“You mean,” said the prince, suddenly roused to anger, “that Martin and I are put upon our good behavior--that our lives are safe only so long as we are not seen speaking to Cartoner, or are not suspected of having any communication with him.” And Kosmaroff was silent. He had ceased eating, and had laid aside his knife and fork. It was clear that his whole mind and body were given to one thought and one hope. He looked indifferently at the simple dishes set before him, and had satisfied his hunger on that nearest to him, because it came first. “I tell you this,” he said, after a silence, “because no one else dared to tell you. Because I know, perhaps better than any other, all that you have done--all that you are ready to do.” “Yes--yes. Everything must be done for Poland,” said the prince, suddenly pacified by the recollection, perhaps, of what the speaker's life had been. Wanda had risen as if to go. The clock had just struck ten. “And the princess says the same?” said Kosmaroff, rising also, and raising her hand to his lips to bid her good-night, after the Polish fashion. “Yes,” she answered, “I say the same.” XXVIII IN THE PINE-WOODS The prince was early astir the next morning. He was a hardy old man, and covered great distances on his powerful horse. Neither cold nor rain prevented him from undertaking journeys to some distant village which had once owned his ancestor as lord and master--in those days when a noble had to pay no more for killing a peasant than a farmer may claim for an injured sheep to-day. The prince never discussed with Wanda those affairs in which, as a noble, he felt compelled to take an active interest. He had seen, perhaps, enough in the great revolution of his younger days to teach him that women--and even Polish women--should take no part in politics. He believed in a wise and studied ignorance of those things which it is better not to know. He made no reference to Kosmaroff at breakfast the next morning, and Wanda asked no questions. She had not slept until nearly morning, and had heard her father bolt the doors after the departure of the ex-Cossack. She had heard Kosmaroff's light and quick step on the frozen snow as he started on his seven-mile walk to Warsaw.