nd although she had caused to be prepared a large case
of books and eight trunks of ravishing raiment, she decided that life in
a fort hidden between the mountains and the sea, miles away from even
the primitive Spanish civilization, might hang burdensomely at such
whiles as her husband's duties claimed him and books ceased to amuse. So
she determined to ask the friend of her twenty-three years, the Countess
Natalie Ivanhoff, to accompany her. She had, also, an unselfish motive
in so doing. Not only did she cherish for the Countess Natalie a real
affection, but her friend was as deeply wretched as she was happy.

Two years before, the Prince Alexis Mikhailof, betrothed of Natalie
Ivanhoff, had been, without explanation or chance of parting word,
banished to Siberia under sentence of perpetual exile. Later had come
rumour of his escape, then of death, then of recapture. Nothing definite
could be learned. When the Princess Helene made her invitation, it was
accepted gratefully, hope suggesting that in the New World might be
found relief from the torture that was relived in every vibration of the
invisible wires that held memory fast to the surroundings in which the
terrible impressions, etchers of memory, had their genesis.

They arrived in summer, and found the long log house, with its low
ceilings and rude finish, admirably comfortable within. By aid of the
great case of things Rotscheff had brought, it quickly became an abode
of luxury. Thick carpets covered every floor; arras hid the rough walls;
books and pictures and handsome ornaments crowded each other; every
chair had been designed for comfort as well as elegance; the dining
table was hidden beneath finest damask, and glittered with silver and
crystal. It was an unwritten law that every one should dress for dinner;
and with the rich curtains hiding the gloomy mountain and the long
sweep of cliffs intersected by gorge and gulch, it was easy for the
gay congenial band of exiles to forget that they were not eating the
delicacies of their French cook and drinking their costly wines in the
Old World.

In the daytime the women--several of the officers' wives had braved the
wilderness--found much diversion in riding through the dark forests
or along the barren cliffs, attended always by an armed guard. Diego
Estenega, the Spanish magnate of the North, whose ranchos adjoined Fort
Ross, and who was financially interested in the Russian fur trade, soon
became an intimate