common. The language in which they understood each other
best was the native tongue of neither. Born in different countries, each
of a mixed race with no one racial strain in common, neither creed, nor
education, nor similarity of thought had aught to draw them together.
They looked at each other, and God's hand touched them. They both loved
the same man. They did not hate each other.

"Have you every thing you want?" asked Catrina.

The question was startling. Catrina's speech was ever abrupt. At first
Maggie did not understand.

"Yes, thanks," she answered. "I am very tired. I suppose it is the
snow."

"Yes," said Catrina mechanically; "it is the snow."

She went toward the door, and there she paused.

"Does Paul love her?" she asked abruptly.

Maggie made no answer; and, as was her habit, Catrina replied to her own
question.

"You know he does not--you know he does not!" she said.

Then she went out, without waiting for an answer, closing the door
behind her. The closed door heard the reply.

"It will not matter much," said Maggie, "so long as he never finds it
out."

CHAPTER XXX

WOLF!

The Countess Lanovitch never quitted her own apartments before mid-day.
She had acquired a Parisian habit of being invisible until
luncheon-time. The two girls left the castle of Thors in a sleigh with
one attendant at ten o'clock in order to reach the hut selected for
luncheon by mid-day. Etta did not accompany them. She had a slight
headache.

At eleven o'clock Claude de Chauxville returned alone, on horseback.
After the sportsmen had separated, each to gain his prearranged position
in the forest, he had tripped over his rifle, seriously injuring the
delicate sighting mechanism. He found (he told the servant who opened
the door for him) that he had just time to return for another rifle
before the operation of closing in on the bears was to begin.

"If Madame the Princess," was visible, he went on, would the servant
tell her that M. de Chauxville was waiting in the library to assure her
that there was absolutely no danger to be anticipated in the day's
sport. The princess, it would appear, was absurdly anxious about the
welfare of her husband--an experienced hunter and a dead shot.

Claude de Chauxville then went to the library, where he waited, booted,
spurred, rifle in hand, for Etta.

After a lapse of five minutes or more, the door was opened, and Etta
came leisurely into the room.

"Well?" she e