are very nice."

She crossed the room and drew aside the curtain that covered the
double-latticed windows. The room was so warm that there was no rime on
the panes. She gave a little shudder, and he went to her side, putting
his strong, quiet arm around her.

Below them, stretching away beneath the brilliant moonlight, lay the
country that was his inheritance, an estate as large as a large English
county. Immediately beneath them, at the foot of the great rock upon
which the castle was built, nestled the village of Osterno--straggling,
squalid.

"Oh!" she said dully, "this is Siberia; this is terrible!"

It had never presented itself to him in that light, the wonderful
stretch of country over which they were looking.

"It is not so bad," he said, "in the daylight."

And that was all; for he had no persuasive tongue.

"That is the village," he went on, after a little pause. "Those are the
people who look to us to help them in their fight against terrible odds.
I hoped--that you would be interested in them."

She looked down curiously at the little wooden huts, half-buried in the
snow; the smoking chimneys; the twinkling, curtainless windows.

"What do you expect me to do?" she asked in a queer voice.

He looked at her in a sort of wonderment. Perhaps it seemed to him that
a woman should have no need to ask such a question.

"It is a long story," he said; "I will tell you about it another time.
You are tired now, after your journey."

His arm slipped from her waist. They stood side by side. And both were
conscious of a feeling of difference. They were not the same as they had
been in London. The atmosphere of Russia seemed to have had some subtle
effect upon them.

Etta turned and sat slowly down on a low chair before the fire. She had
thrown her furs aside, and they lay in a luxurious heap on the floor.
The maids, hearing that the prince and princess were together, waited
silently in the next room behind the closed door.

"I think I had better hear it now," said Etta.

"But you are tired," protested her husband. "You had better rest until
dinner-time."

"No; I am not tired."

He came toward her and stood with one elbow on the mantel-piece, looking
down at her--a quiet, strong man, who had already forgotten his feat of
endurance of a few hours earlier.

"These people," he said, "would die of starvation and cold and sickness
if we did not help them. It is simply impossible for them in the few
months