The next fifteen minutes, when Drexel looks back upon them, present nothing but a blur of ecstatic relief. Distinct remembrance begins with his being ushered to a certain door--a door within which, excited as he was, he recalled that the princess ten days before had thrown off her mask to him. He entered. There she was!--in a convalescent’s robe, half reclining in a great chair soft with many cushions. He could but stare. But a few hours since and he had seen her in the coarse gray garments of death. But a few hours--and there she was! “Close the door, Andrei,” she said. The door closed. She rose up in all her superb young beauty and came to him, her arms outstretched, her face a glory of love. “Oh, Henry! Henry!” “Sonya! My Sonya!” And he caught her to him. Ah, that minute against her heart!... It was payment and more for all his fortnight’s pain and danger--aye, and payment for the pain and longing of all the long years to come! And then she disengaged herself, and took his pale cheeks in her two hands, and gazed into his face, her eyes ashine with tears and love and wonder. “It was brave!--brave!--splendid!” she said in a trembling whisper. “But I forgot--you are wounded!” She led him to a divan before the glowing fire, and was going on with her praise, but he caught a hand and pressed it to his heart. “Feel it! Another word will kill me with happiness. Please don’t, Sonya!” He begged her to tell him what had happened during the day and how she had come home. An hour after leaving the Fortress, she said, they had deserted the van and scattered, she going into hiding in the home of a trusted friend. Here she had lain all day, not daring to move till she learned how matters stood. By the coming of dusk her course was resolved upon. Only three persons, besides her friends, knew the identity of Sonya Varanova, her father, Freeman and Prince Berloff. The two last, in the interest of their crafty scheme, she was certain had told no one--and now they were dead; her father she knew she could trust. Dressed as a working-girl, she had hurried through the disguising darkness across the city, had watched her chance and entered the servants’ door unnoticed, had slipped unseen up to the sick-room where watch was still being kept--and had become once more Princess Valenko. As for the others: the faces of the escort had not been seen, they could not be identified if caught, and furthermore they were all as clever at hiding as the fox. Borodin and Razoff were already on their way out of Russia, in the guise of immigrants bound for America--of course, to return in a few weeks to resume their revolutionary work. They were all quite safe. They might be safe, but his concern was not for them. He looked at that fair dark face, with its crown of glorious black. Yes, she was again the princess, but---- “But you are still in danger!” cried he. “And who in Russia, with a soul, is not?”