As it was the very first occasion upon which the young officer had asked such a favor, it was promptly granted him. Of course no one suspected that the cause of the young captain's action had been the announcement that the French minister had been recalled by his government, and was about to return to Paris. The next day Waldemar de Volaski left St. Petersburg, ostensibly to visit his father's estates in Poland. And the next week the French minister, having presented his successor to the Czar, and received his own conge, left the court and the city, and set out for France. The ministerial party travelled by the new railway from St. Petersburg to Warsaw, a distance of nearly seven hundred miles. At the capital of Poland they designed to stop a few days to rest the baroness, whose health was suffering. One day while in that city the baroness, her daughter, and the lady's maid, went out together, shopping for curiosities in the Marieville Bazaar, a square in the midst of the city, surrounded by many gay arcades. The square was full of visitors, and every arcade was crowded with customers. The baroness became somewhat interested in her purchases, and from moment to moment turned to consult her daughter, who seemed ever ready so assist her choice. At length, however, in speaking to Mademoiselle de la Motte, her mother failed to receive an answer. Turning to rebuke the inattention of her daughter, the baroness discovered that Valerie was missing. Thinking only that she had got mixed up with the crowd, yet feeling very much annoyed thereat, Madam de la Motte called her maid and instituted a search, only to find, with dismay, that Mademoiselle was nowhere in the square. Believing then that the young girl must have taken the extraordinary and very reprehensible proceeding of returning to the hotel alone and resolving to give her daughter a severe reprimand for her imprudence, the baroness returned to their temporary home, only to learn that Mademoiselle de la Motte had not been seen there by any one since she had left the house in company with her mother, attended by her maid. Fearing then that her daughter, in rashly attempting to return home alone, had lost herself in the streets of Warsaw, the baroness sent messengers in every direction to seek for her and guide her back. Meanwhile the Baron de la Motte, who had been to inspect the fine gallery of paintings preserved in the old villa of Stanislaus Augustus, returned to his hotel, and was informed by the now half distracted baroness of the disappearance of their daughter. The Baron, struck with dismay, inquired into the circumstances of the case, and was told of the shopping expedition to the Marieville Bazaar, where Valerie was first missed.