“I wonder how you can put up with me,” she said when he had set his pipe comfortably going. “Put up with you? What do you mean?” “You and I are so different.” He had some glimmer of the things working behind her dark eyes. “Do you still want adventures? Medlow is too dull for you?” She felt guilty, and cried impulsively: “Oh, no, no. This is peace. This is Heaven. This is all I want.” And for a time she persuaded herself that it was so. Then there came a day when the lilac and the laburnum were out in the garden behind the house, and the row of beeches screening it from the east wind were all a riot of tender green, and Olivia was sitting with a book in the noon sunshine; and the book lay unread on her lap, for her thoughts went back to a magical day of greenery in Richmond Park; an imperishable memory. Her eyes filled with tears. For a few moments, she had recaptured the lost Alexis in that remembered hour of blue mist and mystery. And now, he was in Poland. Doing what? The French window of Olifant’s study opened, and he came down the gravelled path towards her, a letter in his hand. His face was serious. She rose to meet him. “I don’t know whether I ought to show you this—but, perhaps later you might blame me if I didn’t.” She uttered a little cry which stuck in her throat. “Alexis?” “Yes.” The eagerness with which she grasped the letter brought a touch of pain into his eyes. Surely she loved the man still. “I’m afraid it gives less than news of him,” said he. But, already reading the letter, she gave no heed to his words. The letter was from Warsaw, and it ran: “Sir, “I was commissioned by my friend, Mr. John Briggs, to communicate with you should anything befall him. Now something must have befallen him, because he has failed to keep with me very definite engagements into which he had entered with the utmost good faith and enthusiasm. He was to start on his journey hither, to join the Polish service, on a certain day. He was furnished with railway tickets and passports; also, on the night before his departure, with a letter to friends in Prague where he was to await my coming, and with a letter to friends in Warsaw, in case political exigencies should delay my arrival in Prague. The Prague letter has not been delivered, nor has Mr. Briggs appeared in Warsaw. Nor have I received from him any explanatory communication. That he should have changed his mind at the last moment is incredible, as his more than zealous intentions cannot be questioned. This letter, therefore, has a double object; first to acquaint you with these facts: and secondly to beg you of your courtesy to give me any information you may possess as to the fate of one whom I learned to hold in affectionate esteem. Yours faithfully, “Paul Boronowski.”