"Being Chapters from the Secret History of the Imperial Court of Russia" (continued 5)

“His Majesty is anxious to learn the truth,” I said, looking straight into those cunning blue eyes of his. “Your Excellency, a loyal and dutiful subject, will, I trust, now make full revelation of what has really happened during the past twelve months, and what secret tie existed between Her Highness and Marya de Rosen.” His face went white as paper. But only for a single second. He always preserved the most marvellous self-control.

“I do not follow your meaning,” he declared. “Madame de Rosen’s death was surely no concern of mine. Many other politicals have died on their way to the Arctic settlements.”

“You speak in enigmas, Trewinnard. Pray be more explicit,” the Emperor urged.

I could see that my words had suddenly aroused his intense curiosity, although well aware of the antagonism in which I held the dreaded oppressor of Holy Russia.

“I regret, Your Majesty, that I cannot be more explicit,” I said. “His Excellency will reveal the truth—a strange truth. If not, I myself will do so. But not, however, to-day. His Excellency must be afforded an opportunity of explaining circumstances of which he is aware. Therefore I humbly beg to withdraw.”

And I crossed to the door and bowed low.

“As you wish, Trewinnard,” answered the Emperor impatiently, as with a wave of the hand he indicated that my audience was at an end.

So as I backed out, bowing a second time, and while Markoff stood there in statuesque silence, his face livid, I added in a clear voice:

“Ask His Excellency for the truth—the disgraceful truth! He alone knows. Let him find Her Imperial Highness—if he can—if he dare!”

Then I opened the door and made my exit, full of wonder at what might occur when the pair were alone.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Presents another Problem.

On returning to Petersburg that evening and entering the Embassy, I found a telegram from Hartwig, summoning me back to London immediately. There were no details, only the words: “Return here at once.” All my letters to the club I had ordered to be sent to him during my absence, so I wondered whether he had received any communication from the missing pair. With the knowledge that any telegrams to me would be copied and sent to the Bureau of Secret Police, he had wisely omitted any reason for my return to London. I sent him, through the Bureau of Detective Police, the message to wire me details to the Esplanade Hotel in Berlin, and at midnight left by the ordinary train for the German frontier.

Four eager anxious days I spent on that never-ending journey between the Neva and the Channel. At Berlin, on calling at the hotel, I received no word from him, only when I entered the St. James’s Club at five o’clock on the afternoon of my arrival at Charing Cross did I find him awaiting me.

“Well,” I asked anxiously, as I entered the square hall of the club, “what news?”

“She’s alive,” he said. “She saw your advertisement and has replied!”

“Thank heaven!” I gasped. “Where is she?”

“Here is the address,” and he drew from his pocket-book a slip of paper, with the words written in Natalia’s own hand: “Miss Stebbing, Glendevon House, Lochearnhead, Perthshire.” And with it he handed the note which had come to the club and which he had opened—a few brief words merely enclosing her address and telling me to exercise the greatest caution in approaching her. “I have been watched by very suspicious persons,” she added, “and so I am in hiding here. When you can come, do so. I am extremely anxious to see you.”

“What do you make of that?” I asked the famous police official.

“That she scented danger and escaped,” he replied. “My first intention was to go up to Scotland to see her, but on reflection I thought, sir, that you might prefer to go alone.”

“I do. I shall leave Euston by the mail to-night and shall be there to-morrow morning. She has, I see assumed another name.”

“Yes, and she has certainly gone to an outlandish spot where no one would have thought of searching for her.”

“Drury suggested it, without a doubt. He knows Scotland so well,” I said.

Therefore yet another night I spent in a sleeping-car between Euston and Perth, eating scones for breakfast in the Station Hotel at the latter place, and leaving an hour later by way of Crieff and St. Fillans, to the beautiful bank of Loch Earn, lying calm and blue in the spring sunshine.

At the farther end of the loch the train halted at the tiny station of Lochearnhead, a small collection of houses at the end of the picturesque little lake, where the green wooded banks sloped to the water’s edge. Quiet, secluded, and far from the bustle of town or city it was. I found a rural little lake-side village, with a post-office and general shop combined, and a few charming old-world cottages inhabited by sturdy, homely Scottish folk.

Of a brown-whiskered shepherd passing near the station I inquired for Glendevon House, whereupon he pointed to a big white country mansion high upon the hill-side, commanding a wide view across the loch and surrounding hills; a house hemmed in by tall firs, fresh in their bright spring green.

A quarter of an hour later, having climbed the winding road leading to it, I entered the long drive flanked by rhododendrons, and was approaching the house when, across the lawn a slim female figure, in a white cotton gown, with a crimson flower in the corsage, came flying toward me, crying:

“Uncle Colin! Uncle Colin! At last!”

And a moment later Natalia wrung my hand warmly, her cheeks flushed with pleasure at our encounter.

“Whatever is the meaning of this latest escapade?” I asked. “You’ve given everybody a pretty fright, I can tell you.”

“I know, Uncle Colin. But you’ll forgive me, won’t you? Say you do,” she urged.

“I can’t before I know what has really happened.”

“Let’s go over to that seat,” she suggested, pointing to a rustic bench set invitingly on the lawn beneath a spreading oak, “and I’ll tell you everything.”

Then as we walked across the lawn she regarded me critically and said: “How thin you are! How very travel-worn you look!”

“Ah!” I sighed. “I’ve been a good many thousand miles since last I saw Your Highness.”

“I know. And how is poor Marya? You found her, of course.”

“Alas!” I said in a low voice, “I did not. My journey was of no avail. She died a few hours before my arrival in Yakutsk!”

“Died in Yakutsk,” she echoed in a hoarse whisper halting and looking at me. “Poor Marya dead! And Luba?”

“Luba is well, but still in prison.”

“Dead!” repeated the girl, speaking to herself, “and so your long winter journey was all in vain!”

“Utterly useless,” I said. “Then, on returning to London a fortnight ago, I learned that you had mysteriously disappeared. I have been back to Petersburg and informed the Emperor.”

“And what did he say? Was he at all anxious?” she asked quickly.

“It is known that Drury has also disappeared, and therefore His Majesty believes that you have fled together.”

“So we did, but it was not an elopement. No, dear old Uncle Colin, you needn’t be horribly scandalised. Mrs Holbrook, the owner of this place, is Dick’s aunt, and he brought me here so that I might hide from my enemies.”

“Then where is he?”

“Staying at the hotel over at St. Fillans, at the other end of the loch, under the name of Gregory. Fortunately his aunt has only recently bought this place, so he has never been here before. She is extremely kind to me.”

“Then you often see Drury—eh?”

“Oh, yes, we spend each day together. Dick comes over by the eleven o’clock train. It is such fun—much better than Brighton.”

“But the London police are searching everywhere for you both,” I said.

“This is a long way from London,” she replied with a bright laugh; “they are not likely to find us, nor are those bitter enemies of ours.”

“What enemies?”

“The revolutionists. There is a desperate plot against me. Of that I am absolutely convinced,” she said as she sank upon the rustic garden seat beneath the tree. The sunny view over loch and woodland was delightful, and the pretty garden and fir wood surrounding were full of birds singing their morning song.

“But you told neither Hartwig nor Dmitri of your fears,” I remarked. “Why not?” and I looked straight into her beautiful face, lit by the brilliant sunshine.

