ent to go to the palace with me that day. Then I called to Ivan,
and when I saw the brother and sister clasped in each other's arms, I
left them alone together. What passed between them, I have never been
told, and I never thought it necessary to ask. I only know that when I
was presently called into the consultation, Ivan offered me his hand,
tenderly, and I grasped it, warmly.

"You are to be my brother," he said; "and Zara tells me that you two
are going to America, to live. May I go with you, Dubravnik? Will you
take me, also, out of this hell of plotting and scheming, and this
chaos of exile and death? Will you make an American of me, and let me
be your brother, indeed?"

After that, we three passed a very happy hour together, after which I
hurried away, with the assurance that Zara would accompany me into the
presence of the czar, that evening. I had not told her of the death of
Prince Michael, for the knowledge of it, and why he had killed himself,
could only cast a shadow over the great joy she was now experiencing;
afterward, there would be a time and place for the telling, and I did
not want the knowledge of it to come upon her with a shock, just now.

Weeks afterward, when we were on the deck of the steamer that was
taking us to my own country, as we stood together, overlooking a
moonlit sea, she reached up, and with one of her soft, fair hands,
turned my face towards hers with a gesture that was characteristic; and
I loved it.

"Dubravnik," she said--she still insists that she will always address
me so, because it is the name by which she first knew me--"I do not
know myself, any more. I am not the same woman who was once so
vengeful. Love has taught me how to forgive. Love has made me over
again. I am no longer the same Zara."

"No," I said lightly, "for now you are Zara Derrington."

"Tell me," she asked, after another interval of gazing across the
waters, "shall we see Alexis Saberevski, over there, where your home
is?"

I did not answer the question, for upon the instant she mentioned the
name of my friend, it recalled to me the circumstance of my last
parting with him. I remembered the sealed envelope he had given me, and
the instructions that came with it. I had forgotten it entirely, until
that moment; but now, without replying to her question, I drew the
missive from my pocket and broke the seal.

What I read there seems wonderfully prophetic to me, even now, and I
read it over a second tim