"No one knew the truth, although Iría and Allard nearly tempted me to confidence. I deprived you of the faintest hope of peace with me, I left you to the snarling hate and malice of the court; I even added to ingratitude the last insult of menace. Through it all you moved steadily toward your goal, holding your head above us all. I have learned, at last. If I avoided you, Feodor, it was because I felt my courage failing before yours. If I have spoken to you curtly, it was because I feared to say this too soon. If I refused to see you after the accident last week, it was because I was sick with horror at the nearness of losing you, because I was too near to ending the pretense of months just before its climax. And I had set my heart on standing with you, thus, and defying even this man to find an accusation that you have not answered. So," he took a step forward and passed his hand through Stanief's arm, the last reserve swept away by his own vivid energy. "So, together; now speak, Dalmorov, before you leave the capital. What selfish motive or hope led the Regent to-day when he came to me in the cathedral?" At the two Dalmorov looked, attempting no reply. Not pleasant to see was his face in that moment. Allard, quivering, radiant, found room to pity the outgeneraled and annihilated intriguer. "Nothing?" insisted Adrian, the voice so gentle to his cousin, merciless enough now. "Nothing? Feodor, you see my plaything; never again rate me so low as to credit me with such a favorite. The man who aspired to hold your place; who fancied us both victims of his clumsy intrigues; the man who never even perceived the contempt and dislike I scarcely troubled to conceal, look at him. Dragged from his shadows into the sun, facing you, he has no longer one falsehood to offer." "Sire," interposed Stanief for very compassion, himself unsteadied by the happiness that makes generosity easy. Adrian turned on him swiftly. "You? You, Feodor? Oh, it needed but that! Thank the Grand Duke for his intercession, Baron Dalmorov, and go." The last humiliation was too much. Sallow with defeat and bitter mortification, Dalmorov collected himself to strike the only one within reach, the one through whom alone he could wound the others. "If it has pleased your Imperial Majesty to misunderstand, I may not say misuse, my devotion, I must submit," he said tremulously. "I can do nothing else." "No, I think not." "Yet permit me to give a last service due to respect for my sovereign. My defense I leave to time. This nameless American whom it has pleased his Royal Highness to place near your person, sire, is not fit for such an honor. Rather he should be in the mines." Stanief started violently, his eyes flashing to Allard, who kept his pose with a serenity drawn from utter helplessness. "Take care, Dalmorov," Adrian cautioned sternly. The baron bowed.