"Her Highness has this moment returned from driving, m'sieur," answered the big Russian concierge, when, accompanied by Sonia, I entered the hall of the great house in the Avenue des Champs Elysees, and handed him a card. Then a second servant, in the blue-and-gold livery of the Romanoffs, conducted us ceremoniously along the wide, soft-carpeted corridor to the well-remembered room wherein I had taken leave of the woman I loved. My companion, in her neat, tailor-made travelling gown of dark grey cloth, looked a very different person to the dirty, unkempt peasant woman who led that band of desperate gaol-birds on the frontier, and as she glanced around the fine apartment on entering, she observed, with a slight sigh, that this was not her first visit. The afternoon was breathless. All Paris had left for the plages of Arcachon, Dieppe, or Trouville, or the baths of Royat, Vichy or Luchon, and the boulevards were given over to unhappy business men, _cafe_ loungers, and soft-hatted, gaping tourists in check tweeds. The green jalousies of the room were closed, the senses were suffused with a tender and restful twilight, for the glare had been tempered to suit the dreamy languor of that great mansion's world-weary mistress. The open windows admitted, with air, the faint sound of traffic from the Avenue. A lad passing somewhere outside whistled a few bars from the gay chansonette, "Si qu'on leur-z-y, f'rait ca," which Judic was singing nightly with enormous success at the Summer Alcazar. I noticed that upon the piano there still stood my own photograph, while that of my betrayer had been replaced by a picture of my wife. With my back to the great tiled hearth, filled with ferns and flowers, and surrounded by its wonderful mantel of Italian sculptured marble, I waited, while Sonia, fatigued after our long and dusty journey, sank into one of the silken armchairs, unloosened her coat, and sniffed at her little silver bottle of smelling-salts. Scarce a word had she uttered during our drive across the city from the Gare de Lyon, so full she seemed of unutterable sadness. During several minutes we remained in silence, when, without warning, the long doors of white-and-gold were flung open by the flunkey who, advancing into the room, announced his mistress. Next instant we were face to face.