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ON SATURDAY AT MIKLEVNI! was behind, and with him Lepage. Ten minutes before, the valet had ridden up to the city gates, waving his handkerchief above his head.

Sophy gave a cry of pleasure at seeing him. "A brave man, who loved his King and served Mon^ seigneur!" she said, as she darted forward and clasped his hand.

Zerko vitch was as excited and hurried as ever. He thrust a letter into her hand. "From Stenovics, madame, for you to read," he said.

She took it, saying to Lepage with a touch of reproach: "Are you General Stenovics's messenger now, Monsieur Lepage?"

"Read it, madame," said he.

She obeyed, and then signed to Lukovitch to take it, and to Dunstanbury to read it also. "It's just what you've been saying," she told him with a faint smile, as she sank back in the high oaken seat.

"I am to add, madame," said Lepage, "that you will be treated with every consideration—any title in reason, any provision in reason, too."

"So the General's letter says."

"But I was told to repeat it," persisted the little man. He looked round on them. Lukovitch and Dunstanbury had finished reading the letter and were listening, too. "If you still hesitated, I was to impress upon you that the guns would certainly be in Slavna in less than a week—almost certainly on Sunday. You know the course of the river well, madame?"

"Not very well above Slavna, no."

"In that case, which General Stenovics didn't omit to consider, I was to remind you that Captain Lukovitch probably knew every inch of it."

"I know it intimately," said Lukovitch. "I spent two years on the timber-barges of the Krath." 299