judge her. Men do not always understand a woman's temptations."

Paul had not sat down. He walked away to the window, and stood there
looking out into the gloomy mists.

"It is not because she was my cousin," said Maggie from the table; "it
is because she was a woman leaving her memory to be judged by two men
who are both--hard."

Paul neither looked round nor answered.

"When a woman has to form her own life, and renders it a prominent one,
she usually makes a huge mistake of it," said the girl.

She waited a moment, and then she pleaded once more, hastily, for she
heard a step approaching.

"If you only understood every thing you might think differently--it is
because you cannot understand."

Then Paul turned round slowly.

"No," he said, "I cannot understand it, and I do not think that I ever
shall."

And Steinmetz came into the room.

In a few minutes the sleigh bearing Steinmetz and Maggie disappeared
into the gloom, closely followed by a couple of Cossacks acting as guard
and carrying despatches.

So Etta Sydney Bamborough--the Princess Howard Alexis--came back after
all to her husband, lying in a nameless grave in the churchyard by the
Volga at Tver. Within the white walls--beneath the shadow of the great
spangled cupola--they await the Verdict, almost side by side.

CHAPTER XLIV

KISMET

Between Brandon in Suffolk and Thetford in Norfolk runs a quiet river,
the Little Ouse, where few boats break the stillness of the water. On
either bank stand whispering beech-trees, and so low is the music of the
leaves that the message of Ely's distant bells floats through them on a
quiet evening as far as Brandon and beyond it.

Three years after Etta's death, in the glow of an April sunset, a
Canadian canoe was making its stealthy way up the river. The paddle
crept in and out so gently, so lazily and peacefully, that the dabchicks
and other waterfowl did not cease their chatter of nests and other April
matters as the canoe glided by.

So quiet, indeed, was its progress that Karl Steinmetz--suddenly
white-headed, as strong old men are apt to find themselves--did not heed
its approach. He was sitting on the bank with a gun, a little rifle,
lying on the grass beside him. He was half-asleep in the enjoyment of a
large Havana cigar. The rays of the setting sun, peeping through the
lower branches, made him blink lazily like a large, good-natured cat.

He turned his head slowly, with a hunter's conscio