And how much he loved Katerin was just beginning to break upon him with the full fury of an emotion which had long been pent within his heart. He had loved Russia and his own kind; not the machinery of government which had been known as Russia, but the land, the very soil—hills, plains, and valleys. This love of his homeland was now centered upon Katerin, for she had become to him a personification of his own Russia, stricken and deserted by the rest of the world. And he was possessed of a passion to make amends for the vengeance which he nursed against her father. He longed to cherish and protect Katerin, to show her the land which had done so much for him, to take her by the hand and walk with her in the streets of the city where he learned that every man may work out his own destiny without the handicap of a system of government which measures what each man may do and not do according to the rank of his father—the land where the boy from a cabin may become a Lincoln! In his soul, Peter felt that he had betrayed America. Though he had not killed Kirsakoff, Peter suffered torment that Katerin knew how madly he had sought to kill. And he feared that she would blame America, and not him, for keeping alive that love for vengeance. He passed the days pacing the floor of his room, or sitting by the window. At times he was tempted to quit the city and never see Katerin again. But he could not do it. He preferred to take his punishment by having her tell him to go—at least, he could fill that place in his consciousness which had harbored hatred for Michael Kirsakoff with the sorrow that Kirsakoff’s daughter loved him yet would not face life with him. He felt that it would all be easier to bear if he carried with him a memory of his parting from her which would always lash him for the dreadful plan which he had devised and all but carried out. As he sat there by the window this morning, there came a knock at the door. He admitted a messenger from Ataman Shimilin—a tall young Cossack with boyish face and filled with pride at the thought that once more his own people controlled the city. He saluted and clicked his polished steel spurs quite as if he were in the presence of royalty. “From the Ataman!” he announced, and bowed as he handed a letter to Peter. It read: