happiness of millions of peasants if it had not been betrayed.
In time--we shall find out who did it."

He paused. He did not say what he would do when he had found out.

Etta was staring into the fire. Her lips were dry. She hardly seemed to
be breathing.

"It is possible," he went on in his strong, quiet, inexorable voice,
"that Stepan Lanovitch knows now."

Etta did not move. She was staring into the fire--staring--staring.

Then she slowly fainted, rolling from the low chair to the fur
hearth-rug.

Paul picked her up like a child and carried her to the bedroom, where
the maids were waiting to dress her.

"Here," he said, "your mistress has fainted from the fatigue of the
journey."

And, with his practised medical knowledge, he himself tended her.

CHAPTER XXV

OSTERNO

"Always gay; always gay!" laughed Steinmetz, rubbing his broad hands
together and looking down into the face of Maggie, who was busy at the
breakfast-table.

"Yes," answered the girl, glancing toward Paul, leaning against the
window reading his letters. "Yes, always gay. Why not?"

Karl Steinmetz saw the glance. It was one of the little daily incidents
that one sees and half forgets. He only half forgot it.

"Why not, indeed?" he answered. "And you will be glad to hear that
Ivanovitch is as ready as yourself this morning to treat the matter as a
joke. He is none the worse for his freezing, and all the better for his
experience. You have added another friend, my dear young lady, to a list
which is, doubtless, a very long one."

"He is a nice man," answered Maggie. "How is it," she asked, after a
little pause, "that there are more men in the lower classes whom one can
call nice than among their betters?"

Paul paused between two letters, hearing the question. He looked up as
if interested in the answer, but did not join in the conversation.

"Because dealing with animals and with nature is more conducive to
niceness than too much trafficking with human beings," replied Steinmetz
promptly.

"I suppose that is it," said Maggie, lifting the tea-pot lid and looking
in. "At all events, it is the sort of answer one might expect from you.
You are always hard on human nature."

"I take it as I find it," replied Steinmetz, with a laugh, "but I do not
worry about it like some people. Now, Paul would like to alter the
course of the world."

As he spoke he half turned toward Paul, as if suggesting that he should
give an opinion, a