ever do it by
the whip, and guns will not help you."

Zaniloff laid a hand upon his shoulder almost in a kindly way.

"My honor alone forbids me to believe that," he exclaimed.

They arrived at the hotel while he spoke and passed immediately to the
private apartments above. A brief intimation that Alban must consider
himself still a prisoner and not leave his rooms under any
circumstances, whatever, found a ready acquiescence from one who had
heard an echo in Lois' words of his own farewell to Russia. That the
authorities would detain him he did not believe, and he knew that his
long task was not here. He must return to England and save Lois. How or
by what means he could not say; for the ultimate threat, so lightly
spoken, affrighted him when he was alone and left him a coward. How,
indeed, if he went to the fanatics of Union Street and said to
them,--"Richard Gessner is your enemy; strike at him." There would be
vengeance surely, but he had received too many kindnesses at Hampstead
that he should contemplate such an infamy. And what other course lay
before him? He could not say, his life seemed lived. Neither ambition
nor desire, apart from the prison he had left, remained to him.

The French valet Malette waited upon him in his rooms and gave him such
news of the Count as the sentinels of the sick-room permitted. Oh, yes,
his excellency was a little better. He had spoken a few words and asked
for his English friend. Nothing was known of the madman who struck him
save that which the papers in his pocket told them. The fellow had been
shot as he left the Grand Duke's palace; some thought that he had been
formerly in the Count's service and that this was merely an act of
vengeance, _mais terrible_, as Malette added with emphasis. Later on his
excellency would be able to tell the story for himself. His grand
constitution had meant very much to him to-day.

The interview took place at three o'clock in the afternoon, the doctors
having left their patient, and the perplexed Zaniloff being again at the
prison. The bed had now been wheeled a little way from the window and
the room set in pleasant order by clever and willing hands. The Count
himself had lost none of his courage. The attack in truth had nerved him
to believe that he had nothing further to fear in Warsaw, for who would
think about a man already as good as buried by the newspapers. Here was
something to help the surgeons and bring some little flush of color t