voice with his neighbors and cursed. As Steinmetz passed him he gave a
little jerk of the head toward the castle. The jerk of the head might
have been due to an inequality of the road, but it might also convey an
appointment. The keen, haggard face of Michael Roon showed no sign of
mutual understanding. And the carriage rattled on through the stricken
village.

Two hours later, when it was quite dark, a closed carriage, with two
bright lamps flaring into the night, passed through the village toward
the castle at a gallop.

"It is the prince," the peasants said, crouching in their low door-ways.
"It is the prince. We know his bells--they are of silver--and we shall
starve during the winter. Curse him--curse him!"

They raised their heads and listened to the galloping feet with the
patient, dumb despair which is the curse of the Slavonic race. Some of
them crept to their doors, and, looking up, saw that the castle windows
were ablaze with light. If Paul Howard Alexis was a plain English
gentleman in London, he was also a great prince in his country, keeping
up a princely state, enjoying the gilded solitude that belongs to the
high-born. His English education had educed a strict sense of
discipline, and as in England, and, indeed, all through his life, so in
Russia did he attempt to do his duty.

The carriage rattled up to the brilliantly lighted door, which stood
open, and within, on either side of the broad entrance-hall, the
servants stood to welcome their master. A strange, picturesque, motley
crew: the majordomo, in his black coat, and beside him the other
house-servants--tall, upright fellows, in their bright livery. Beyond