“Well, I will tell you, Uncle Colin,” she said, leaning back, putting her neat little brown shoe forth from the hem of her white gown, and folding her bare arms as she turned to me. “Dick one day discovered that wherever we went we were followed by Dmitri, and, as you may imagine, I had considerable difficulty in explaining his constant presence. But Dick loves me, and hence believes every word I tell him. He—”

“I know, you little minx,” I interrupted reprovingly, “you’ve bewitched him. I only fear lest your mutual love may lead to unhappiness.”

“That’s just it. I don’t know exactly what will happen when he learns who I really am.”

“He must be told very soon,” I said; “but go on, explain what happened.”

“Ah! no,” cried the girl in quick alarm; “you must not tell him. He must not know. If so, it means our parting, and—and—” she faltered, her big, expressive eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Well—you know, Uncle Colin—you know how fondly I love Dick.”

“Yes, I know, my child,” I sighed. “But continue, tell me all about your disappearance and its motive.” Now that I had found her I saw to what desperate straights Markoff must be reduced. He had, after all, no knowledge of her whereabouts.

“It was like this,” she said. “One evening we had walked along the cliffs to Rottingdean together. Dmitri had not followed us, or else he had missed us before we left Brighton. But just as we were coming down the hill, after passing that big girls’ college, Dick noticed that we were being followed by a man, who he decided was a foreigner. He was, I saw, a thin-faced man with a black moustache and deeply-furrowed brow, and then I recognised him as a man whom I had seen on several previous occasions. I recollected that he followed us that night on the pier when you first saw Dick walking with Doctor Ingram.”

“A man of middle height, undoubtedly a Russian,” I cried. “I remember him distinctly. His name is Danilo Danilovitch—a most dangerous person.”

“Ah!” she exclaimed, “I see you know him. Well, at the moment I was not at all alarmed, but next day I received an anonymous letter telling me to exercise every precaution. There was a revolutionary plot to kill me. It was intended to kill both Dick and myself. I showed him the letter. At first he was puzzled to know why the revolutionary party should seek to assassinate a mere girl like myself, but again he accepted my explanation that it was in revenge for some action of my late father, and eventually we resolved to disappear together and remain in hiding until you returned. Then, according to what Marya de Rosen had told you, I intended to act.”

“Alas! I learnt nothing.”

“Ah!” she sighed. “That is the unfortunate point. I am undecided now how to act.”

“Explain how you managed to elude Dmitri’s vigilance in Eastbourne.”

“Well, on that evening in Eastbourne I induced Miss West, Gladys Finlay and Dmitri to walk on to the station, and I entered a shop. When I came cut, Dick joined me. We slipped round a corner, and after hurrying through a number of back streets found ourselves again on the Esplanade. We walked along to Pevensey, whence that night we took train to Hastings, and arrived in London just before eleven. At midnight we left Euston for Scotland, and next morning found ourselves in hiding here. I was awfully sorry to give poor Miss West such a fright, and I knew that Hartwig would be moving heaven and earth to discover me. But I thought it best to escape and lie quite low until your return. I telegraphed to you guardedly to the British Consulate in Moscow, hoping that you might receive the message as you passed through.”

“I was only half an hour in Moscow, and did not leave the station,” I replied. “Otherwise I, no doubt, should have received it.”

“To telegraph to Russia was dangerous,” she remarked. “The Secret Police are furnished with copies of all telegrams coming from abroad, and Markoff is certainly on the alert.”

“No doubt he is,” I said. “As you well know, he is desperately anxious to close your lips. Now that poor Marya is dead, you alone are in possession of his secret—whatever it may be.”

“And for that reason,” she said slowly, her fine eyes fixed straight before her across the blue waters of the loch, “he has no doubt decided that I, too, must die.”

“Exactly; therefore it now remains for Your Highness to reveal to the Emperor the whole truth concerning those letters and the secret which resulted in Marya de Rosen’s arrest and death. It is surely your duly! You have no longer to respect the promise of secrecy which you gave her. Her death must be avenged—and by you—and you alone,” I added very quietly and in deep earnestness. “You must see the Emperor—you must tell him the whole truth in the interests of his own safety—in the interests, also, of the whole nation.” My dainty little companion remained silent, her eyes still fixed, her slim white fingers toying nervously with her skirt.

“And forsake Dick?” she asked presently in a low voice which trembled with emotion. “No, Uncle Colin. No, don’t ask me!” she urged. “I really can’t do that—I really can’t do that. I—I love him far too well.”

I sighed. And of a sudden, ere I was aware of it the girl, torn by conflicting emotions, burst into a flood of tears.

There, at her side I sat utterly at a loss what to say in order to mitigate her distress; for too well I knew that the pair loved each other truly, nay, madly. I knew that the love of an Imperial Grand Duchess of the greatest family in Europe is just as intense, just is passionate, just as fervent as that of a commoner, be she only a typist, a seamstress, or a serving-maid. The same feelings, the same emotions, the same passionate longings and tenderness; the same loving heart bests beneath the corsets of the patrician as beneath those of the plebeian.

You, my friendly readers, each of you—be you man or woman, love to-day, or have loved long ago. Your love is human, your affection firm, strong and undying, differing in no particular to the emotions experienced by the peasant in the cottage or the princess of the blood-royal.

I looked at the little figure on the rustic seat at my side, and all my sympathy went out to her.

I have loved once, just as you have, my reader; and I knew, alas! what she suffered, and how she foresaw opened before her the grave of all her hopes, of all her aspirations, of all her love.

She was committing the greatest sin pronounced by the unwritten law of her Imperial circle. She loved a commoner! To go forward, to speak and save her nation from the depredations of that unscrupulous camarilla, the Council of Ministers, would mean to her the abandonment of the young Englishman she loved so intensely and devotedly—the sacrifice, alas! of all she held most dear in life by the betrayal of her identity.

Chapter Thirty.

Reveals the Gulf.

Having been introduced to Mrs Holbrook—a pleasant-fated old lady in a white-laced cap with mauve ribbons—I made excuse to “Miss Stebbing” to leave, and took train a quarter of an hour later back to St. Fillans. From the village post-office I sent an urgent wire to Hartwig to go again to Lower Clapton, see Danilovitch, explain how Her Highness had discovered the plot against her, and assure him that if any attempt were male, proof of his treachery would be placed at once before his “comrades.”

I called at the hotel and inquired for Mr Gregory, but was informed that he was out fishing. But though I lunched there and waited till evening, yet he did not return.

So again I took train back to Lochearnhead, and with the golden sunset flashing upon the loch, climbed the hill path towards Glendevon House—a nearer cut than by the carriage road.

Suddenly, as I turned the corner, I saw two figures going on before me—Natalia and Richard Drury. She wore a darker gown than in the morning, with simple, knockabout country hat, while he had on a rough tweed jacket and breeches. I drew back quickly when I recognised them. His arm was tenderly around her waist as they walked, and he was bending to her, speaking softly, as with slow steps they ascended through the hill-side copse.

Yes, they were indeed a handsome, well-matched pair. But I held, my breath, foreseeing the tragic grief which must ere long arise as the result of that forbidden affection.

