ch seemed to
say that he had an errand there. And here little Lois Boriskoff touched
him upon the shoulder and bade him follow her--just as imagination had
told him would be the case. She had come up to him so silently that even
a trained ear might not have detected her footstep. Whence she came or
how he could not say. The street wherein they met was one of the
narrowest he had yet discovered. The crazy eaves almost touched above
his head--the shops were tenanted by Jews already awake and crying their
merchandise. Had Alban been a traveller he would have matched the scene
only in Nuremberg, the old German town. As it was, he could but stare
open-mouthed.

Lois--was it Lois? The voice rang familiarly enough in his ears, the
eyes were those pathetic, patient eyes he had known so well in London.
But the black hair cut in short and silky curls about the neck, the blue
engineer's blouse reaching to the knees, the stockings and shoes
below--was this Lois or some young relative sent to warn him of her
hiding-place? For an instant he stared at her amazed. Then he
understood.

"Lois--it is Lois?" he said.

The girl looked swiftly up and down the street before she answered him.
He thought her very pale and careworn. He could see that her hands were
trembling while she spoke.

"Go down to the river and ask for Herr Petermann," she said almost in a
whisper. "I dare not speak to you here, Alb dear. Go down to the river
and find out the timber-yard--I shall be there when you come."

She ran from him without another word and disappeared in one of the
rows which diverged from the narrow street and were so many filthy lanes
in the possession of the scum of Warsaw. To Alban both her coming and
her going were full of mystery. If Count Sergius had told him the truth,
the Russian Government wished well not only to her but also to her
father, the poor old fanatic Paul who was now in the prison at
Petersburg. Why, then, was it necessary for her to appear in the streets
of Warsaw disguised as a boy and afraid to exchange a single word with a
friend from England. The truth astounded him and provoked his curiosity
intolerably. Was Lois in danger then? Had the Count been lying to him?
He could come to no other conclusion.

It was not difficult to find Herr Petermann's timber-yard, for many
Englishmen found their way there and many a ship's captain from Dantzig
had business with the merry old fellow whom Alban now sought out at
Lois' bidd