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BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. 167

duke's assurances of sympathy with the Czar and his Government.

CHAPTER XXII.

FACE TO FACE.

A MONTH of strange atmospheric vagaries the month of April in the English Metropolis a month of sun and shade, of calm and storm, of east winds and southern breezes, of rain and sleet, of cruel chills and softened tenderness ; and all the while a month of budding blos- soms, of waving leaves and scented sweetbriar; a month, so to speak, of ups and downs, like a man's life. It lacked, perhaps, the violent contrasts, nevertheless, of the career of the Countess Stravensky, who, despite the blast- ing cyclone of ill-fortune, stood when all was over like a poplar that had been able to defy the storm, but stood all alone, with the forest torn and ragged and uprooted around it.

When Philip Forsyth, the morning after Mrs. Chetwynd's reception, walked from Gower Street to his studio beyond Primrose Hill to receive his new and strangely fascinating sitter, London was a summer city, though it was still only April, and there had been a fall of snow and a hailstorm in the preceding week. Regent's Park was radiant with a sunshine that had in it the warmth of June with the freshness of the most genial of Spring days, and there were pleasant shadows in it from the trail of morning clouds, and the air was full of the perfume of flowers. The brown tanned beds in the broad walk were gay with budding hyacinths, and the fountain was making music in its granite basin. The chestnuts were full of white promise of early bloom, and the leaves were as fresh and green as