Standing well back in the hedge, I gazed after their as with halting steps they went up that unfrequented Scotch by-way, rough and grass-grown. Suddenly they paused, and the man, believing that they were alone, took his well-beloved in his strong embrace, pushed back her hat, and imprinted a warm, passionate kiss upon her white, open brow.

Perhaps it was impolite to watch. I suppose it was; yet my sympathy was entirely with them. I, who had once loved and experienced a poignant sorrow as result, knew well all that they felt at that moment, especially now that the girl, even though an Imperal Princess, was compelled to decide between love and duty.

Unseen, I watched them cling to each other, exchanging fond, passionate caresses. I saw him tenderly push the dark hair from her eyes and again place his hot lips reverently to her brow. He held her small hand, and looking straight into her wonderful eyes, saw truth, honesty and pure affection mirrored there.

They had halted. While the evening shadows fell he had placed his hand lightly upon her shoulder and was whispering in her ear, speaking words of passionate affection, in ignorance that between them, alas! lay a barrier of birth which could never be bridged.

I felt myself a sneak and an eavesdropper; but I assure you it was with no idle curiosity—only because what I had witnessed aroused within me the most intense sorrow, because I knew that only a man’s great grief and a woman’s broken heart could accrue from that most unfortunate attachment.

In all the world I held no girl in greater respect than Natalia, the unconventional daughter of proud Imperial Romanoffs. Indeed, I regarded her with considerable affection, if the truth were told. She had charmed me by her natural gaiety of heart, her disregard for irksome etiquette and her plain outspokenness. She was a typical outdoor girl. What the end of her affection for Dick Drury would be I dreaded to anticipate.

Again he bent, and kissed her upon the lips, her sweet face raised to his, aglow in the crimson sunset.

He had clasped her tenderly to his heart, holding her there in his strong arms, while he rained his hot, fervent kisses upon her, and she stood in inert ecstasy.

Soon the shadows declined, yet the pair still stood there in silent enjoyment of their passionate love, all unconscious of observation. I drew a long breath. Had I not myself long ago drunk the cup of happiness to the very dregs, just as Dick Drury was now drinking it—and ever since, throughout my whole career in those gay Court circles in foreign cities, I had been obsessed by a sad and bitter remembrance. She had married a peer, and was now a great lady in London society. Her pretty face often looked out at me from the illustrated papers, for she was one of England’s leading hostesses, and mentioned daily in the “personal” columns.

Once she had sent me an invitation to a shooting-party at her fine castle in Yorkshire. The irony of it all! I had declined in three lines of formal thanks.

Ah! yes. No man knew the true depths of grief and despair better than myself, therefore, surely, no man was more fitted to sympathise with that handsome couple, clasped at that moment in each other’s arms.

I turned back; I could endure it no longer, foreseeing tragedy as I did.

Descending the hill to the loch-side again, I found the carriage road, and approached the big white house.

I was standing alone in the long, old-fashioned drawing-room, with its bright chintzes and bowls of potpourri, awaiting Mrs Holbrook, when the merry pair came in through the long French windows, from the sloping lawn.

“Why, Uncle Colin!” she gasped, starting and staring at me. “How long have you been here?”

“Only a few moments,” I replied, and then, advancing, I shook Drury’s hand. He looked a fine, handsome fellow in his rough country tweeds.

“So glad to meet you again, Mr Trewinnard,” he said frankly, a smile upon his healthy, bronzed face. “I’ve heard from Miss Gottorp of your long journey across Siberia. You’ve been away months—ever since the beginning of the winter! I’ve always had a morbid longing to see Siberia. It must be a most dreadful place.”

“Well, it’s hardly a country for pleasure-seeking,” I laughed; then changing my tone, I said: “You two have given me a nice fright! I returned to find you both missing, and feared lest something awful had happened to you.”

“Fear of something happening caused us to disappear,” he answered; then he practically repeated what Natalia had told me earlier in the day. “My aunt very kindly offered to put Miss Gottorp up, and I have since lived down at St. Fillans under the name of Gregory.”

I told him of the search in progress in order to discover him. But he declared that a Scotch village or the back streets of a manufacturing town were the safest places in which to conceal oneself.

“But how long do you two intend causing anxiety to your friends?” I asked, glancing from one to the other.

Natalia looked at her lover with wide-open eyes of admiration.

“Who knows?” she asked. “Dick has to decide that.”

“But Miss West and Davey, and all of them at Hove are distracted,” I said, and then, turning to Drury, added, “Your man in Albemarle Street and the people at your offices in Westminster are satisfied that you’ve met with foul play. You certainly ought to relieve their minds by making some sign.”

“I must, soon,” he said. “But meanwhile—” and he turned his eyes upon his well-beloved meaningly.

“Meanwhile, you are both perfectly happy—eh?”

“Now don’t lecture us, Uncle Colin!” cried the little madcap, leaning over the back of a chair and holding up her finger threateningly; and then to Dick she added: “Oh! you don’t know how horrid my wicked uncle can be when he likes. He says such caustic things.”

“When my niece deserves them—and only then,” I assured her lover.

Though Dick Drury was in trade a builder of ships, as his father before him, he was one of nature’s gentlemen. There was nothing of the modern young man, clean-shaven, over-dressed, with turned-up trousers and bright socks. He was tall, lithe, strong, well and neatly dressed as became a man in his station—a man with an income of more than ten thousand a year, as I had already secretly ascertained.

Had not Natalia been of Imperial birth the match would have been a most suitable one, for Dick Drury was decidedly one of the eligibles. But her love was, alas! forbidden, and marriage with a commoner not to be thought of.

They stood together laughing merrily, he bright, pleasant, and all unconscious of her true station, while she, sweet and winning, stood gazing upon him, flushed with pleasure at his presence.

I was describing to Drury the fright I had experienced on arrival in Brighton to find them both missing, whereupon he interrupted, saying:

“I hope you will forgive us in the circumstances, Mr Trewinnard. Miss Gottorp resolved to go into hiding until you returned to give her your advice. Therefore, with my aunt’s kind assistance, we managed to disappear completely.”

“My advice is quickly given,” I said. “After to-night there will be no danger, therefore return and relieve the anxiety of your friends.”

“But how can you guarantee there is no danger?” asked the young man, looking at me dubiously. “I confess I’m at a loss to understand the true meaning of it all—why, indeed, any danger should arise. Miss Gottorp is so mysterious, she will tell me nothing,” he said in a voice of complaint.

For a moment I was silent.

“There was a danger, Drury—a real imminent danger,” I said at last. “But I can assure you that it is now past. I have taken steps to remove it, and hope to-morrow morning to receive word by telegraph that it no longer exists.”

“How can you control it?” he queried. “What is its true nature? Tell me,” he urged.

“No, I regret that I cannot satisfy your curiosity. It is—well—it’s a family matter,” I said; “therefore forgive me if I refuse to betray a confidence reposed in me as a friend of the family. It would not be fair to reveal anything told me in secrecy.”

“Of course not,” he said. “I fully understand, Mr Trewinnard. Forgive me for asking. I did not know that the matter was so entirely confidential.”

“It is. But I can assure you that, holding the key to the situation as I do, and being in a position to dictate terms to Miss Gottorp’s enemies, she need not in future entertain the slightest apprehension. The danger existed, I admit; but now it is over.”

