ed her tenderly
toward a huge chair. I lifted her as if she were a child and put her
softly down among the cushions; and I dropped to my knees, still
holding her, still with my arms wound tightly around her.

For a long time after that we were silent, and Zara was the first to
rouse from our mutual revery.

"Dubravnik," she said, and you can have no idea how sweetly that name
was made to sound by her utterance of it, "I have not yet completed the
story I was telling you; but there is only a little more, and you must
hear it."

"Yes," I replied. "As you will, Zara. I am content. But need we go
more deeply into the sorrows of that poor girl and her suffering
brother? Let us rather talk of the great joy that has come to us.
There seems to be nothing but joy in the world, when I look into your
eyes. Ah, little one, it is sweet indeed to be loved by you."

"And sweeter still to love you," she retorted, smiling and rousing
herself. "Sit here in this chair," she added, rising and forcing me to
do the same; and when I had complied she drew a large hassock toward
me, and seating herself upon it while she rested one shapely arm across
my knees, with her face upturned to mine, she continued the story.

"Shall I continue to represent you as being the embodiment of the
character I am describing?" she asked.

"If you prefer it so."

"Listen, then, for I think I do prefer it so. I want you to hear the
story to the end, for it will make you understand many things which are
now obscured; and if I give you the part of the great actor in this
tragedy, that also is for a purpose."

"Yes, dear."

"You returned to St. Petersburg intent upon two things, and only two.
After those two duties should be accomplished, you meant to take your
own life; and in that purpose you were upheld by those among your
friends who knew your story.

"You meant to kill the man who had betrayed your sister into the hands
of the police, and after that to destroy the real author of all her
misfortunes and yours--the czar. You had changed so that you needed no
disguise. Had your sister been alive and well, and had she met you on
the street she would not have known you. Your once tall form so erect
and soldier-like, was bent, and your former quick tread had become
unsteady. Your hair, black as the wing of a raven when you went away,
was now white, like the snow that is heaped out there in the street.
None of your old friends recognized you although you me