Felix made a movement of gratitude. "Your Excellency," he said, with a sincerity which carried conviction, "I am in your hands. Do what you think best. You have every reason to distrust a man with such a record as mine. How could I complain? I will not protest my loyalty, my hatred of assassination. I will only say that I am ready, not merely to give my life for yours if necessary--that would be quite simple--but to fall in with any plan you may have to suggest, in deepest gratitude to you for thinking of my safety." The Governor smiled. Nadia, who stood near, impulsively held out both hands to Felix, and the young man bent his head above them, the hot color suffusing his face. He was only twenty-five, after all. "You may rely upon him, your Excellency," quietly said Miss Forester, the English governess. "My countrymen are not traitors--still less are they assassins." The Governor smiled. "Had Mr. Vanston harbored designs against my life," he said, "he would not have told us the things we have just heard. I am going to save him from the power of his tyrants. Let me consider." There was deep silence in the pleasant room. "Well, this is my plan," said Stepan Stepanovitch, after a few minutes' thought. "You have a man with you to-day?" "Max, my coachman----" "Only he?" "Only he, your Excellency." "Is he faithful?" "Entirely. He is not a Russian, though he speaks Russian well. He is a German Pole, and came to this country with me. He will do anything I tell him." "Then," said the Governor, "I will send out two or three of my own private police--men I can trust--to waylay you on your homeward journey. They shall be stationed in the darkest part of the wood, And when you drive up, you must let there be as many signs of a scrimmage as you can. The cook shall give them a little blood to scatter, and you must drop a torn handkerchief, or something by which you can be identified. Am I right in supposing that the horses, if frightened, will gallop back to Savlinsky?" "Yes, I am pretty sure they would."