“Eyes looked love to eyes that spake again.  And all went merry as a marriage bell,”

so long as they could see each other every day.

As the summer passed, the young captain, grown more confident, wrote ardent love letters to his lady, which were surreptitiously slipped into her hands at casual meetings, or conveyed to her by means of bribed domestics; and these the willful beauty answered in the same spirit, as opportunity was offered her by the same means.  But—­

“A change came o’er the spirit of their dream.”

The French minister was recalled home by his sovereign, and only awaited the arrival of his successor to take an official leave of the Czar.

About this time a letter from Volaski to Valerie was sent by the captain’s faithful valet, and put in the hands of the lady’s confidential maid, who secretly conveyed it to her mistress.  This letter, which was fiery enough to have set any ordinary post-bag in a blaze, declared, among other matters, that the lady’s answer would decide the writer’s fate, for life or for death.

Mademoiselle de la Motte sat down and wrote a reply which she sent by her confidential maid, who placed it in the hands of the captain’s faithful valet, to be secretly carried to his master.

Whether the answer decided the fate of the lover for life or for death, it certainly controlled his action in an important matter.  Immediately on its receipt he hastened to the Hotel de l’Etat Major, the headquarters of the army department, and solicited a month’s leave of absence to visit his father’s family.

As it was the very first occasion upon which the young officer had asked such a favor, it was promptly granted him.

Of course no one suspected that the cause of the young captain’s action had been the announcement that the French minister had been recalled by his government, and was about to return to Paris.

The next day Waldemar de Volaski left St. Petersburg, ostensibly to visit his father’s estates in Poland.

And the next week the French minister, having presented his successor to the Czar, and received his own conge, left the court and the city, and set out for France.

The ministerial party travelled by the new railway from St. Petersburg to Warsaw, a distance of nearly seven hundred miles.

At the capital of Poland they designed to stop a few days to rest the baroness, whose health was suffering.

One day while in that city the baroness, her daughter, and the lady’s maid, went out together, shopping for curiosities in the Marieville Bazaar, a square in the midst of the city, surrounded by many gay arcades.

The square was full of visitors, and every arcade was crowded with customers.

The baroness became somewhat interested in her purchases, and from moment to moment turned to consult her daughter, who seemed ever ready so assist her choice.