minute. Then she loosened her hair, letting it fall in rich masses about
her shoulders, and bathed her face and hands, rearranging her veil, and
adding a fresh bit of lace to her throat. I remember distinctly how
profound an impression this strange scene made upon my mind, so different
from any former experience of my life,--its freedom from conventionality,
the lack of all false modesty, the absolute absence of any touch of
coquetry or conscious allurement.

"When it was all over, her beauty being all the more pronounced now that
the tired, nervous look had gone out of her face, she still talked on,
saying how much better and fresher she felt, and how much more rested than
the night before. Suddenly her face saddened, and for many minutes she
kept silence, gazing dreamily down into the abysses white with the rush of
Alpine torrents, or hidden in the early morning fog. Then, finding I would
not sleep, and with an expression as if she had finally resolved upon some
definite action, and with a face in which every line showed the sincerest
confidence and trust,--as unexpected as it was incomprehensible to
me,--she said:--

"'Last night you asked me for my name. I would not tell you then. Now you
shall know. I am the Countess de Rescka Smolenski. I live in Cracow. My
husband died in Venice four days ago. I took him there because he was
ill,--so ill that he was carried in Polaff's arms from the gondola to his
bed. The Russian government permitted me to take him to Italy to die. One
Pole the less is of very little consequence. A week ago this permit was
revoked, and we were ordered to report at Cracow without delay. Why, I do
not know, except perhaps to add another cruelty to the long list of wrongs
the government have heaped upon my family. My husband lingered three days
with the order spread out on the table beside him. The fourth day they
laid him in Campo Santo. That night my maid fell ill. Yesterday morning a