“Then followed in slow, measured sentences the story of her life:  married at seventeen at her father’s bidding to a man twice her age; surrounded by a court the most dissolute in eastern Europe; forced into a social environment that valued woman only as a chattel, and that ostracized or defamed every wife who, reverencing her womanhood, protested against its excesses.  For five years past—­ever since her marriage—­her husband’s career had been one long, unending dissipation.  At last, broken down by a life he had not the moral courage to resist, he had succumbed and taken to his bed; thence, wavering between life and death, like a burnt-out candle flickering in its socket, he had been carried to Venice.

“‘Do you wonder, now, that my faith is gone, my heart broken?’

“We were nearing Vienna; the stations were more frequent; our own carriage began filling up.  For an hour we rode side by side, silent, she gazing fixedly from the window, I half stunned by this glimpse of a life the pathos of which wrung my very heart.  When we entered the station she roused herself, and said to me half pleadingly:—­

“’I cannot bear to think I may never see you again.  To-night I must stay in Vienna.  Will you dine with me at my hotel?  I go to the Metropole.  And you?  Where did you intend to go?’

“‘To the Metropole, also.’

“‘Not when you left Venice?’

“‘Yes; before I met you.’

“‘There is a fate that controls us,’ she said reverently.  ‘Come at seven.’

“When the hour arrived I sent my card to her apartment, and was ushered into a small room with a curtain-closed door opening out into a larger salon, through which I caught glimpses of a table spread with glass and silver.  Polaff, rigid and perpendicular, received me with a stiff, formal recognition.  I do not think he quite understood, nor altogether liked, his mistress’s chance acquaintance.  In a moment she entered from a door opposite, still in her black garments with the nun’s cuffs and broad collar.  Extending her hand graciously, she said:—­

“’You have slept since I left you this morning.  I see it in your face.  I am so glad.  And I too.  I have rested all day.  It was so good of you to come.’

“There was no change in her manner; the same frank, trustful look in her eyes, the same anxious concern about me.  When dinner was announced she placed me beside her, Polaff standing behind her chair, and the other attendants serving.

“The talk drifted again into my own life, she interrupting with pointed questions, and making me repeat again and again the stories I told her of our humble home.  She must learn them herself to tell them to her own people, she said.  It was all so strange and new to her, so simple and so genuine.  With the coffee she fell to talking of her own home, the despotism of Russia, the death of her father, the forcing of her brothers into the army.  Still holding her cup in her hands, she began pacing up and down, her eyes on the floor (we were alone, Polaff having retired).  Then stopping in front of me, and with an earnestness that startled me:—­