“Then you advise us to return, Uncle Colin?” exclaimed the girl, swaying herself upon the chair.

“Yes—the day after to-morrow.”

“You are always so weirdly mysterious,” she declared. “I know you have something at the back of your mind. Come, admit it.”

“I have only your welfare at heart,” I assured her.

“Welfare!” she echoed, and as her eyes fixed themselves upon me she bit her lips. I knew, alas! the bitter trend of her thoughts. But her lover stood by, all unconscious of the blow which must ere long fall upon him, poor fellow. I pitied him, for I knew how much he was doomed to suffer, loving her so fondly and so well. He, of course, believed her to be a girl of similar social position to himself—a dainty little friend whom he had first met as a rather gawky schoolgirl at Eastbourne, and their friendship had now ripened to love.

“I feel that you, Mr Trewinnard, really have our welfare at heart,” declared the young man earnestly. “I know in what very high esteem Miss Gottorp holds you, and how she has been awaiting your aid and advice.”

“I am her friend, Drury, as I am yours,” I declared. “I am aware that you love each other. I loved once, just as deeply, as fervently as you do. Therefore—I know.”

“But we cannot go south—back to Brighton,” the girl declared. “I refuse.”

“Why?” he asked. “Mr Trewinnard has given us the best advice. You need not now fear these mysterious enemies of yours who seem to haunt you so constantly.”

“Ah!” she cried in a low, wild voice, “you do not know, Dick! You don’t know the truth—all that I fear—all that I suffer—for—for your sake! Uncle Colin knows.”

“For my sake!” he echoed, staring at her. “I don’t quite follow you. What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she exclaimed in a low, hoarse voice, drawing herself up and standing erect, “I mean that you do not know what Uncle Colin is endeavouring to induce me to do—you do not realise the true tragedy of my position.”

“No, I don’t,” was his blunt response, his eyes wide-open in surprise.

“Oh, Dick,” she cried in despair, her voice trembling with emotion, “he speaks the truth when he urges me for my own sake to go south—to return again to Hove. But, alas! if I followed his advice, sound though it is, it would mean that—that to-morrow we should part for ever!”

“Part!” gasped the young man, his face becoming white in an instant. “Why?”

“Because—well, simply because all affection between us is forbidden,” she faltered in a hoarse, half whisper, her beautiful face ashen pale, “because,”—she gasped, still clinging to the back of the chintz-covered chair, “because, although we love each other as passionately and as dearly as we do, we can never marry—never! Between us there exists a barrier—a barrier strong but invisible, that can never be broken—never—until the grave!”

Chapter Thirty One.

The Painful Truth.

With Her Highness’s permission I had despatched a reassuring telegram in the private cipher to the Emperor prefixed by the word “Bathildis”—a message which, I think, greatly puzzled the local postmaster at Lochearnhead. Another I had sent to Miss West, and then returned to the small hotel at the loch-side where I intended to spend the night.

I had left the pair together, and strolled out across the lawn. Of what happened afterwards I was in ignorance. The girl had come in search of me a quarter of an hour later, pale, trembling and tearful, and in a broken voice told me that they had parted.

I took her soft little hand, and looking straight into her eyes asked:

“Does he know the truth?”

She shook her head slowly in the negative.

“I—I have resolved to return to Russia,” she said simply, in a faltering voice.

“To see the Emperor?” I asked eagerly. “To tell him the truth—eh?”

Her white lips were compressed. She only drew a long, deep breath.

“Dick has gone,” she said at last, in a strange, dreamy voice. “And—and I must go back again to all the horrible dreariness and formality of the life to which, I suppose, I was born. Ah! Uncle Colin—I—I can’t tell you how I feel. My happiness is all at an end—for ever.”

“Come, come,” I said, placing my hand tenderly upon the girl’s shoulder. “You will go back to Petersburg—and you will learn to forget. We all of us have similar disappointments, similar sorrows. I, too, have had mine.”

But she only shook her head, bursting into tears as she slowly disengaged herself from me.

Then, with head sunk upon her chest in blank despair and sobbing bitterly, she turned from me, and in the clear, crimson afterglow, went slowly back up the garden-path to the house.

I stood gazing upon her slim, dejected figure until it was lost around the bend of the laurels. Then I retraced my steps towards the little lake-side village.

At ten o’clock that night, while writing a letter in the small hotel sitting-room, Richard Drury was shown in.

His face was paler than usual, hard and set.

He apologised for disturbing me at that hour, but I offered him a chair and handed him my cigarette-case. His boots were very dusty, I noticed; therefore I surmised that since leaving his well-beloved he had been tramping the roads.

“I am much puzzled, Mr Trewinnard,” he blurted forth a moment later. “Miss Gottorp has suddenly sent me from her and refused to see me again.”

“That is to be much regretted,” I said. “Before I left I heard her declare that there were certain circumstances which rendered it impossible for you to marry. I therefore know that your interview this evening must have been a painful one.”

“Painful!” he echoed wildly. “I love her, Mr Trewinnard! I confess it to you, because you are her friend and mine.”

“I honestly believe you do, Drury. But,” I sighed, “yours is, I fear, an unfortunate—a very unfortunate attachment.”

I was debating within myself whether or not it were wise to reveal to him Natalia’s identity. Surely no good could now accrue from further secrecy, especially as she had resolved to return at once to Russia.

I saw how agitated the poor fellow was, and how deep and fervent was his affection for the girl who, after all, was sacrificing her great love to perform a duty to her oppressed nation and to avenge the lives of thousands of her innocent compatriots.

“Yes. I know that my affection for her is an unfortunate one,” he said, in a thick voice. “She has talked strangely about this barrier between us, and how that marriage is not permitted to her. It is all so mysterious, so utterly incomprehensible, Mr Trewinnard. She is concealing something. She has some secret, and I feel sure that you, as an intimate friend of her family, are aware of it.” Then after a slight pause he grew calm and, looking me straight in the face, asked: “May I not know it? Will you not tell me the truth?”

“Why should I, Drury, when the truth must only cause you pain?” I queried. “You have suffered enough already. Why not go away and forget? Time heals most broken hearts.”

“It will never heal mine,” he declared, adding: “Her words this evening have greatly puzzled me. I cannot see why we may not marry. She has no parents, I understand. Yet how is it that she seems eternally watched by certain suspicious-looking foreigners? Why is her life—and even mine—threatened as it is?”

For a few moments I did not speak. My eyes were fixed upon his strong, handsome face, tanned as it was by healthy exercise.

“If you wish to add to your grief by ascertaining the truth, Drury, I will tell you,” I said quietly.

“Yes,” he cried. “Tell me—I can bear anything now. Tell me why she refuses any longer to allow me at her side—I who love her so devotedly.”

“Her decision is only a just one,” I replied. “It must cause you deep grief, I know, but it is better for you to be made aware of the truth at once, for she knew that a great and poignant sorrow must fall upon you both one day.”

“Why?” he asked, still puzzled and leaning in his chair towards me.

“Because the woman you love—whom you know as Miss Gottorp—has never yet revealed her true identity to you.”

“Ah! I see!” he cried, starting to his feet. “I guess what you are going to say. She—she is already married!”

“No.”

“Thank God for that!” he gasped. “Well, tell me.”

