ssy,
face to face with the Countess Oreshefski, who was instantly all
sympathy as she noted his agitation.

"My dear lady," he said to her, "you will not think it strange, I
hope, if I ask your help in a matter of great importance to me?"

"What is it, Sir Paul? You know that if I can be of assistance to you
in any way it will make me only too happy." And the Countess regarded
him with a tender look.

Paul had a strange attraction for women, as I have said, and this fine
woman, having lost her only son--Paul's own age--many years before,
had always felt a mother's interest in him.

"You are very kind," Paul continued, "and I will be quite frank with
you. I shall have to presume upon your good nature to ask your advice
and help once more. To come to the point at once: Yesterday, here in
your house, I told Mademoiselle Vseslavitch that I loved her. To-day
she is gone,--where I do not know." Paul looked at his companion with
appealing eyes.

"My dear friend!" the Countess exclaimed, with truly feminine
irrelevancy, "I am delighted. I would not be a woman if I were not
always ready to enlist in the cause of a lover. And as for helping
you, I would do anything for Sir Paul Verdayne which lay in my power.
You want to find her at once?" she asked him.

"Yes, Madame."

"Then you are going to Russia--to-day, if I read your face rightly.
Well, it is a long journey. I will tell you in two words where to find
her--near Kieff. Go to that city; from there a ride of some fifty
miles across country awaits you--to the Vseslavitch estate. Everyone
in Kieff knows the place. You will have no great difficulty finding
it--beyond the inevitable discomforts of travel in that corner of the
world. But what are hardships to a man in love?" And she smiled at
Paul in a manner so infectious that he already felt his spirits
rising.

"You are too kind, my dear lady!" he exclaimed. "You are a real
fairy-god-mother. See, with your magic wand you have touched the
mountain in my path--and it is gone. And now, god-mother," he said,
almost gaily, "tell me--who is this beautiful lady?"

"Ah! that you must learn from her own lips. Simply Mademoiselle
Vseslavitch she must be to you until she wills it otherwise." She
laughed as she read the sudden disappointment written on Paul's face.

"You remember the old tale of the knight whose kiss transformed the
beggar-maid into a king's daughter? Some such method I would suggest,
perhaps."

"But I've tr