Leaving the maid crushed but indignant, she quitted the room with her painting materials. Jakob was in waiting, with her camp-stool and umbrella, and they climbed to the top of the hill, and plunged into the beech-woods on the other side. When Helene was as near the Pelenko mansion as seemed prudent, she chose a spot in a long grassy glade, bordered on either side by huge trees which were beginning to show the first touch of autumn, and set to work with uncertain fingers, wondering how long it would be before Jakob went to sleep. She had decided not to make him a partner in her enterprise. For one thing, there might be danger for him where a girl would pass unscathed; and again, he would be very likely to presume upon his long service with her family to prevent her doing anything. It seemed to her that her henchman was provokingly wakeful to-day. Generally it needed but a few minutes to set him propped against the trunk of a tree, slumbering peacefully, with his mouth as wide open as if he wished the squirrels to drop beech-nuts into it. But on this occasion it almost seemed that he must have been making resolutions against his drowsiness, so unwinkingly watchful did he remain. Helene thought hours must be passing before his rigid frame relaxed, and his grey head dropped gently back against the tree. When at last he was undoubtedly asleep, she tore out a leaf of her sketch-book, wrote on it in pencil, “I am going to seek another view. I will return here,” and laid it near him with a stone upon it to keep it from blowing away. Then she stole noiselessly past him, and made sure that the tree was between him and herself before she ventured to turn in the direction of the house. She was not long in reaching the corner of the wall, and although it was harder to climb than she had expected, she succeeded in getting over. Inside the wall was a thick belt of shrubbery, so wild and unkempt that it might almost be called a wood, and with beating heart she forced her way through this. There was a clear space in front, she saw, and presently she reached its edge. Crouching down and peering through the bushes, she found that she was close to the house, which looked much less imposing near at hand than from a distance. Originally a pretentious building of the sham classical style dear to the heart of the Europeanised Illyrian, with a good deal of ornamental work in plaster about it, it was now little better than a ruin. Great masses of the balustrading had fallen from the edge of the roof, the walls were cracked in many places, and there were only a few remnants of glass left in the windows. The garden was utterly neglected. Grass was springing up between the stones of the paved pathways, and the water in the large square tank was foul and choked with weed, above which the melancholy fragments of a broken fountain reared themselves. It was evident that whatever debts Prince Valerian Pelenko had