The talk was of hunting and war and politics and the chances of the Russian revolution, and on this latter subject it was perfectly unrestrained, for all knew that the Powers had made a secret compact by which they bound themselves, in the event of the fall of the Romanoff Dynasty and the Arch-Ducal oligarchy--which all Europe would be very glad to see the last of--to support Prince Zastrow as elective candidate for the vacant throne. The Revolutionary leaders had been sounded on the subject, and were found strongly in favour of the scheme. It meant a return to the ancient principle of elected monarchy, and Prince Zastrow, though now a German ruling prince, represented the union of two of the oldest and noblest families in Russia and Poland. Moreover, he had pledged himself to a Constitution which, without going to Radical or Socialistic extremes, embodied all that the moderate and responsible adherents of the Revolutionary cause desired or considered suitable for the people in their present stage of political development--which, of course, meant everything that Oscar Oscarovitch did not want. After dinner they went out through the long French windows on to a verandah which overlooked a vast sea of forest, lying dark and seemingly limitless under the fading daylight and the radiance of the brightening moon. Since their marriage day the Prince had made it a bargain that whenever they dined _en famille_, his wife should prepare his coffee with her own hands. She even roasted the berries and ground them herself, and, as many a time before, she did it to-night in the seclusion of the little room set apart for that and similar purposes. She was alone in the physical sense, for the two watching Presences were invisible to her, and so, for all she knew, no one saw her measure twenty drops of a colourless fluid from a little blue bottle into the coronetted cup of almost transparent porcelain which had been one of her wedding presents to her husband. After a couple of cups of coffee and half a dozen half-smoked cigarettes, the Prince stretched his long legs out, struggled with a yawn, and said in a sleepy voice: "My Princess, you must ask our guests to excuse me. I am tired after the long day in the sun; and so, if I may, I will go to bed." He rose, and the rest rose at the same moment. He bowed his good-night, and the two saluted. The Princess followed him into the dining-room. The unseen watchers stood by the end of the great heavily-hung bed, in the midst of which lay Prince Zastrow, seemingly sinking into the slumber of death. Von Kessner leaned over and raised an eyelid, and said to the Princess, who was standing on the other side, the single word: "Unconscious." She bent forward for a moment as though she were bidding a silent farewell to the man to whom she had pledged her maiden troth, then straightened up and walked like some beautiful simulacrum of a woman towards the door which Vollmar held open for her....