She did not seem in the least surprised. Possibly she had thought him older than twenty-five. But May, after that little ceremony, had dropped the hand most unmistakably; and she turned the ponies’ heads away. May gave a last look to the forest-glade, as they drove out from it, and reflected that the place would be impressed upon his memory forever. It was really astonishing the number of places that were to be impressed upon his memory forever! A restless week followed. He saw the Countess de Valska every day; but there was something uncomfortable in their relations--a certain savor of an unaccepted sacrifice, of an offering burned in vain. The countess would not let him seek the Austrian foe on her own behalf, nor yet bedew the soil of Poland with his blood; and it was very difficult to say what he was to do for her in Baden-Baden, or, for matter of that, what the noble Polacco de Valski could do in Siberia. Poor Serge! Yes, poor Serge! On the eighth day, Austin May, calling on the countess, found her in a lovely _négligé_, dissolved in tears. (He had been refused her door, at first, but finally, after a little pressing, had been admitted.) The countess did not look up when he entered; and Austin stood there, twisting his hat in sympathy, and looking at her. Suddenly she lifted her head, and transfixed his blue eyes with her dewy black ones. “Dead!” said she. “What?” responded May, anxiously. “Poland? Ital----” “No, no!” she cried. “Serge--Serge!” “Your husband?” cried he--“the Count Polacco----” The countess dropped her lovely head in a shower of tears, as when a thick-leaved tree is shaken by the wind, just after rain. “He has been dead a year and a half,” she moaned. “A year and a half?” “Nineteen months. He died on the 23d of February, 1877--three weeks after the last letter that I ever got from him.” “But how--but how did you never know?” said May, wildly. “Was it not cruel? The despotism of the White Czar! Sometimes they would keep his letters for a year, sometimes they would let them come directly. They would not let me know for fear that I--ah, God!” She sprang to her feet with a sweep of her long robe, and shook her jewelled finger at the chandelier. “Can you blame us that we kill and die for such a despotism, such a tyranny, as that?” Then suddenly, as she crossed by a sofa, she straightened up to her full height, like a wave cresting, poised a brief second, then fell in a heap--a graceful heap--her head resting on the sofa in her hands.