224 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.
" God help you," she said, " and forgive me ; if He does help if He does forgive," and she covered her eyes with her hands.
Philip only repeated " I love you," while the train went gliding along through green meadows, whitened here and there with the first blossoms of the spring.
" You must not love me," she said presently, " I can be to you nothing more than a memory, not even a friend."
" You can, you must," replied the passionate youth, utterly oblivious of his engagement to Dolly, with no thought or sense or feeling but what belonged to the moment.
" I wish it might be," she said, struggling against her fate.
" From the first moment I saw you," he exclaimed, stimulated by her expressed wish " that it might be," and with the belief that to love or passion everything is pos- sible, " on that night at the opera, I adored you ; from this happy day forth I am your slave ! "
" Forbear ! " she said. " It will iiot prove a happy day. I would love you if I could, if I dared. It is impossible. Our destinies are as far asunder as the poles."
" They shall be brought together," he replied passion- ately, "as close as our lips." And he had kissed her be- fore she could make even a show of resistance.
Then there was a pause, but she let the hand he had seized lie passively in his ; and the train went beating along its iron way, past farm and station, skirting wood- lands and pastures. The clouds went racing along too, and Philip's hot blood coursed through his veins in sym- pathy.
He stole his arm about her waist, as no man had since the days of Losinski. She permitted it, forgetting why she had at first shuddered at his touch, and allowing her- self to drift along with the fond embrace and honeyed words
