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BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. 175

" You have excited into action some old memories," she said, " and you have a strange resemblance to that poor girl's lover ; he had marked the day as I tell you with a white stone, and its sun set in blood ; you are not so en- grossed with the betrothal of your love. It is well ; I admire your English sangfroid ; it is the reason why you are great ; you can look love and destiny, victory and defeat, heaven and hell in the eye straight, and you do not flinch. Indeed you are a great people ! "

11 Ah ! madame, for some reason you mock me," said Philip. " I have offended you j if I dared say all I think and feel about you the admiration you have inspired in me, the ambition that lies beyond that mere daub you have been good enough to praise, that boyish fancy, the weakness of which since last night I see with the eyes of a man !"

" Another day," she said, interrupting. " Please ring for my carriage ; and believe what I say when I tell you I am not angry ; that I feel all you say deep in my heart ; that you have awakened there sensations that have been dead for years ; and if we do not meet again, let me beg of you to finish that picture ; it will bring you fame ; I com- mission it ; paint it for me ; it shall have the first place in my gallery ; it shall have a home in my heart." She turned as if to go; then with her eyes full upon him, she said, quickly : " In my country there is the kiss of friendship and there is the kiss of peace ; I give to you that salute, and with me it is the kiss of a sweet memory that lasted for a moment, to be lost in the shadow of a tragedy more terrible than that you have dreamed of in your art and in your tender sympathies with the persecuted and distressed. Adieu ! "

She kissed him on both cheeks and was gone out at the open door before he could attend her. While the wheels of her brougham rattled out at the portal of the court-yard he stood in a heat of strange delightful surprise, looking