very nervous and
wholly terrified. He welcomed her in as matter-of-fact a manner as
possible.

"Madame," he declared, "this is quite charming of you. You must sit in
my easy-chair here, and my man shall bring us some tea. I drink mine
always after the fashion of your country, with lemon, but I doubt
whether we make it so well. Won't you unfasten your jacket? I am afraid
that my rooms are rather warm."

Madame had collected herself, but it was quite obvious that she was
unused to adventures of this sort. Her hand, when he took it, trembled,
and more than once she glanced furtively toward the door.

"Yes, I have come," she murmured. "I do not know why. It is not right
for me to come. Yet there are times when I am weary, times when Paul
seems fierce and when I am terrified. Sometimes I even wish that I were
back--"

"Your husband seems very highly strung," Bernadine remarked. "He has
doubtless led an exciting life."

"As to that," she replied, gazing around her now and gradually becoming
more at her ease, "I know but little. He was a student professor
at Moschaume, when I met him. I think that he was at one of the
universities in St. Petersburg."

Bernadine glanced at her covertly. It came to him as an inspiration that
the woman did not know the truth.

"You are from Russia, then, after all," he said, smiling. "I felt sure
of it."

"Yes," reluctantly. "Paul is so queer in these things. He will not let
me talk of it. He prefers that we are taken for French people. Indeed,
it is not I who desire to think too much of Russia. It is not a year
since my father was killed in the riots, and two of my brothers were
sent to Siberia."

Bernadine was deeply interested.

"They were among the revolutionaries?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Yes," she answered.

"And your husband?"

"He, too, was with them in sympathy. Secretly, too, I believe that he
worked among them. Only he had to be careful. You see, his position at
the college made it difficult."

Bernadine looked into the woman's eyes and he knew then that she was
speaking the truth. This man was, indeed, a great master; he had kept
her in ignorance!

"Always," Bernadine said, a few minutes later, as he passed her tea, "I
read with the deepest interest of the people's movement in Russia. Tell
me, what became eventually of their great leader--the wonderful Father
Paul?"

She set down her cup untasted, and her blue eyes flashed with a fire
which turned them almos