mph of telling her friend she had refused to marry him.

"I know it is a very womanly fancy," she said, "but I want to ride fast,
please. I want exercise."

"All right," said the Duke, and they put their horses into a canter. The
Countess felt safe now that her friends had returned and that Claudius
had telegraphed he was about to sail. She felt as though her troubles
were over, and as if the world were again at her feet. And as they
galloped along the roads, soft in the warm sun to the horses' feet,
breathing in great draughts of good clean air, the past two months
seemed to dwindle away to a mere speck in the far distance of her life,
instead of being entangled with all the yesterdays of the dark season
just over.

And Claudius--the man who made all this change in her life, who had
opened a new future for her--how had he passed these months, she
wondered? To tell the truth, Claudius had been so desperately busy that
the time had not seemed so long. If he had been labouring in any other
cause than hers it would have been insupportable. But the constant
feeling that all he did was for her, and to her advantage, and that at
the same time she was ignorant of it all, gave him strength and courage.
He had been obliged to think much, to travel far, and to act promptly;
and for his own satisfaction he had kept up the illusion that he was in
Heidelberg by a cunning device. He wrote constantly, and enclosed the
letters to the old notary at the University, who, with Teutonic
regularity, stamped and posted them. And so it was that the date of the
letter, written in St. Petersburg, was always two or three days older
than that of the postmark. For Claudius would not put a false date at
the head of what he wrote, any more than, if Margaret had written to
ask him whether he were really in Heidelberg or not, he would have
deceived her in his answer. Probably he would not have answered the
question at all. The letters were merely posted in Heidelberg; and
Margaret had trusted him enough not to notice or be willing to comment
upon the discrepancy.

And, by dint of activity and the assistance of the persons to whom he
had letters, he had succeeded in bringing the Countess's business to a
satisfactory conclusion. He found it just as Mr. Bellingham had told
him. In an autocratic country, if you are to have justice at all, you
will have it quickly. Moreover, it was evident to the authorities that a
man coming all the way from America, a