and walked with her head bent low. I felt rather a clumsy fool. She was such a sensitive little body, that the thought of my being killed, as the result of her having got me to help her brother away, naturally upset her. She couldn't know how gladly I should welcome the other man's sword-point between my ribs.

After a pause of considerable constraint she said:—

"There is no need whatever for you to go out and meet Major Devinsky. You can do as Alexis said; be ill in bed until the passport comes back, and then leave."

"Oh, I'm not one to play the coward in that way," said I, lightly, when a look of reproach from those most expressive eyes of hers made me curse myself for a clumsy fool for this reflection on her brother's want of pluck. "I mean this. If I take up a part in anything I must play it my own way; but there's more than that behind. I don't want to look like bragging before you; but I have come out here to Russia to volunteer for the war which everyone says must come with Turkey. I've done it because—well, you may guess that a man has a pretty strong reason when he wants to volunteer to fight another country's battles. It's the sort of thing in which he can expect plenty of the kicks, while others get all the ha'pence. I've not been a success in England and I've had a stroke lately that's made me sick of things. I can't explain all this in detail: but the long and short of it is that if anything were to happen to me to-morrow morning, it would be the most welcome thing imaginable for me. Now, you'll understand what I mean when I tell you that nothing you can say as to the danger of the business can do anything but attract me. If I could only feel my blood tingling again in a rush of excitement, I'd give anything."

My companion listened carefully to this, and her tell-tale face was all sympathy when I finished. Obviously she was deeply interested.

"Have you no mother or sister?" she asked.

"No—fortunately for them."

"Have you never had anyone to lean on you and trust to you for guidance and protection? That helps a good man."

"No. But I've had those who've taken good care to break my trust in them—and everything else." This with a bitter little reminiscent sneer and a shrug of the shoulders. "Still, it has its advantages. Any new part I might wish to play could not be more barren than the old."

My companion shot a glance up in my face as I said this, but made no answer. It was I who broke the silence.

"Time is flying," I said, in a lighter tone: "and I have much to learn if I am to be your brother for the next two or three days. I want to know where I live, where you live, all that you can tell me about my brother officers and my duties—everything. Indeed that is necessary to prevent my being at once discovered."

After some further expostulation she told me that she and her brother were orphans; that they had come about a year or so before to Moscow on her brother being transferred to this regiment; and that the brother had private quarters in the Square of St. Mark, while she lived with an aunt, their only relative, in a suite of rooms close to the Cathedral. They were of a very old family, neither rich nor poor, but having enough to live comfortably and mix in some amount of society.

I gathered, however, that Alexis had been the source of much trouble. He had embarrassed his money affairs; lived a fast life, become involved with the Nihilists; dragged in his sister; and had ended by compromising himself in many quarters. She told me the story, so much as she knew of it, very deftly, intending no doubt to screen her brother; but I could read enough between the lines to understand that his life had been anything but saintly. Moreover, I was very much mistaken if he were not as arrant a coward as ever crowed on a dung-hill and ran away when the time came for fighting.

All this gave me plenty of food for thought—some of it disagreeable enough. It was no pleasant thing to take up the part of a coward and a scape-grace. Scapegrace I had been all my life in a way: but no man ever thought me a coward.

I take no credit to myself for not being a coward; and I am quite ready to believe that there are sound physiological reasons for it. Nature may have forgotten to give me those nerves by which men feel fear; but it is the case that never in my life have I experienced even a passing sensation of fear. I would just as soon die as go to sleep. I have seen men—much better men than I, and quite as truly brave—shudder at the idea of death and shrink with dread from the thought of pain. But at no time in my life have I cared for either; and I have come to regard this as due to Nature's considerate omissions in my creation. Certain other omissions of hers have not been so considerate.

This will explain, however, why the thought of the danger which troubled my new "sister" so much did not cause me even a passing uneasiness, especially at such a time. What I was anxious to do was to get hold of as much detail as possible of my new character; and I was sufficiently interested by it to wish to play it successfully.

To this end I questioned my companion very closely indeed about the names and appearance of the brother's friends and fellow officers, about the habits of military life, and in short about everything I deemed likely to help me not to stumble.

At the close of the examination I said:——

"At any rate we two must begin to rehearse. You must call me Alexis and must allow me to call you Olga; and we must do it always to avoid slips."

She saw the need but blushed a bit when I added:—-"And now, Olga, we'll make our first practical experiment. We'll go together to my rooms and you must shew me what sailors call my bearings."

"Shall we walk—Alexis?" she asked, her eyes bright and her cheeks ruddy with pretty confusion.

"By all means—Olga," I answered, returning her smile, and imitating her emphasis on the Christian name. "Do you know that my sister's name has a very quaint sound in my ears, and comes very trippingly to a brother's tongue?"

"But you don't like it and you think it common," she returned.

"I?"

"Yes, you have often said so, Alexis. Surely you remember. Why, only this morning you said how silly you had always thought it," she replied, demurely.

"Oh, I see," I laughed. "Ah, I've changed that opinion. A good many other things have changed too, since this morning," I added drily; and we both laughed then, and, considering the circumstances, were in extremely good spirits.

"Alexis," she cried, with a sudden warning, as we turned a corner into the Square of St. Gregory. "Don't you see who is coming toward us? Major Devinsky and Lieutenants Trackso and Weisswich. The major will pass next you. What will you do?" She asked this in a quick hurried voice.

"Cut him as dead as a door nail," said I, instantly, drawing myself up. "And the other fellows too; are they friends of mine, by the way?"

"No, they are his toadies," she whispered.

Olga bent her face down and would not see them; but I squared my shoulders and held my head aloft, fixing my eyes steadily on the three men as they approached. At first they did not recognise me. Then I saw one of them start, and making a rapid motion of his hand across his chin, he whispered to his companion, both of whom started in their turn and laughed.

As we passed the major made an effusive bow to my "sister" which the other two copied, while all three sneered with an air of insolent braggadocio and simultaneously put their hands to their chins as their eyes fell on me.

My blood seethed with anger at the insult. Nothing could have fired my eagerness more effectively to begin the drama of my new life. If I didn't punish each of those three for that insult, it should be because death stepped in to stop me.

"I am glad we met them," said I, smiling. "I shall know now which is my adversary to-morrow, and shan't pink the wrong man by mistake. But you look a bit scared,