ictorian heroines. It was a face at
once striking and wistful in its splendour.

Paul looked up from the picture to Ivanovitch.

"You," he said simply, "know everybody hereabouts. Therefore I feel
confident that you will be able to tell me the name of this girl. That
is all I ask you--at present."

Boris laughed and then checked his laughter.

"The lady," he said, "is Mademoiselle Vseslavitch, who, as you are
probably aware, lives no great distance away."

"So!" murmured Paul, and he nodded his head.

"Yes," said Boris, "and if it is of any interest to you to know it, I
propose to marry the lady."

"Indeed!" said Paul.

He placed the picture carefully in his breast-pocket.

"You must forgive my being rude," he added, "but I should not now be
in this country if I had not every intention of marrying the lady
myself."

Boris was a man used to being hard hit. He was steeled against
cunningly and swiftly-dealt blows, such as he himself administered,
but this declaration of Sir Paul's, that he intended to marry
Mademoiselle Vseslavitch, took him quite back.

"Oh!" he exclaimed softly, and his voice had a certain note of
surprise in it.

The baronet smiled a little grimly, but his eyes were as serene and as
cold as ever.

Boris's "Oh!" had told him much.

He realized that he had dealt his host an exceedingly well-landed
blow. Then the baronet's smile died, for, following the train of his
suspicious thoughts, he instinctively grasped and held on to the idea
that just as Boris had been searching his kit-bag for the purpose of
blackmail, so that individual purposed marriage with Mademoiselle
Vseslavitch to the same end.

This notion disquieted him greatly.

It disturbed him so much that the hard eyes hardened. Only the
baronet's friends knew that they sometimes hardened because of the
softness behind their gaze.

Paul's heart, indeed, rose in revolt against the suggestion that this
man should for a moment presume to reach out and touch the hand of
Mademoiselle Vseslavitch. Not for such a man as Boris was the girl
with the calm yet, at the same time, troubled eyes, that had looked
out from the picture.

Paul made a shrewd guess that if Boris had his hopes set on her, the
girl with the dark hair and steadfast eyes stood in some peril.

The mere thought of it quickened his blood, and the quickening of his
blood livened his brain still more, so that he watched, almost
cat-like, the glance of Boris's eyes as