grasped the situation,
arose and threw her arms around his neck, exclaiming in a burst of
sympathy:

"Oh, my son! my son! my son! my son! forget her! forget the heartless
jilt! she was unworthy of you!"

A burst of wild and bitter laughter answered this appeal and frightened
the good lady half out of her wits.

"Let him go back to his regiment and be a man among men, and not lose his
time whimpering after a silly girl, who has not sense enough even to take
care of herself. The man to be most pitied is that husband of hers! Upon
my word and honor, I am sorry for that English duke! Yes, _that_ I
am!" said the count, heartily.

The next day Waldemar de Volaski returned to his regiment at St.
Petersburg.

As his brother officers happily knew nothing of his elopement with the
minister's daughter, and the duel that followed it; but supposed that his
long absence had been occasioned by a long illness, he escaped all that
exasperating chaff that might, under the circumstances, have half
maddened him.

He threw himself, for distraction, into all the wildest gayeties of the
Russian capital, and led the life of a reckless young sinner, until he
was suddenly brought to his senses by a domestic calamity. He received a
telegram announcing the sudden death of his father and his elder brother,
both of whom were instantly killed by an accident on the St. Petersburg
and Warsaw Railroad, while on their way to the Russian capital.

Stricken with grief, and with the remorse which grief is sure to awaken
in the heart of a wrong-doer not altogether hardened, Waldemar de Volaski
hastened down to Warsaw to support his almost inconsolable mother through
the horrors of that sudden bereavement and that double funeral.

By the death of his father and elder brother, he became the Count
Volaski, and the heir of all the family estates; and there were left
dependent on him his widowed mother and several younger brothers and
sisters.

At the earnest request of his mother he resigned his commission in the
Royal Guards, and went down to reside with the family on the estate,
during their retirement for the year of mourning.

Before that year was half over, however, the young Count de Volaski
received a summons to the court of his sovereign.

He obeyed it immediately by hurrying up to St. Petersburg.

On his arrival, he presented himself at the Annitchkoff Palace to receive
the commands of the Czar, and he was appointed Secretary of Legation