Pan Andrei saw an emaciated face, yellow and transparent, like church wax. The eyes of the king were moist, and his lids red. You would have said that all the fate of the country was reflected in that noble face, so much was there in it of pain, suffering, care. Sleepless nights divided between prayer and grief, terrible deceptions, wandering, desertion, the humiliated majesty of that son, grandson, and great-grandson of powerful kings, the gall which his own subjects had given him to drink so bountifully, the ingratitude of that country for which he was ready to devote his blood and life,—all this could be read in that face as in a book, and still it expressed not only resignation, obtained through faith and prayer, not only the majesty of a king and an anointed of God, but such great, inexhaustible kindness that evidently it would be enough for the greatest renegade, the most guilty man, only to stretch out his hands to that father, and that father would receive him, forgive him, and forget his offences. It seemed to Kmita at sight of him that some one had squeezed his heart with an iron hand. Compassion rose in the ardent soul of the young hero. Compunction, sorrow, and homage straitened the breath in his throat, a feeling of immeasurable guilt cut his knees under him so that he began to tremble through his whole body, and at once a new feeling rose in his breast. In one moment he had conceived such a love for that suffering king that to him there was nothing dearer on earth than that father and lord, for whom he was ready to sacrifice blood and life, bear torture and everything else in the world. He wished to throw himself at those feet, to embrace those knees, and implore forgiveness for his crimes. The noble, the insolent disturber, had died in him in one moment, and the royalist was born, devoted with his whole soul to his king. “That is our lord, our unhappy king,” repeated he to himself, as if he wished with his lips to give witness to what his eyes saw and what his heart felt. After the Gospel, Yan Kazimir knelt again, stretched out his arms, raised his eyes to heaven, and was sunk in prayer. The priest went out at last, there was a movement in the church, the king remained kneeling. Then that noble whom Kmita had addressed pushed Pan Andrei in the side. “But who are you?” asked he. Kmita did not understand the question at once, and did not answer it directly, so greatly were his heart and mind occupied by the person of the king. “And who are you?” repeated that personage. “A noble like yourself,” answered Pan Andrei, waking as if from a dream. “What is your name?” “What is my name? Babinich; I am from Lithuania, from near Vityebsk.” “And I am Pan Lugovski, of the king’s household. Have you just come from Lithuania, from Vityebsk?” “No; I come from Chenstohova.” Pan Lugovski was dumb for a moment from wonder.