"I heard," said Maggie at length, in a measured voice, "that he had gone abroad for big game."

"Yes--to India."

"He did not go to America?" enquired Maggie indifferently. She was idly throwing fragments of wood into the river.

"No," answered Steinmetz, looking straight in front of him. "No, he did not go to America."

"And you?"

"I--oh, I stayed at home. I have taken a house. It is behind the trees.

You cannot see it. I live at peace with all men and pay my bills every week. Sometimes Paul comes and stays with me. Sometimes I go and stay with him in London or in Scotland. I smoke and shoot water-rats, and watch the younger generation making the same mistakes that we made in our time. You have heard that my country is in order again? They have remembered me. For my sins they have made me a count. Bon Dieu! I do not mind. They may make me a prince, if it pleases them."

He was watching her face beneath his grim old eyebrows.

"These details bore you," he said.

"No."

"When Paul and I are together we talk of a new heaven and a new Russia.

But it will not come in our time. We are only the sowers, and the harvest is not yet. But I tell Paul that he has not sown wild oats, nor sour grapes, nor thistles."

He paused, and the expression of his face changed to one of semi-humorous gravity.

"Mademoiselle," he went on, "it has been my lot to love the prince like a son. It has been my lot to stand helplessly by while he passed through many troubles. Perhaps the good God gave him all his troubles at first.

Do you think so?"

Maggie was looking straight in front of her across the quiet river.

"Perhaps so," she said.

Steinmetz also stared in front of him during a little silence. The common thoughts of two minds may well be drawn together by the contemplation of a common object. Then he turned toward her.

"It will be a happiness for him to see you," he said quietly.

Maggie ceased breaking small branches and throwing them into the river.

She ceased all movement, and scarcely seemed to breathe.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"He is staying with me here."

Maggie glanced toward the canoe. She drew a short, sharp breath, but she did not move.

"Mademoiselle," said Steinmetz earnestly, "I am an old man, and in my time I have dabbled pretty deeply in trouble. But taking it all around, even my life has had its compensations. And I have seen lives which, taken as a mere mortal existence, without looking to the hereafter at all, have been quite worth the living. There is much happiness in life to make up for the rest. But that happiness must be firmly held. It is so easily slipped through the fingers. A little irresolution--a little want of moral courage--a little want of self-confidence--a little pride, and it is lost. You follow me?"

Maggie nodded. There was a great tenderness in her eyes--such a tenderness as, resting on men, may bring them nearer to the angels.

Steinmetz laid his large hand over hers.

"Mademoiselle," he went on, "I believe that the good God sent you along this lonely river in your boat. Paul leaves me to-morrow. His arrangements are to go to India and shoot tigers. He will sail in a week. There are things of which we never speak together--there is one name that is never mentioned. Since Osterno you have avoided meeting him. God knows I am not asking for him any thing that he would be afraid to ask for himself. But he also has his pride. He will not force himself in where he thinks his presence unwelcome."

Steinmetz rose somewhat ponderously and stood looking down at her. He did not, however, succeed in meeting her eyes.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "I beg of you most humbly--most respectfully--to come through the garden with me toward the house, so that Paul may at least know that you are here."

He moved away and stood for a moment with his back turned to her, looking toward the house. The crisp rustle of her dress came to him as she rose to her feet.

Without looking round, he walked slowly on. The path through the trees was narrow, two could not walk abreast. After a few yards Steinmetz emerged on to a large, sloping lawn with flower beds, and a long, low house above it. On the covered terrace a man sat writing at a table. He was surrounded by papers, and the pen in his large, firm hand moved rapidly over the sheet before him.

"We still administer the estate," said Steinmetz, in a low voice. "From our exile we still sow our seed."

They approached over the mossy turf, and presently Paul looked up--a strong face, stern and self-contained; the face of a man who would always have a purpose in life, who would never be petty in thought or deed.

For a moment he did not seem to recognize them. Then he rose, and the pen fell on the flags of the terrace.

"It is mademoiselle!" said Steinmetz, and no other word was spoken.

Maggie walked on in a sort of unconsciousness. She only knew that they were all acting an inevitable part, written for them in the great libretto of life. She never noticed that Steinmetz had left her side, that she was walking across the lawn alone.

Paul came to meet her, and took her hand in silence. There was so much to say that words seemed suddenly valueless; there was so little to say that they were unnecessary.

For that which these two had to tell each other cannot be told in minutes, nor yet in years; it cannot even be told in a lifetime, for it is endless, and it runs through eternity.

THE END