eautiful Princess!" he whispered softly, as he leaned toward her
pale, smiling, gentle face.

Her delicately curved red lips played with mingled melancholy and
happiness, and almost childish impulse; and when she spoke, the words
were deeply toned, sounding almost like sighs, yet with rapid and
impetuous utterance, like a warm shower of blossoms from her
beauteous mouth.

"My lover," she said, and Paul's heart leaped with wild joy at the
words, "my lover for this one day--listen while I tell what I can hide
from you no longer."

And then with halting words she told him of her peril.

"That house where you stayed last night," she said, "it is the home of
my cousin Boris," and a sudden shudder passed over her as she spoke
the name. "He has long wished to marry me--and I have steadfastly
refused; I cannot tell you how I loathe him. It was to escape his
importunities that I went to Switzerland--and alas! now I have come
back, at the order of the Tsar, who commands me to yield to him." She
paused. Paul drew her close in tender sympathy.

"I thought once," she went on, "when I left Paris a week ago, that I
could force myself to do this hateful thing. A faithful subject must
obey the Tsar. But now I know not what the outcome will be. I cannot
make up my mind to consent--and Boris grows more impatient every day.
Tell me," she turned her wonderful eyes up to Paul--"what manner of
people had he with him?"

And Paul described to his lady the villainous Michael with the red
hands, and Virot, the oily Frenchman. And as he told of Mademoiselle
Ivanovitch, the red-haired woman, the lady's lip curled scornfully.

"A tissue of lies!" she cried. "Those men are the scum of Europe,
blackguards of the worst type--the kind Boris has always gathered
round him from his boyhood. And the woman--bah!--he has no sister. She
is but a mistress he would have long since cast off were it not that
she sometimes is of assistance in his wicked plans."

Then Paul told her of the disturbance of the night before, and of his
encounter with the woman that very morning.

Natalie clasped Paul's hand--he thrilled beneath the sudden tightening
of her fingers.

"Ah!" she breathed, in sudden agitation, "they must in some way have
known your mission all the time. I tremble when I think of the peril
you were in. Boris is hot-headed, and it must have angered him almost
beyond endurance when he knew that he entertained a rival beneath his
own roof. Some men