“My dear young lady,” said he smiling, but still greatly embarrassed, “it is my good fortune to be able to congratulate you.  Ah, I thought that would bring some brightness to your eyes—­”

She raised his hand, and kissed it twice passionately.

“Mother,” she said, in a wild, joyful way, “will you not thank him for me?  I do not know what I am saying—­and then—­”

The general had turned to her mother.  Natalie quickly took out the telegraph-form, unfolded it, knelt down and put it on the garden-seat, and with trembling fingers wrote her message:  “You are saved!  Come to us at once; my mother and I wait here for you;” that was the substance of it.  Then she rose, and for a second or two stood irresolute, silent, and shamefaced.  Happily no one had noticed her.  These two had gone forward, and were talking together in a low voice.  She did not join them; she could not have spoken then, her heart was throbbing so violently with its newly-found joy.

“Stefan,” said the mother—­and there was a pleasant light in her sad eyes too—­“I shall never forget the gratitude we owe you.  I have nothing else to regard now but my child’s happiness.  You have saved her life to her.”

“Yes, yes,” he said, in stammering haste, “I am glad the child is happy.  It would be a pity, at her time of life, and such a beautiful, brave young lady—­yes, it would be a pity if she were to suffer:  I am very glad.  But there is another side to the question, Natalie; it refers to you.  I have not such good news for you—­that is, it depends on how you take it; but it is not good news—­it will trouble you—­only, it was inevitable—­”

“What do you mean?” she said, calmly.

“Your husband,” he said, regarding her somewhat anxiously.

“Yes,” she said, without betraying any emotion.

“Well, you understand, we had not the power to release your English friend unless there had been injustice—­or worse—­in his being appointed.  There was.  More than that, it was very nearly a repetition of the old story.  Your husband was again implicated.”

She merely looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

“And the Council,” he said, more embarrassed than ever, “had to try him for his complicity.  He was tried and—­condemned.”

“To what?” she said, quite calmly.

“You must know, Natalie.  He loses his life!”

She turned very pale.

“It was not so before,” she managed to say, though her breath came and went quickly.

“It was; but then he was pardoned.  This time there is no hope.”

She stood silent for a second or two; then she said, regarding him with a sad look,

“You think me heartless, Stefan.  You think I ought to be overwhelmed with grief.  But—­but I have been kept from my child for seventeen years.  I have lived with the threat of the betrayal of my father hanging over me.  The affection of a wife cannot endure everything.  Still, I am—­sorry—­”