Again I paused, my eyes fixed steadily upon his.

“Her true name is not Gottorp. She is Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia Olga Nicolaievna of Russia, niece of His Majesty the Emperor!”

The man before me stared at me with open mouth in blank amazement.

“The Grand Duchess Natalia!” he echoed. “Impossible!”

“It is true,” I went on. “At Eastbourne, in her school-days, she was known as Miss Gottorp—which is one of the family names of the Imperial Romanoffs—and on her return to Brighton she resumed that name. The suspicious-looking foreigners who have puzzled you by haunting her so continuously are agents of Russian police, attached to her for her personal protection; while the threats against her have emanated from the Revolutionary Party. And,” I added, “you can surely now see the existence of the barrier between you—you can discern why, at last, foreseeing tragedy in her love for you, Her Highness has summoned courage and, even though it has broken her heart, has resolved to part from you in order to spare you further anxiety and pain.”

For some moments he did not speak.

“Her family have discovered her friendship, I suppose,” he murmured at last, in a low, despairing voice.

“Her family have not influenced her in the least,” I assured him. “She told me the truth that she could not deceive you any longer, or allow you to build up false hopes, knowing as she did that you could never become her husband.”

“Ah! my God! all this is cruel, Mr Trewinnard!” he burst forth, with clenched hands. “I have all along believed her to be a girl of the upper middle-class, like myself. I never dreamed of her real rank or birth which precluded her from becoming my wife! But I see it all now—I see how—how utterly impossible it is for me to think of marriage with Her Imperial Highness. I—I—”

He could not finish his sentence. He stretched out his strong hand to me, and in a broken breath murmured a word of thanks.

In his kind, manly eyes I saw the bright light of unshed tears. His voice was choked by emotion as, turning upon his heel, poor fellow! he abruptly left the room, crushed beneath the heavy blow which had so suddenly fallen upon him.

Chapter Thirty Two.

At What Cost!

Colonel Paul Polivanoff, Marshal of the Imperial Court, gorgeous in his pale-blue and gold uniform of the Nijni-Novgorod Dragoons, with many decorations, tapped at the white-enamelled steel door of His Majesty’s private cabinet in the Palace of Tzarskoie-Selo, and then entered, announcing in French:

“Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia and M’sieur Colin Trewinnard.”

Nine days had passed since that parting of the lovers at Lochearnhead, and now, as we stood upon the threshold of the bomb-proof chamber, I knew that our visit there in company was to be a momentous event in the history of modern Russia.

As we entered, the Emperor, who had been busy with the pile of State documents upon his table, rose, settled the hang of his sword—for he was in a dark green military uniform, with the double-headed eagle of Saint Andrew in diamonds at his throat—and turned to meet us.

Towards me His Majesty extended a cordial welcome, but I could plainly detect that his niece’s presence caused him displeasure.

“So you are back again in Russia—eh, Tattie?” he snapped in French, speaking in that language instead of Russian because of my presence. “It seems that during your absence you have been guilty of some very grave indiscretions and more than one scandalous escapade—eh?”

“I am here to explain to Your Majesty,” the girl said quite calmly, and looking very pale and sweet in her half-mourning.

“Trewinnard has furnished me with reports,” he said hastily, motioning her to a chair. “What you have to say, please say quickly, as I have much to do and am leaving for Moscow to-night. Be seated.”

“I am here for two reasons,” she said, seating herself opposite to where he had sunk back into his big padded writing-chair, “to explain what you are pleased to term my conduct, and also to place your Majesty in possession of certain facts which have been very carefully hidden from you.”

“Another plot—eh?” he snapped. “There are plots everywhere just now.”

“A plot—yes—but not a revolutionary one,” was her answer.

“Leave such things to Markoff or to Hartwig. They are not women’s business,” he cried impatiently. “Rather explain your conduct in England. From what I hear, you have so far forgotten what is due to your rank and station as to fall in love with some commoner! Markoff made a long report about it the other day. I have it somewhere,” and he glanced back upon his littered table, whereon lay piled the affairs of a great and powerful Empire.

Her cheeks flushed slightly, and I saw that her white-gloved hand twitched nervously. We had travelled together from Petersburg, and upon the journey she had been silent and thoughtful, bracing herself up for an ordeal.

“I care not a jot for any report of General Markoff’s,” she replied boldly. “Indeed, it was mainly to speak of him that I have asked for audience to-day.”

“To tell me something against him, I suppose, just because he has discovered your escapades in England—because he has dared to tell me the truth—eh, Tattie?” he said, with a dry laugh. “So like a woman!”

“If he has told you the truth about me, then it is the first time he has ever told Your Majesty the truth,” she said, looking straight at the Emperor.

The Sovereign glanced first at her with quick surprise and then at myself.

“Her Imperial Highness has something to report to Your Majesty, something of a very grave and important nature,” I ventured to remark.

“Eh? Eh?” asked the big bearded man, in his quick, impetuous way. “Something grave—eh? Well, Tattie, what is it?”

The girl, pale and agitated, held her breath for a few moments. Then she said:

“I know, uncle, that you consider me a giddy, incorrigible flirt. Perhaps I am. But, nevertheless, I am in possession of a secret—a secret which, as it affects the welfare of the nation and of the dynasty, it is, I consider, my duty to reveal to you.”

“Ah! Revolutionists again!”

“I beg of you to listen, uncle,” she urged. “I have several more serious matters to place before you.”

“Very well,” he replied, smiling as though humouring her. “I am listening. Only pray be brief, won’t you?”

“You will recollect the attempt planned to be made in the Nevski on the early morning of our arrival from the Crimea, and in connection with that plot a lady, a friend of mine and of Mr Trewinnard’s, named Madame de Rosen, and her daughter Luba were arrested and sent by administrative process to Siberia?”

“Certainly. Trewinnard went recently on a quixotic mission to the distressed ladies,” he laughed. “But why, my dear child, refer to them further? They were conspirators, and I really have no interest in their welfare. The elder woman is, I understand, dead.”

“Yes,” the Grand Duchess cried fiercely; “killed by exposure, at the orders of General Serge Markoff.”

“Oh!” he exclaimed, “then you have come here to denounce poor Markoff as an assassin—eh? This is really most interesting.”

“What I have to relate to Your Majesty will, I believe, be found of considerable interest,” she said, now quite calm and determined. “True, I have charged Serge Markoff with the illegal arrest and the subsequent death of an innocent woman. It is for me now to prove it.”

“Certainly,” said His Imperial Majesty, settling himself in his big chair, and placing the tips of his strong white fingers together in an attitude of listening.

“Then I wish to reveal to you a few facts concerning this man who wields such wide and autocratic power in our Russia—this man who is the real oppressor of our nation, and who is so cleverly misleading and terrorising its ruler.”

“Tattie! What are you saying?”

“You will learn when I have finished,” she said. “I am only a girl, I admit, but I know the truth—the scandalous truth—how you, the Emperor, are daily deceived and made a catspaw by your clever and unscrupulous Chief of Secret Police.”

“Speak. I am all attention,” he said, his brows darkening.

“I have referred to poor Marya de Rosen,” said the girl, leaning her elbow upon the arm of the chair and looking straight into her uncle’s face. “If the truth be told, Marya and Serge Markoff had been acquainted for a very long time. Two years after the death of her husband, Felix de Rosen, the wealthy banker of Odessa and Warsaw, Serge Markoff, in order to obtain her money, married her.”

