ke a sneer.

Natalie looked coldly at the two, but said nothing.

Madame Estelle flushed slightly under Natalie's scornful scrutiny as
she led the way into an immense dining-room.

To reach this room they had traversed a long passage, and Natalie
appreciated the fact that the chateau was very curiously built. It
consisted, indeed, of two portions, which were linked together by a
long stone-flagged corridor.

Boris helped himself liberally to neat brandy, while Madame Estelle
sent for a servant and told him to order tea.

Natalie had been filled with an intense foreboding as she entered the
house, a foreboding which increased as she slowly recognized that she
and Madame Estelle were apparently the only women in the place.

For the tea was brought in by a man, not a farmhand or an honest
countryman, but a villainous-looking individual with a pock-marked
face and little gold earrings in the lobes of his frost-bitten ears.
He walked with his feet wide apart, and with a slightly rolling gait.
He had an immense bull neck, and the hands with which he grasped the
tray were large, grimy and hairy. Natalie set him down as a sailor;
nor was she wrong.

When tea was over, Boris lit a cigarette, and drawing Madame Estelle
on one side conversed with her for some time in whispers.

At the end of the conference between the two the woman left the room
without so much as a word to Natalie or even a glance in her
direction.

Boris turned round with a baleful light in his eyes.

"Now, my lady," he said, "we can have this matter out."

Natalie's afflictions had only increased her old habit of command and
her natural dignity. Though in reality she was the prisoner, she might
have been the captor.

"Before you speak, Boris," she said, "I also have something to say.
How long do you intend to keep me here? I ask this, not for my own
sake, but for my brother's."

"That," said Boris, with a malicious grin, "depends entirely on
yourself."

"By this time, of course," Natalie continued, "a great hue-and-cry
will have been raised after me. Again I ask this question for my
brother's sake. He should be informed of my whereabouts at once; for
you must remember that he will take this very much to heart."

"He will not be informed of your whereabouts at present," said Boris,
shortly. "Because," he continued, with a villainous leer, "I am only
cruel to be kind. I want to have all the details of our marriage
settled as soon as possible.