"Ivan will guard your room, and my sister will come to you soon.
Do as I tell you, beloved one, and then all will be well."

With which he opened the door, and left her standing by the sofa
quivering with a strange joy and perplexity--and some other wild
emotion of which she had not dreamed.




CHAPTER VIII


It seemed an endless time the hour that she waited in her room,
and then a knock came to the door, and Ivan's voice saying his
master desired her presence in the sitting-room at once, and she
hurriedly went there to find Count Roumovski standing by the
mantelpiece looking very grave.

"Stella," he said, "there has been an accident to the train my
sister was to have arrived by--it is not serious, but she cannot
be here now until the early morning perhaps--unless I send the
automobile to Viterbo for her. The line is blocked by a broken-
down goods train which caused the disaster," he paused a moment,
and Stella said, "Well?" rather anxiously.

"It will be impossible for us to remain here," he continued,
"because it may be that your relations, aided by the Embassy, will
have traced us before then, and if they should come upon us alone
together, nothing that I could say or prove could keep the