delay under pain
of the most horrible penalties that could be imagined. They were to take
the first steamer. They were to come home with all speed. Surely there
was no mistaking the fierce intent of the message.

Popova suffered a moral collapse and Kalora went into a fit of weeping.
Both of them feared to return and yet, at such a crisis, they knew that
they dared not disobey.

The whole morning was given over to hurried packing-up. An afternoon
train carried them to New York. A steamer was to sail early next day,
and they went aboard that very night.

[Illustration: They were to come home with all speed.]

Kalora had left a brief message at her hotel in Washington. It was
addressed to Mr. Alexander H. Pike, and simply said that something
dreadful had happened, that she had been called home, that she was
going back to a prison the doors of which would never swing open for
her, and she must say good-by to him for ever.

She tried to communicate with him before sailing away from New York.
Messenger boys, bribed with generous cab-fares, were sent to all the
large hotels, but they could not find the right Mr. Pike. The real Mr.
Pike was living at a club.

She leaned over the railing and watched the gang-plank until the very
moment of sailing, hoping that he might appear. But he did not come, and
she went to her state-room and tried to forget him, and to think of
something other than the reception awaiting her back in the dismal
region known as Morovenia.

XIII

THE HOME-COMING

The Governor-General waited in the main reception-room for the truant
expedition. He was hoping against hope. Orders had been given that
Popova, Kalora and the whole disobedient crew should be brought before
him as soon as they arrived. His wrath had not cooled, but somehow his
confidence in himself seemed slowly to evaporate, as it came time for
him to administer the scolding--the scolding which he had rehearsed over
and over in his mind.

He heard the rolling wheels grit on the drive outside, and then there
was murmuring conversation in the hallway, and then Kalora entered. His
most dreadful suspicions were ten times confirmed. She wore no veil and
no flowing gown. She was tightly incased in a gray cloth suit, and there
was no mistaking the presence of a corset underneath. On her head was a
kind of Alpine hat with a defiant feather standing upright at one side.
Before her father had time to study the details of this barbaric