She stopped abruptly, with a quick, frightened look, first at George Brand, then at her father.

“You need not hesitate, Natalie,” her father said, calmly.  “Mr. Brand has given me his word of honor he will reveal nothing he may hear from us.”

“I do not think you need be afraid,” said Brand; but all the same he was conscious of a keen pang of mortification.  He, too, had noticed that quick look of fright and distrust.  What did it mean, then? “You are beside us, you are near to us; but you are not of us, you are not with us.”

He was silent, and she was silent too.  She seemed ashamed of her indiscretion, and would say nothing further about Vjera Sassulitch.

“Don’t imagine, Mr. Brand,” said her father, to break this awkward silence, “that what Natalie says is true.  She is not going to be so idle as all that.  No; she has plenty of hard work before her—­at least, I think it hard work—­translating from the German into Polish.”

“I wish I could help,” Brand said, in a low voice.  “I do not know a word of Polish.”

“You help?” she said, regarding him with the beautiful dark eyes, that had a sudden wonder in them.  “Would you, if you knew Polish?”

He met that straight, fearless glance without flinching; and he said “Yes,” while they still looked at each other.  Then her eyes fell; and perhaps there was the slightest flush of embarrassment, or pleasure, on the pale, handsome face.

But how quickly her spirits rose!  There was no more talk of politics as they neared England.  He described the successive ships to her; he called her attention to the strings of wild-duck flying up Channel; he named the various headlands to her.  Then, as they got nearer and nearer, the little Anneli had to be sought out, and the various travelling impedimenta got together.  It did not occur to Mr. Lind or his daughter as strange that George Brand should be travelling without any luggage whatever.

But surely it must have occurred to them as remarkable that a bachelor should have had a saloon-carriage reserved for himself—­unless, indeed, they reflected that a rich Englishman was capable of any whimsical extravagance.  Then, no sooner had Miss Lind entered this carriage, than it seemed as though everything she could think of was being brought for her.  Such flowers did not grow in railway-stations—­especially in the month of March.  Had the fruit dropped from the telegraph-poles?  Cakes, wine, tea, magazines and newspapers appeared to come without being asked for.

“Mr. Brand,” said Natalie, “you must be an English Monte Cristo:  do you clap your hands, and the things appear?”

But a Monte Cristo should never explain.  The conjuror who reveals his mechanism is no longer a conjuror.  George Brand only laughed, and said he hoped Miss Lind would always find people ready to welcome her when she reached English shores.