understand, though he can scarcely expect to pass unrecognized, _hein_?
He is a very headstrong young man, Count Solovieff, and he has some
miraculous escapes! But he is brave as a lion; he will never acknowledge
that there is danger. Now you will sleep again till we reach Dunaburg.
Mishka will be near you if you need him."

I closed my eyes, though not to sleep. So this superb young soldier, who
had interested and attracted me so strangely, was the man whom Anne
loved! Well, he was a man to win any woman's heart; I had to acknowledge
that. I could not even feel jealous of him now. Von Eckhardt was right.
I must still love her, as one infinitely beyond my reach; as the page
loved the queen.

"Is she wronged? To the rescue of her honour
My heart!
Is she poor? What costs it to be styled a donor
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.
But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!"

Yes, I must for the future "choose the page's part," and, if she should
ever have need of me, I would serve her, and take that for my reward!

I fell asleep on that thought, and only woke--feeling fairly fit,
despite the dull ache in my head and the throbbing of the flesh wound in
my shoulder--when we reached Dunaburg, and the cars were shunted to a
siding.

Mishka turned up again, and insisted on valeting me after a fashion,
though I told him I could manage perfectly well by myself. I had come
out of the affair better than most of the passengers, for my baggage had
been in the rear part of the train, and by the time I got to the hotel,
close to the station, was already deposited in the rooms that, I found,
had been secured for me in advance.

I had just finished the light meal which was all Dr. Nabokof would allow
me, when Mishka announced "Count Solovieff," and the Grand Duke Loris
entered.

"Please don't rise, Mr. Wynn," he said in English. "I have come to thank
you for your timely aid. You are better? That is good. You got a nasty
knock on the head just at the end of the fun, which was much too bad! It
was a jolly good fight, wasn't it?"

He laughed like a schoolboy at the recollection; his blue eyes shining
with sheer glee, devoid of any trace of the ferocity that usually marks
a Russian's mirth.

"That's so," I conceded. "And fairly long odds; two unarmed men against
a crowd with knives and bludgeons. Why don't you carry a revolver, sir?"

"I do, as a rule. Why don't you?"

"Because I gues