He knew the note to strike, and struck with a sure hand.  The barricade was torn aside, and the people swept forward, falling on their knees, grovelling at Paul’s feet, kissing the hem of his garment, seizing his strong hands in theirs.

It was a mighty harvest.  That which is sown in the people’s hearts bears a thousandfold at last.

“Get them out of the place—­open the big doors,” said Paul to Steinmetz.  He stood cold and grave among them.

Some of them were already sneaking toward the door—­the ringleaders, the talkers from the towns—­mindful of their own necks in this change of feeling.

Steinmetz hustled them out, bidding them take their dead with them.  Some of the servants reappeared, peeping, white-faced, behind curtains.  When the last villager had crossed the threshold, these ran forward to close and bar the great doors.

“No,” said Paul, from the head of the stairs, “leave them open.”

So the great doors stood defiantly open.  The lights of the state staircase flared out over the village as the peasants crept crest-fallen to their cottages.  They glanced up shamefacedly, but they had no word to say.

Steinmetz, in the drawing-room, looked at Paul with his resigned semi-humorous shrug of the shoulders.

“Touch-and-go, mein lieber!” he said.

“Yes; an end of Russia for us,” answered the prince.

He moved toward the door leading through to the old castle.

“I am going to look for Etta,” he said.

“And I,” said Steinmetz, going to the other entrance, “am going to see who opened the side door.”

CHAPTER XLIII

BEHIND THE VEIL

“Will you come with me?” said Paul to Maggie.  “I will send the servants to put this room to rights.”

Maggie followed him out of the room, and together they went through the passages, calling Etta and looking for her.  There was an air of gloom and chilliness in the rooms of the old castle.  The outline of the great stones, dimly discernible through the wall-paper, was singularly suggestive of a fortress thinly disguised.

“I suppose,” said Paul, “that Etta lost her nerve.”

“Yes,” answered Maggie doubtfully; “I think it was that.”

Paul went on.  He carried a lamp in one steady hand.

“We shall probably find her in one of these rooms,” he said.  “It is so easy to lose one’s self among the passages and staircases.”

They passed on through the great smoking-room, with its hunting trophies.  The lynx, with its face of Claude de Chauxville, grinned at them darkly from its pedestal.

Half-way down the stairs leading to the side door they met Steinmetz coming hastily up.  His face was white and drawn with horror.

“You must not go down here,” he said, in a husky voice, barring the passage with his arm.

“Why not?”