tinue
to refuse."

As Barbara was just going into her bedroom at this moment, she made
no reply. Nona was more reassuring.

"Of course it was all right, Mildred, or at least I suppose it was if
General Alexis insisted, and you had done a great deal for him."

Then Nona followed Barbara. Barbara was standing perfectly still in the
center of the room and apparently thinking with all the concentration
possible.

"I wonder if this General Alexis is more fond of Mildred than he would
be of any nurse who might have cared for him?" Barbara murmured. Then
she shook her head. "That was an absurd suggestion on my part and
Mildred would not like it. I am sorry," she said.

At the door of the Winter Palace, after the girls had passed beyond the
servants and the detectives who watch every human being permitted to
approach their Imperial Majesties, the three American girls were ushered
into a reception room. Except for the fact that there were more
paintings on the walls, the room resembled other similar chambers now
left on exhibition at Versailles or the Louvre in Paris.

However, the girls had little time for investigation, for almost at once
General Alexis entered the room to greet them. He was accompanied by a
lieutenant who was his aide. To Nona Davis' surprise, the young man
proved to be Lieutenant Michael Orlaff, whom she had not seen since the
afternoon when she had walked to the fortress with him and confided the
news of Sonya Valesky's arrest.

After a few moments of general conversation a man servant, wearing an
elaborate uniform, announced that General Alexis and his guests might
walk into the Czar's private sitting room.

Naturally this was a very unusual proceeding, but war times had changed
the manners of courts as well as other places. Moreover, General Alexis
was a personal friend of the Czar's, so far as a Czar may ever have a
friend. In any case, he was one of his most trusted generals. This
reception to the American Red Cross girls was entirely due to the fact
that General Alexis had declared Mildred Thornton's courage and devotion
had saved his life. But of this she was not yet aware.

The Czar and Czarina were not decorating gilded thrones as one sees them
in portraits or paints them in one's own imagination. Indeed, they were
seated in chairs, but rose as any other host and hostess might when
their guests came into the room. They were not alone, however, for
beside the guards stationed outside their