ration, but his reply did not
answer her question.

"Herr Renwick is indeed fortunate in having so loyal a friend--even
though, as you say, there is nothing between you in common. I envy him
the possession. I hope that he may better deserve it."

She smiled but did not speak for a moment and then, "Why is it that you
so dislike a man whom you do not know--whom you--you have never seen?"

Goritz bent forward toward her, his voice lowered while his strange dark
eyes gazed full into hers:

"Need I tell you?" he whispered. "You have thought me cruel, because I
have done my duty, heartless--cold--a mere piece of official machinery
which could balk at nothing--even the destruction of a woman's
happiness--because my allegiance to my country was greater than any
personal consideration. But I am not insensible to the appeals of
gentleness, not blind to beauty nor deaf to music, Countess Strahni, as
you have thought. Beneath the exterior which may have seemed forbidding
to you, I am only human. Last night I took advantage of your weariness
and weakness in telling you, with cruel bluntness, of Herr Renwick's
relations with the Serbian government. I learned what you have labored
to conceal--that you care for him--that you care for one who----"

"It is not true," she broke in calmly. "I do not care for Herr Renwick."

"It would delight me to believe you," he went on with a shake of the
head, "but I cannot. It has been very painful to me to see you suffer,
for whatever you have done in a mistaken sense of loyalty to your
country, nothing can alter the fact of your innocence, your virtue, and
your dependence upon my kindness in a most trying situation. I have told
you the facts about Herr Renwick because I have believed it my duty, to
you and to Austria. If I have hurt you, Countess Strahni," he finished
gently, "I pray that you will forgive me."

Marishka was silent, now looking straight before her down the mountain
road which they were descending slowly. The voice of Captain Goritz had
a sonorous quality which could not have been unpleasant to the ears of
any woman. She listened to it soberly, trying to detect the tinkle of
the spurious, but she was forced to admit that beyond and behind the
mere phrases which might in themselves mean nothing, there was a depth
of earnestness that might have proved bewildering to one less versed in
the ways of the world than herself. His eyes, singularly clear and
luminous, dominated and held