another world, dear, and so did I. My father made
me promise that I would not try to see you for six months, and I kept my
word. That was better for you and better for me. If money had changed
you, and money does change most of us, you would have been happier for
my silence. I have told you about the letters, and that's God's truth.
If I had not been ashamed, I couldn't have kept my word, for I loved
you, dear, and I shall always love you. When my father sent you to Mr.
Gessner's house, I think he wished to find out if his good opinion of
you was right or not. He said that you were going to carry a sword into
Wonderland and kill some of the giants. If you came back to us, you were
to marry me, but if you forgot us, then he would never believe in any
man again. There's the truth for you, my dear, I tell you because it all
means nothing to me now. I could not go to London and leave my father in
prison here, and they will never release him, Alban, they will never do
it as things are, for they are more frightened of him than of any man in
Russia. When I go away from here, it will be to Petersburg to try and
see my father. There's no one else in all the world to help him, and I
shall go there and try to see him. If they will let me stay with him,
that will be something, dear. You can ask them that for me; when Mr.
Gessner writes, you can beg it of the Ministry in Mr. Gessner's name."

"Ask them to send you to prison, Lois?"

"To send me to my father, dear."

Alban sat very silent, almost ashamed for himself and his own desires.
The stupendous sacrifice of which she spoke so lightly revealed to him a
page in the story of human sympathy which he had often read and as often
derided. Here in the prison cell he stood face to face with human love
as Wonderland knew nothing of it. Supreme above all other desires of her
life, this desire to save her father, to share his sorrows, to stand by
him to the end, prevailed. The riches of the world could not purchase a
devotion as precious, or any fine philosophy belittle it. He knew that
she would go to Petersburg because Paul Boriskoff, her father, had need
of her. This was her answer to his selfish complaints during the years
of their exile.

"And what am I to do if they give you the permission, Lois?"

"To go back to London and marry Anna Gessner. Won't you do that, Alban?"

"You know that I shall never do so."

"There was a time when you would not have said that, my dear."

He