John Ardayre looked up, and on over the water to the glory of the beech trees on the rising slope of the park, and there saw moving at the edge of them his wife and Verisschenzko, accompanied by two of the great tawny dogs. "Oh! it is the interesting Russian whom we met in Paris, where all the charming ladies were supposed to be in love with him. He was to have come down for the whole three days. I suppose these Russian and Austrian rumours detained him, he has only arrived for to-night." * * * * * And across the lake Amaryllis was saying to Verisschenzko in her soft voice, deep as all the Ardayre voices were deep: "I have brought you here so that you may get the best view of the house. I think, indeed, that it is very beautiful from over the water, do not you?" Verisschenzko remained silent for a moment. His face was altered in this last week; it looked haggard and thinner, and his peculiar eyes were concentrated and intense. He took in the perfect picture of this English stately home, with its Henry VII centre and watch towers, and gabled main buildings, and the Queen Anne added Square--all mellowed and amalgamated into a whole of exquisite beauty and dignity in the glow of the setting sun. "How proud you should be of such possessions, you English. The accumulation of centuries, conserved by freedom from strife. It is no wonder you are so arrogant! You could not be if you had only memories, as we have, of wooden barracks up to a hundred and fifty years ago, and drunkenness and orgies, and beating of serfs. This is the picture our country houses call up--any of the older ones which have escaped being burnt. But here you have traditions of harmony and justice and obligations to the people nobody fulfilled." And then he took his hat off and looked up into the golden sky: "May nothing happen to hurt England, and may we one day be as free." A shiver ran through Amaryllis--but something kept her silent; she divined that her friend's mood did not desire speech from her yet. He spoke again and earnestly a moment or two afterwards. "Lady of my soul--I am going away to-morrow into a frenzied turmoil. I have news from my country, and I must be in the centre of events; we do not know what will come of it all. I come down to-day at great sacrifice of time to bid you farewell. It may be that I shall never see you again, though I think that I shall; but should I not, promise me that you will remain my star unsmirched by the paltriness of the world, promise me that you will live up to the ideal of this noble home--that you will develop your brain and your intuition, that you will be forceful and filled with common sense. I would like to have moulded your spiritual being, and brought you to the highest, but it is not for me, perhaps, in this life--another will come. See that you live worthily." Amaryllis was deeply moved.