m to a few favored
ones only once or twice in a whole lifetime, and, to the large majority
of mankind, never at all.

"Why have you come?" asked Wanda.

"To see you," replied this man of few words.

And the sound of his voice, the sight of his strong face, swept away all
her troubles and anxieties; as if, with his greater physical strength,
he had taken a burden which she could hardly lift, and carried it
easily. For he always seemed to know how to meet every emergency and
face every trouble. A minute ago she had been reflecting with relief
that he was not in Poland, and now it seemed as if her heart must break
had he been anywhere else. She forgot for the moment all the dangers
that surrounded them; the hopelessness of their love, the thousand
reasons why they should not meet. She forgot that a whole nation stood
between them. But it was only for a moment--a moment borrowed from
eternity.

"Is that the only reason?" she asked, remembering with a sort of shock
that this world of glittering snow and still pine-trees was not their
real world at all.

"Yes," he answered.

"But you cannot stay in Poland! You must go away again at once! You do
not know--" And she stopped short, for their respective positions were
such that they always arrived at a point where only silence was left to
them.

"Oh, yes," he answered with a short laugh. "I know. I am going away
to-night--to St. Petersburg."

He did not explain that his immediate departure was not due to the fears
that she had half expressed.

"I am so glad." She broke off, and looked at him with a little smile. "I
am so glad you are going away."

She turned away from him with a sharp sigh. For she had now a new
anxiety, which, however, like Aaron's rod, had swallowed all the rest.

"I would rather know that you were safe in England," she said, "even
if I were never to see you again. But," and she looked up at him with a
sort of pride in her eyes--that long-drawn pride of race which is strong
to endure--"but you must never be hampered by a thought of me. I want
you to be what you have always been. Ah! you need not shake your head.
All men say the same of you--they are afraid of you."

She looked at him slowly, up and down.

"And I am not," she added, with a sudden laugh. For her happiness
was real enough. The best sort of happiness is rarely visible to the
multitude. It lies hidden in odd corners and quiet places; and the
eager world which, presumably, is seekin