The heaviness of his military figure was carefully toned under the perfect lines of his evening clothes. But the rigidity of his square shoulders and back would not be denied. Then, too, the shape of his head. He was Prussian, so Prussian, and every inch a soldier of the Hohenzollern dynasty. He made his way down the long corridors which led towards a distant wing of the house, and passed on up-stairs. Vita's days had become poignant with bitterness and self-reviling. But the despair in her grey eyes had lessened, and all the youthful beauty had returned to her cheeks. Her abject dread had given place to a condition of dreary hope which left her haunted only by the hideous memory of the price she had yet to pay. Her mood was one of self-abasement and self-loathing. She told herself that she was purchasing life, or the chance of it, with all that was best in her. Sacrifice? She had told herself that she was sacrificing her love for her father's life. It was so. She knew she would sacrifice anything to safeguard that. But as time passed, and her dejected mood gained ascendancy, she began to question her purpose with a deplorable cynicism that, in reality, was no part of her nature. She reminded herself of the cowardice she knew to be hers. How much of the sacrifice she asked was for her father, and how much for herself? Then came the self-castigation. She was afraid to die. She knew she was afraid. And, in utter self-contempt, she told herself she was flinging away the honest love of a man, of which she could never be worthy, as the price of her life. Yes, there was no denying the truth. She valued life--her miserable life--at a price greater than anything else. Her love? It was a poor thing. It was beneath contempt. She could sell herself to this brutal Prussian that she might live on to see the sun rise for a few more seasons, a few more miserable years of conscious existence. Such were her feelings as she sat before the cheerful blaze of the fire in her apartment. The evening had closed in, her evening meal had been brought her, and finally cleared away. She had no desire for occupation. There was only thought left her--painful, hideous thought. Everything had gone awry. All plans seemed to have miscarried. She, and her father, and her lover had been out-man[oe]uvred by the Prussian machine, and now, now there only remained a sordid struggle for life itself. But she was roused, as once before she had been roused, from the depths of her misery by the coming of the man whom she now knew her whole future life was bound to. She heard the door open and close. She did not turn from the contemplation of her fire. Why need she? It was one of her jailers. If it were the women she did not desire to see them. If it were Von Berger she would allow him no sight of her misery. If it were Von Salzinger---- "Vita!"