to Tver. The road itself was,
of course, indistinguishable, but the telegraph posts marked its course.

Steinmetz tumbled heavily out of his furs and went toward the nearest
telegraph post.

"Where is the wire?" he shouted.

Paul followed him in the sleigh. Together they peered up into the
darkness and the falling snow. The posts were there, but the wire was
gone. A whole length of it had been removed. They were cut off from
civilization by one hundred and forty miles of untrodden snow.

Steinmetz clambered back into the sleigh and drew up the fur apron. He
gave a strange little laugh that had a ring of boyish excitement in it.
This man had not always been stout and placid. He too had had his day,
and those who knew him said that it had been a stirring one.

"That settles one question," he said.

"Which question?" asked Paul.

He was driving as hard as the horses could lay hoof to ground, taken
with a sudden misgiving and a great desire to reach Osterno before dark.

"The question of the ladies," replied Steinmetz. "It is too late for
them to go now."

The village, nestling beneath the grim protection of Osterno, was
deserted and forlorn. All the doors were closed, the meagre curtains
drawn. It was very cold. There was a sense of relief in this great
frost; for when Nature puts forth her strength men are usually cowed
thereby.

At the castle all seemed to be in order. The groom, in his great
sheepskin coat, was waiting in the doorway. The servants threw open the
vast doors, and stood respectfully in the warm, brilliantly lighted hall
while their master passed in.

"Where is the princess?" Steinmetz asked his valet, while he was
removing the evidences of a long day in the open air.

"In her drawing-room, Excellency."

"Then go and ask her if she will give me a cup of tea in a few minutes."

And the man, a timorous German, went.

A few minutes later Steinmetz, presenting himself at the door of the
little drawing-room attached to Etta's suite of rooms, found the
princess in a matchless tea-gown waiting beside a table laden with
silver tea appliances. A dainty samovar, a tiny tea-pot, a spirit-lamp
and the rest, all in the wonderful silver-work of the Slavonski Bazaar
in Moscow.

"You see," she said with a smile, for she always smiled on men, "I have
obeyed your orders."

Steinmetz bowed gravely. He was one of the few men who could see that
smile and be strong. He closed the door carefully behind him.