As for Stella, she was profoundly in love.  Her whole nature seemed to be awaking and blooming with a new grace and meaning.  Her soft eyes, which glanced at him in the glowing dusk, swam with tenderness and unconscious passion, and once she let her head rest upon his shoulder, when a violent jerk threw her toward him, and at last he encircled her with his arm and there they sat trembling together, she with she knew not what, and he very well knowing, and fighting with temptation.

Thus they spent an hour in a bliss that was growing to agony for him, and then it grew perfectly dark, and the stars came out in myriads in the deep blue sky, and on in front of them the headlights of the motor made a flaming path in the night.

And all this while he had resisted his strong desires, and never even kissed her.

At last human endurance came to an end, and he said to her almost fiercely: 

“Stella, my beloved one, I cannot bear this, I can no longer answer for myself.  I shall settle you comfortably among the furs where you must try to sleep, and I shall go outside with the chauffeur.  If I were to stay—­”

And something in the tone of his voice and in his eyes made her at last have some dim, incomprehensible fear, and yet exaltation, and so she did not try to dissuade him, and soon was alone endeavoring to collect her thoughts and understand the situation.

Thus eventually they reached Viterbo, and drew up at the station door, when Count Roumovski seemed to have regained his usual calm as he helped her out with tender solicitude.  The passengers, they learned, were still in the train, half a mile up the line, waiting until it was cleared to go on to Rome.

At last, after generous greasing of palms, permission was given for Count Roumovski to walk on and find his sister.  And Stella was put back into the motor to await their coming.

Her heart began to beat violently.  What would she be like, this future sister-in-law?  She must be very fond of Sasha to have come from Paris at a moment’s notice like this, to do his bidding.  It seemed a long time before she heard voices, and saw in the dim light two figures advancing from the station entrance, and then Count Roumovski opened the door of the automobile, and Stella started forward to get out.

“Anastasia, this is my Stella,” he said, in his deep voice.  “You cannot see her plainly, but I tell you she is the sweetest little lady in the world, and you are to hasten to love each other as much as I love you both.”

Then in the half dark Stella stepped down and found herself embraced by a tall woman, while a voice as deep for a feminine one as Count Roumovski’s was for a man whispered kind, nice things in the fluent English which brother and sister both used.  And a feeling of warmth and security and happiness came over the poor child, to be in a haven of rest at last.

“Now we shall all pack in and get to Rome before dawn,” the princess said.  “Sasha assures me the automobile will be faster than the train.”