“Married her!” echoed the Emperor in a loud voice. “Can you prove this?”

“Yes. Three years ago, when I was living with my father in Paris, I went alone one morning to the Russian Church in the Rue Daru, where, to my utter amazement, I found a quiet marriage-service in progress. The contracting parties were none other than General Markoff and the widow, Madame de Rosen. Beyond the priest and the sacristan, I was the only person in possession of the truth. They both returned to Petersburg next day, but agreed to keep their marriage secret, as the General was cunning enough to know that marriage would probably interfere with his advancement and probably cause Your Majesty displeasure.”

“I had no idea of it!” he remarked, much surprised. “Marya de Rosen—or Madame Markoff, as she really was—frequently went to her husband’s house, but always clandestinely and unknown to Luba, who had no suspicion of the truth,” the girl went on. “According to the story told to me by Marya herself, a strange incident occurred at the General’s house one evening. She had called there and been admitted, by the side entrance, by a confidential servant, and was awaiting the return of the General, who was having audience at the Winter Palace. While sitting alone, a young woman of the middle-class—probably an art-student—was ushered into the room by another servant, who believed Marya was awaiting formal audience of His Excellency. The girl was highly excited and hysterical, and finding Marya alone, at once broke out in terrible invective against the General. Marya naturally took Markoff’s part, whereupon the girl began to make all sorts of charges of conspiracy, and even murder, against him—charges which Marya declared to the girl’s face were lies.

“Suddenly, however, the girl plunged her hand deep into the pocket of her skirt and produced three letters, which, with a mocking laugh, she urged Marya to read and then to judge His Excellency accordingly. Meanwhile, the manservant, having heard the girl’s voice raised excitedly, entered and promptly ejected her, leaving the letters in Marya’s hands. She opened them. They were all in Serge Markoff’s own handwriting, and were addressed to a certain man named Danilo Danilovitch, once a shoemaker at Kazan, and now, in secret, the leader of the Revolutionary Party.

“From the first of these Marya saw that it was quite plain that the General—the man in whom Your Majesty places such implicit faith—had actually bribed the man with five thousand roubles and a promise of police protection to assassinate Your Majesty’s brother, the Grand Duke Peter Michailovitch, from whom he feared exposure, as he had been shrewd enough to discover his double-dealing and the peculation of the public funds of which Markoff had been guilty while holding the office of Governor of Kazan. Six days after that letter,” Her Highness added in a hard, clear voice, “my poor Uncle Peter was shot dead by an unknown hand while emerging from the Opera House in Warsaw.”

“Ah! I remember!” exclaimed His Majesty hoarsely, for the Grand Duke Peter was his favourite brother, and his assassination had caused him the most profound grief.

“Of the other two letters—all of them having been in my possession,” Her Highness went on, “one was a brief note, appointing a meeting for the following evening at a house near the Peterhof Station, in Petersburg, while the third contained a most amazing confession. In the course of it General Markoff wrote words to the following effect: ‘You and your chicken-hearted friends are utterly useless to me. I was present and watched you. When he entered the theatre you and your wretched friends were afraid—you failed me! You call yourself Revolutionists—you, all of you, are without the courage of a mouse! I thought better of you. When you failed so ignominiously, I waited—waited until he came out. Where you failed, I was fortunately successful. He fell at the first shot. Arrests were, of course, necessary. Some of your cowardly friends deserve all the punishment they will get. Forty-six have been arrested to-day. Meet me to-morrow at eight p.m. at the usual rendezvous. You shall have the money all the same, though you certainly do not deserve it. Destroy this.’”

“Where is that letter?” demanded His Majesty quickly.

“It has unfortunately been destroyed—destroyed by its writer. Marya was aghast at these revelations of her husband’s treachery and double-dealing, for while Chief of Secret Police and Your Majesty’s most trusted adviser he was actually aiding and abetting the Revolutionists! She placed the letters which had so opportunely come into her possession into her pocket, and said nothing to Markoff when he returned. But from that moment she distrusted him, and saw how ingenious and cunning were his dealings with both yourself and with the leader of the Revolutionists. He, assisted by his catspaw, Danilo Danilovitch, formed desperate plots for the mere purpose of making whole sale arrests, and thus showing you how active and astute he was. Danilo Danilovitch—who, as ‘The One,’ the leader whose actual identity is unknown by those poor deluded wretches who believe they can effect a change in Russia by means of bombs—is as cunning and crafty as his master. It was he who threw the bomb at our carriage and who killed my poor dear father. He—”

“How can you prove that?” demanded the Emperor quickly.

“I myself saw him throw the bomb,” I said, interrupting. “The outrage was committed at Markoff’s orders.”

“Impossible! Why do you allege this, Trewinnard? What motive could Markoff have in killing the Grand Duke Nicholas?”

“The same that he had in ordering the arrest and banishment of his own wife and her daughter,” was my reply. “Her Highness will make further explanation.”

“The motive was simply this,” went on the girl, still speaking with great calmness and determination. “A few days before I left with Your Majesty on the tour of the Empire, I called upon Marya de Rosen to wish her good-bye. On that occasion she gave me the three letters in question—which had apparently been stolen from Danilovitch by the girl who had handed them to her. Marya told me that she feared lest her husband, when he knew they were in her possession, might order a domiciliary visit for the purpose of securing possession of them. Therefore she begged me, after she had shown me the contents and bound me to strictest silence, to conceal them. This I did.

“While we were absent in the south nothing transpired, but Danilovitch had arranged an attempt in the Nevski on the morning of our return to Petersburg. The plot was discovered at the eleventh hour, as usual and among those arrested was Madame de Rosen and Luba. Why? Because Your Majesty’s favourite, Serge Markoff, having discovered that the incriminating letters had been handed to his wife, knew that she, and probably Luba, were aware of his secret. He feared that the evidence of his crime must have passed into other hands, and dreading lest his wife should betray him, he ordered her arrest as a dangerous political. After her arrest he saw her, and, hoping for her release, she explained how she had handed the letters to me for safe-keeping, and confessed that I was aware of the shameful truth. She was not, however, released, but sent to her grave. For that same reason Markoff ordered his agent Danilovitch to throw the bomb at the carriage in which I was riding with my poor father and Mr Trewinnard.”

“But I really cannot give credence to all this!” exclaimed the Emperor, who had risen again and was standing near the window which looked out upon the courtyard of the palace, whence came the sound of soldiers drilling and distant bugle-calls.

“Presently Your Majesty shall be given a complete proof,” his niece responded. “Danilovitch has confessed. At Markoff’s orders—which he was compelled to carry out, fearing that if he refused the all-powerful Chief of Secret Police would betray him to his comrades as a spy—he, at imminent risk of being shot by the sentries, visited our palace on four occasions, and succeeded at last, after long searches, in discovering the letters where I had hidden them for safety in my old nursery, and, securing them, he handed them back to his master.”

“Then this Danilovitch is a Revolutionist paid by Markoff to perform his dirty work—eh?” asked the Emperor angrily.

