t!"

Then, with a swift change of voice and manner, she laid her hands on her
father's shoulders, kissed him, and murmured:

"Good-night, Dad--at least as far as this world is concerned."

CHAPTER XXI

WHAT HAPPENED AT TRELITZ

It was the 6th of June again.

Once more Prince Zastrow rode with Ulik von Kessner and Alexis Vollmar
and the attendant huntsmen up the avenue of pines leading to the gate of
the Castle of Trelitz, but now accompanied by two unseen Presences which
belonged at once to their own world and also to another and wider one.
Once more the great doors opened and they passed into the trophy-decked,
skin-carpeted hall: and once more they were welcomed by the stately,
silken-clad woman who came down the broad staircase to greet her lord
and his guests. Emil von Zastrow, last and worthiest scion of his
ancient line, the very _beau ideal_ of youthful strength and manly
dignity, ran half-way up the stairs to meet his lady and his love, and
then the men went away to their rooms, while the Princess Hermia, true
housewife as well as princess, betook herself to the pleasant task of
making sure that all the preparations for dinner were complete.

The dinner was served in one of the smaller rooms, in the modern wing of
the Castle, on an oval table. The Prince sat at one end faced by his
beautiful consort. To his right sat his guest, Alexis Vollmar, and a
tall, handsome, but somewhat hard-featured woman of about thirty, with
the clear blue eyes and thick, yellow-gold hair which proclaimed her a
daughter of the northern German lowlands. This was Hulda von Tyssen, the
Princess's companion and lady-in-waiting. They were faced by a stout,
powerfully-built man with a full beard and moustache _a la_ Friedrich,
Ulik von Kessner, High Chamberlain of Boravia. Captain Alexis Vollmar
was a typical Russian officer of the younger school, tall, well-set-up,
and good-looking after the Muscovite fashion. He had distinguished
himself in the Far East, but just now he preferred the serene atmosphere
of Boravia to the thunder-laden air of Holy Russia.

The talk was of hunting and war and politics and the chances of the
Russian revolution, and on this latter subject it was perfectly
unrestrained, for all knew that the Powers had made a secret compact by
which they bound themselves, in the event of the fall of the Romanoff
Dynasty and the Arch-Ducal oligarchy--which all Europe would be very
glad to see the last of--to supp