their plaything, their hero, and their willing
slave.

"For then, the spirit of old Poland rang out in my numbers, and I waked
the quivering echoes of woman's heart at will. It was in seventy-three
that I was sent on a special mission to Prince Pierre Troubetskoi's
splendid chateau at Jitomir in Volhynia. The crafty Russians were
watching us even there, and were busied in assembling troops secretly,
at Kiev and Wilna. To another was given the proud place of secret spy
over the higher circles of Wilna, while my duty was to watch Jitomir and
Kiev. Troubetskoi was a bold gallant fellow, an ardent Muscovite, and
had secretly returned from a long sojourn in Paris. He was in close
touch with the Governors of Volhynia, Kiev, and Podolia, and we feared
his sword within, his Parisian connections without. An evil star
brought me into his household as his guest. For nearly a year I was kept
vibrating between the points of danger to us, my personal headquarters
being at the Chateau of Jitomir. And there I lived out my brief
heart-life, for there I met Valerie Troubetskoi. No one seemed to know
where Pierre had found her, but later I learned her story from her own
lips.

"That is, all of the story of a woman's heart-life which is ever
unveiled to any man! She was beautiful beyond--compare, her wistful
tenderness shining out as the moon, softer than the fierce noonday
glare of the passion-transfigured faces of our Polish beauties. For
they loved, for Love's own sake, and Valerie Troubetskoi offered up
the chalice of her own heart in silent sadness. I never saw so lovely a
being."

"Did she look like that?" suddenly demanded Hawke, thrusting a
photograph before the haggard eyes of the broken artist. He gasped, and
tears gathered in his lashes. "Valerie, herself, and, as I knew her only
before her fatal illness had marked her down. Did Alixe give you this?"
He clutched at it with his trembling hands.

"Go on," harshly said Alan Hawke, "the hour is late!"

The Pole buried his face in his thinned hands, and then brokenly
resumed: "The old story--the only one you know. She was about my own
age; Troubetskoi was nearly always away; perhaps he thought to trap all
my traitorous circle through me, or else he was in the secret service
of the hungry Russian eagle. Valerie roamed silently through the great
halls of Jitomir, saddened and lonely, for their union was childless.
My heart spoke to her own in my music; she knew the prayer of my s