capable at once. We must
not forget that the country is in a state of smoldering revolt, and that
we have two women, two English ladies, entrusted to our care."

Paul moved uneasily in his chair. His companion had struck the right
note. This large man was happiest when he was tiring himself out.

"Yes; but about Etta?" he said.

And the sound of his voice made Steinmetz wince. There is nothing so
heartrending as the sight of dumb suffering.

"You must see her," answered he reflectively. "You must see her, of
course. She may be able to explain."

He looked across the table beneath his shaggy gray eyebrows. Paul did
not at that moment look a likely subject for explanations--even the
explanations of a beautiful woman. But there was one human quantity
which in all his experience Karl Steinmetz had never successfully
gauged--namely, the extent of a woman's power over the man who loves, or
at one time has loved her.

"She cannot explain away Stepan Lanovitch's ruined life. She can hardly
explain away a thousand deaths from unnatural causes every winter, in
this province alone."

This was what Steinmetz dreaded--justice.

"Give her the opportunity," he said.

Paul was looking out of the window. His singularly firm mouth was still
and quiet--not a mouth for explanations.

"I will, if you like," he said.

"I do like, Paul. I beg of you to do it. And remember that--she is not a
man."

This, like other appeals of the same nature, fell on stony ground. Paul
simply did not understand it. In all the years of his work among the
peasants it is possible that some well-spring of conventional charity
had been dried up--scorched in the glare of burning injustice. He was
not at this moment in a mood to consider the only excuse that Steinmetz
seemed to be able to urge.

The sun had set long ago. The short twilight lay over the snow-covered
land with a chill hopelessness. Steinmetz looked at his watch. They had
been together an hour--one of those hours that count as years in a life
time. He had to peer into the face of the watch in order to see the
hands. The room was almost dark, and no servant ever came to it, unless
summoned.

Paul was looking down at his companion, as if waiting to hear the time.
At great moments we are suddenly brought face to face with the limits of
human nature. It is at such moments that we find that we are not gods,
but only men. We can only feel to a certain extent, only suffer up to a
certain po