, but the
sky was clear, like a canopy of velvet spangled with great stars.

Mishka rode beside me, and at last, when we seemed to have been riding
for an eternity, he laid his hand on my rein, and whispered hoarsely,
"Now."

Almost without a sound we left the ranks, turned up a cross-road, and,
wheeling our horses at a few paces distant, waited for the others to go
by; more unreal, more dreamlike than ever. Save for the steady tramp of
the horses' feet, the subdued jingle of the harness and accoutrements,
they might have been a company of phantoms. I saw the gleam of the white
pall above the black bulk of the open hearse,--watched it disappear in
the darkness, and knew that the Grand Duchess had passed out of my life
forever.

Still I sat, bareheaded, until the last faint sounds had died away, and
the silence about us was only broken by the night whisper of the bare
boughs above us.

"Come; for we have yet far to go," Mishka said aloud, and started down
the cross-road at a quick trot.

CHAPTER XLIX

THE END OF AN ACT

How far we rode I can't say; but it was still dark when we halted at a
small isolated farmhouse, where Mishka roused the farmer, who came out
grumbling at being disturbed before daybreak. After a muttered colloquy,
he led us in and called his wife to prepare tea and food for us, while
he took charge of the horses.

"You must eat and sleep," Mishka announced in his gruff way. "You ought
to be still in the hospital; but we are fools, in these days, every one
of us! Ho--little father--shake down some hay in the barn; we will sleep
there."

I must have been utterly exhausted, for I slept heavily, dreamlessly,
for many hours, and only woke under Mishka's hand, as he shook me.
Through the doorway of the barn, the level rays of the westering sun
showed that the short November day was drawing to a close.

"You have slept long; that is well. But now we must be up and away if we
are to reach Kutno to-night."

"You go with me?"

"So far, yes. If there are no trains running yet, we go on to
Alexandrovo. I shall not leave you till I have set you safely on your
way. Those are my orders."

"I don't know why I'm going," I muttered dejectedly, sitting up among
the hay. "I would rather have stayed."

"You go because he ordered you to; and we all obey him, whether we like
it or not!" he retorted. "And he was right to send you. Why should you
throw your life away for nothing? Come, there is no tim