simply, "for one man to help another."

Then this man of deeds and not of words clambered into the sleigh and
drew up the windows, hiding his head as he drove through his own
village, where every man was dependent for life and being on his
charity.

They were silent, for the ladies were tired and cold.

"We shall soon be there," said Paul reassuringly. But he did not lower
the windows and look out, as any man might have wished to do on
returning to the place of his birth.

Maggie sat back, wrapped in her furs. She was meditating over the events
of the day, and more particularly over a certain skill, a quickness of
touch, a deft handling of stricken men which she had noted far out on
the snowy steppe a few hours earlier. Paul was a different man when he
had to deal with pain and sickness; he was quicker, brighter, full of
confidence in himself. For the great sympathy was his--that love of the
neighbor which is thrown like a mantle over the shoulders of some men,
making them different from their fellows, securing to them that love of
great and small which, perchance, follows some when they are dead to
that place where a human testimony may not be all in vain.

At the castle all was in readiness for the prince and princess, their
departure from Tver having been telegraphed. On the threshold of the
great house, before she had entered the magnificent hall, Etta's eyes
brightened, her fatigue vanished. She played her part before the crowd
of bowing servants with that forgetfulness of mere bodily fatigue which
is expected of princesses and other great ladies. She swept up the broad
staircase, leaning on Paul's arm, with a carriage, a presence, a
dazzling wealth of beauty, which did not fail to impress the onlookers.
Whatever Etta may have failed to bring to Paul Howard Alexis as a wife,
she made him a matchless princess.

He led her straight through the drawing-room to the suite of rooms which
were hers. These consisted of an ante-room, a small drawing-room, and
her private apartments beyond.

Paul stopped in the drawing-room, looking round with a simple
satisfaction in all that had been done by his orders for Etta's comfort.

"These," he said, "are your rooms."

He was no adept at turning a neat phrase--at reeling off a pretty
honeymoon welcome. Perhaps he expected her to express delight, to come
to him, possibly, and kiss him, as some women would have done.

She looked round critically.

"Yes," she said, "they