,” said Henri de Talmont. “My work in Tobolsk is finished, so I have come to visit you.” CHAPTER XLIII. HIS KING SPEAKS TO THE CZAR ONCE MORE. “The King hath laid his hand On the watcher’s head, Till the heart that was so worn and sad Is quiet and comforted.” Although the fast of Easter eve is the strictest known in the Greek Church, yet on this occasion willing hands quickly prepared a meal for the travellers, since, as Pope Yefim observed, “Mercy is better than sacrifice.” Whilst Ivan’s retainers took care of the companions of Henri, he himself was waited upon like a prince by Clémence and Ivan in person, with the assistance of Pope Yefim and little Alexander. In reply to their eager inquiries, he told them the incidents of his journey, which had not been without its dangers and vicissitudes. But, through all that he said, Clémence thought she perceived the shadow of some great sorrow. Her foreboding heart turned at once to what was to both of them equally and intensely dear. Three times she tried to shape the inquiry, “Henri, how is our mother?” and three times the words died upon her lips. But at last she summoned courage to ask the question. His answer relieved her at once: “Never better, thank God. Such at least is her own report. I bring you letters from her, which she enclosed to me.” Then her anxious thoughts turned to his betrothed, the bright, brave-hearted Stéphanie; but she shrank from uttering her name, lest haply it might have become, for him, the saddest sound upon earth. Ivan, however, had no such misgivings, and approached the subject gaily. “Remember, mon ami,” he said, “we are all impatience to hear of la fiancée, la belle Stéphanie.”