“He is paid, and paid well, to organise conspiracies against Your Majesty’s person,” I interrupted. “The majority of the plots of the past three years have been suggested by Markoff himself, and arranged by Danilovitch, who finds it very easy to beguile numbers of his poor deluded comrades into believing that the revolution will bring about freedom in Russia. A list of these he furnishes to Markoff before each attempt is discovered, hence the astute Chief of Secret Police is always able to put his hand upon the conspirators and to furnish a satisfactory report to Your Majesty, for which he receives commendation.”

“Apparently a unique arrangement,” remarked the sovereign reflectively.

“In order to close the lips of Madame de Rosen, he contrived that she should receive such brutal and inhuman treatment that she died of the effects of cold, hardship and exposure,” I went on. “One of Markoff’s agents made a desperate attempt upon myself while in Siberia, fearing that Her Highness had revealed the truth to me, and well knowing that I was aware of Danilovitch’s true métier. The attempt fortunately failed, as did another recently formed by Danilovitch in London at Markoff’s orders. Therefore—”

“But this Danilovitch!” interrupted His Majesty, turning to me. “Has he actually confessed to you?”

“He has, Sire,” I replied. “The sole reason of my journey to Yakutsk was in order to see Marya de Rosen on Her Highness’s behalf and obtain permission for her to speak and reveal to Your Majesty all that the Grand Duchess has now told you. Her Highness had promised strictest secrecy to her friend, but now that the lady is dead I have at last induced her to speak in the personal-interests of Your Majesty, as well as in the interests of the whole nation.”

“Yes, yes, I quite understand,” said His Majesty very gravely.

“By returning here, by abandoning my incognita, I—I have been compelled to sacrifice my love,” declared the girl in a low, faltering voice, her cheeks blanched, her mouth drawn hard, and her fine eyes filled with tears.

“Ah! Tattie! If what you have revealed to me be true, then the reason of Markoff’s unsatisfactory reports concerning, you is quite apparent,” His Majesty said, slowly folding his arms as he stood in thought, a fine commanding figure with the jewelled double eagle at his throat flashing with a thousand fires.

“And so, Trewinnard,” he added, turning to me, “all this is the reason why, more than once, you have given me those mysterious hints which have set me pondering.”

“Yes, Sire,” I replied. “You have been blinded by these clever adventurers surrounding you—that circle which, headed by Serge Markoff, is always so careful to prevent you from learning the truth. The intrigue they practise is most ingenious and far-reaching, ever securing their own advancement with fat emoluments at the expense of the oppressed nation. Their basic principle is to terrorise you—to keep the bogy of revolution constantly before Your Majesty, to discover plots, and by administrative process to send hundreds, nay thousands, into exile in those far-off Arctic wastes, or fill the prisons with suspects, more than two-thirds of whom are innocent, loyal and law-abiding citizens.”

He turned suddenly and, pale with anger, struck his fist upon his table.

“There shall be no more exile by administrative process!” he cried, and seating himself, he drew a sheet of official paper before him, and for a few moments his quill squeaked rapidly over the paper.

Thus he wrote the ukase abolishing exile by administrative process—that law which the camarilla had so abused—and signed it with a flourish of his pen.

The first reform in Russia—a reform which meant the yearly saving of thousands of innocent lives, the preservation of the sanctity of every home throughout the great Empire, and which guaranteed to everyone in future, suspect or known criminal or Revolutionist, a fair and open trial—had been achieved.

Surely the little Grand Duchess, the madcap of the Romanoffs, had not sacrificed her great love in vain, even though while that Imperial ukase was being written she sat with bitter tears rolling slowly down her white cheeks.

Chapter Thirty Three.

Describes a Momentous Audience.

A dead silence fell in that small, business-like room, wherein the monarch, the hardest-working man in the Empire, transacted the complicated business of the great Russian nation.

Outside could be heard a sharp word of command, followed by the heavy tramp of soldiers and the roll of drums. The sentries were changing guard.

Slowly—very slowly—His Majesty placed a sheet of blotting-paper over the document he had written, and then turning to the tearful girl, asked:

“Will not this individual, Danilo Danilovitch, furnish me with proofs? He is a Revolutionist, yet that is no reason why I should not see him. From what you tell me, Markoff holds him in his power by constantly threatening to betray him to his comrades as a police-spy. I must see him. Where is he?”

“He has accompanied us from London, Your Majesty,” was my reply. “I had some difficulty in assuring him that he would obtain justice at Your Majesty’s hands.”

“He is an assassin. He killed my brother Nicholas; yet it seems—if what you tell me be true—that Markoff compelled him to commit this crime.”

“Without a doubt,” was my reply.

“Then, Revolutionist or not, I will see him,” and he touched the electric button placed in the side of his writing-table.

A sentry appeared instantly, and at my suggestion His Majesty permitted me to go down the long corridor, at the end of which the dark, thin-faced man, in a rather shabby black suit, was sitting in a small ante-room, outside which stood a tall, statuesque Cossack sentry.

A few words of explanation, and somewhat reluctantly Danilovitch rose and followed me into the presence of the man he was ever plotting to kill.

The Emperor received him most graciously, and ordered him to be seated, saying:

“My niece here and Mr Trewinnard have been speaking of you, Danilo Danilovitch, and have told me certain astounding things.”

The man looked up at his Sovereign, pale and frightened, and His Majesty, realising this, at once put him at his ease by adding: “I know that, in secret, you are the mysterious ‘One’ who directs the revolutionary movement throughout the Empire, and the constant conspiracies directed against my own person. Well,” he laughed, “I hope, Danilovitch, you will not find me so terrible as you have been led to expect, and, further, that when you leave here you will think a little better of the man whose duty it is to rule the Russian nation than you hitherto have done. Now,” he asked, looking straight at the man, “are you prepared to speak with me openly and frankly, as I am prepared to speak to you?”

“I am, Your Majesty,” he said.

“Then answer me a few questions,” urged the Imperial autocrat. “First, tell me whether these constant conspiracies against myself—these plots for which so many hundreds are being banished to Siberia—are genuine ones formed by those who really desire to take my life?”

“No, Sire,” was the answer. “The last genuine plot was the one in Samara, nearly two years ago. Your Majesty escaped only by a few seconds.”

“When the railway line was blown up just outside the station; I remember,” said the Emperor, with a grim smile. “Four of your fellow-conspirators were killed by their own explosives.”

“That was the last genuine plot. All the recent ones have been suggested by General Markoff, head of the Secret Police.”

“With your assistance?”

The man nodded in the affirmative.

“Then you betray your fellow-conspirators for payment—eh?”

“Because I am compelled. I, alas! took a false step once, and His Excellency the General has taken advantage of it ever since. He forces me to act according to his wishes, to conspire, to betray—to murder if necessity arises—because he knows how I dread the truth becoming known to the secret revolutionary committee, and how I fully realise the terrible fate which must befall me if the actual facts were ever revealed. The Terrorists entertain no sympathy with their betrayer.”

“I quite understand that,” remarked the Sovereign. And then, in gracious words, he closely questioned him regarding the assassination of the Grand Duke Peter outside the Opera House in Warsaw, and heard the ghastly truth of Markoff’s crime from the witness’s own lips.

“I read the letters which I secured from the Palace of the Grand Duke Nicholas,” he admitted. “They were to the same effect as Your Majesty has said. In one of them His Excellency the General confessed his crime.”

