In the next room the dressmaker still slept, dreaming early morning dreams of lazy apprentices, overdue bills, complaining customers.

Harmony moved lightly not to disturb her.  She set her room in order, fed the pigeons,—­it was then she saw the carrier with its message,—­made her morning coffee by setting the tiny pot inside the stove.  And all the time, moving quietly through her morning routine, she was there in that upper room in body only.

In soul she was again in the courtyard back of the old lodge, in the Street of Seven Stars, with the rabbits stirring in the hutch, and Peter, with rapt eyes, gazing out over the city.  Bed, toilet-table, coffee-pot, Peter; pigeons, rolls, Peter; sunrise over the church roof, and Peter again.  Always Peter!

Monia Reiff was stirring in the next room.  Harmony could hear her, muttering and putting coal on the stove and calling to the Hungarian maid for breakfast.  Harmony dressed hastily.  It was one of her new duties to prepare the workroom for the day.  The luminous streak above the church was rose now, time for the day to begin.

She was not certain at once that some one had knocked at the door, so faint was the sound.

She hesitated, listened.  The knob turned slightly.  Harmony, expecting Monia, called “Come in.”

It was the little Georgiev, very apologetic, rather gray of face.  He stood in the doorway with his finger on his lips, one ear toward the stairway.  It was very silent.  Monia was drinking her coffee in bed, whither she had retired for warmth.

“Pardon!” said the Bulgarian in a whisper.  “I listened until I heard you moving about.  Ah, Fraulein, that I must disturb you!”

“Something has happened!” exclaimed Harmony, thinking of Peter, of course.

“Not yet.  I fear it is about to happen.  Fraulein, do me the honor to open your window.  My pigeon comes now to you to be fed, and I fear—­on the sill, Fraulein.”

Harmony opened the window.  The wild pigeons scattered at once, but the carrier, flying out a foot or two, came back promptly and set about its breakfast.

“Will he let me catch him?”

“Pardon, Fraulein, If I may enter—­”

“Come in, of course.”

Evidently the defection of the carrier had been serious.  A handful of grain on a wrong window-sill, and kingdoms overthrown!  Georgiev caught the pigeon and drew the message from the tube.  Even Harmony grasped the seriousness of the situation.  The little Bulgarian’s face, from gray became livid; tiny beads of cold sweat came out on his forehead.

“What have I done?” cried Harmony.  “Oh, what have I done?  If I had known about the pigeon—­”

Georgiev recovered himself.

“The Fraulein can do nothing wrong,” he said.  “It is a matter of an hour’s delay, that is all.  It may not be too late.”

Monia Reiff, from the next room, called loudly for more coffee.  The sulky Hungarian brought it without a glance in their direction.