“You threw the bomb which killed my brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas?”

“It was intended to kill Her Highness the Grand Duchess,” and he indicated Natalia, “and also the Englishman, Mr Trewinnard. The General was plotting the death of both of them, fearing that they knew his secret.”

“And in England there was another conspiracy against them—eh?”

“Yes,” replied the man known as the Shoemaker of Kazan. “But Mr Trewinnard and the Chief of Criminal Police, Ivan Hartwig, discovered me, and dared me to commit the outrage on pain of betrayal to my friends. Hence I have been between two stools—compelled by Markoff and defied by Hartwig. At last, in desperation, I sent an anonymous letter to Her Highness warning her, with the fortunate result that both she and her lover—a young Englishman named Drury—disappeared, and even the Secret Police were unable to discover their whereabouts. I did so in order to gain time, for I had no motive in taking Her Highness’s life, although if I refused to act I knew what the result must inevitably be.”

“All this astounds me,” declared the Emperor. “I never dreamed that I was being thus misled, or that Markoff was acting with such cunning and unscrupulousness against the interests of the dynasty and the nation. I see the true situation. You, Danilo Danilovitch, are a Revolutionist—not by conviction, but because of the drastic action of the Secret Police, the real rulers of Russia. Therefore, read that,” and he took from his table the Imperial ukase and handed it to him.

When he had read it he returned it to the Emperor’s hand, and murmured:

“Thank God! All Russia will praise Your Majesty for your clemency. It is the reform for which we have been craving for the past twenty years—fair trial, and after conviction a just punishment. But we have, alas! only had arrest and prompt banishment without trial. Every man and woman in Russia has hitherto been at the mercy of any police-spy or any secret enemy.”

“My only wish is to give justice to the nation,” declared the Sovereign, his dark, thoughtful eyes turned upon the dynamitard whose word was law to every Terrorist from Archangel to Odessa, and from Wirballen to Ekaterinburg.

“And, Sire, on behalf of the Party of the People’s Will I beg to thank you for granting it to us,” said the man, whose keen, highly-intelligent face was now slightly flushed.

“What I have heard to-day from my niece’s lips, from Mr Trewinnard and from yourself, has caused the gravest thoughts to arise within me,” His Majesty declared after a slight pause. “Injustice has, I see, been done on every hand, and the Secret Police has been administered by one who, it seems, is admittedly an assassin. It is now for me to remedy that—and to do so by drastic measures.”

“And the whole nation will praise Your Majesty,” Danilovitch replied. “I am a Revolutionist, it is true, but I have been forced—forced against my will—to formulate these false plots for the corrupt Secret Police to unearth. I declare most solemnly to Your Majesty that my position as leader of this Party and at the same time an agent-provocateur has been a source of constant danger and hourly terror. In order to hide my secret, I was unfortunately compelled to commit murder—to kill the woman I loved. She discovered the truth, and would have exposed me to the vengeance which the Party never fails to mete out to its betrayers. Markoff had given me my liberty and immunity from arrest in exchange for my services to him. He held me in his power, body and soul, and, because of that, I was forced to strike down the woman I loved,” he added, with a catch in his voice. “And—and—” he said, standing before the Emperor, “I crave Your Majesty’s clemency. I—I crave a pardon for that act for which I have ever been truly penitent.”

“A pardon is granted,” was the reply in a firm, deep voice. “You killed my brother Nicholas under compulsion. But on account of your open confession and the service rendered to me by these revelations, I must forgive you. I see that your actions have, all along, been controlled by Serge Markoff. Now,” he added, “what more can you tell me regarding this maladministration of the police?”

Danilovitch threw himself upon his knees and kissed the Emperor’s hand, thanking him deeply and declaring that he would never take any further part in the revolutionary movement in the future, but exercise all his influence to crush and stamp it out.

Then, when he had risen again to his feet, he addressed His Majesty, saying:

“The Secret Police, as at present organised, manufacture revolutionaries. I was a loyal, law-abiding Russian before the police arrested my brother and my wife illegally, and sent them to Siberia without trial. Then I rose, like thousands of others have done, and fell into the trap which Markoff’s agents so cleverly prepared. No one has been safe from arrest in Russia—”

“Until to-day,” the Emperor interrupted. “The ukase I have written is the law of the Empire from this hour.”

“Ah! God be thanked!” cried the man, placing his hands together fervently. “Probably no man can tell the many crimes and injustices for which General Markoff has been responsible. You want to know some of them—some within my own knowledge,” he went on. “Well, he was responsible for the great plot in Moscow a year ago when the little Tzarevitch so narrowly escaped. Seventeen people were killed and twenty-three were injured by the six bombs which were thrown, and nearly one hundred innocent persons were sent to Schusselburg or to Siberia in consequence.”

“Did you formulate that plot?” the Emperor asked.

“I did. Also at Markoff’s orders the one at Nikolaiev where the young woman, Vera Vogel, shot the Governor-General of Kherson and two of his Cossacks. Again at Markoff’s demand, I formed the plot whereby, near Tchirskaia, the bridge over the Don was blown up; fortunately just before Your Majesty’s train reached it. It was I who pressed the electrical contact—I pressed it purposely a few moments too quickly, as I was determined not to be the cause of that wholesale loss of life which must have resulted had the train fallen into the river. Another attempt was the Zuroff affair, when an infernal machine charged with nitro-glycerine was not long ago actually found within the Winter Palace—placed there by an unknown hand in order to terrify Your Majesty. But I tell you the hand that placed it where it was found was that of Serge Markoff himself—the same hand which killed His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Peter in order to prevent His Highness telling Your Majesty certain ugly truths which he had accidentally discovered. And,” he went on, “there were many other conspiracies of various kinds conceived for the sole purpose of keeping the Empire ever in a state of unrest and the arrest of hundreds of the innocent of both sexes. Indeed, explosives—picric acid, nitro-glycerine, mélinite and cordite—were supplied to us from a secret source. Sometimes, too, when I furnished a list of, say, ten or a dozen of those implicated in a plot, the police would arrest them with probably thirty others besides, people taken haphazard in the streets or in the houses. Whole families have been banished, men dragged from their wives, women from their husbands and children, and though innocent were consigned to those terrible oubliettes beneath the level of the lake at Schusselburg, or in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. To adequately describe all the fierce brutality, the gross injustice and the ingenious plots conceived and financed by Serge Markoff would be impossible. I only speak of those in which I, as his unwilling catspaw, have been implicated.”

Her Highness and myself had listened to this amazing confession without uttering a word.

The Emperor, intensely interested in the man’s story, put to him many questions, some concerning the demands of the Party of the People’s Will, others in which he requested further details concerning Markoff’s crimes against persons, and against the State.

“This man in whom for years I have placed such implicit confidence has played me false!” cried the ruler presently, his face pale as he struck the table fiercely in his anger. “He has plotted with the Terrorists against me! He has been responsible for several attempts from which I have narrowly escaped with my life. Therefore he shall answer to me—this cunning knave who is actually my brother’s assassin! He shall pay the penalty of his crimes!”

“All Russia knows that at Your Majesty’s hands we always receive justice,” the Revolutionist said. “From the Ministry, however, we never do. They are our oppressors—our murderers.”

“And you Revolutionists wish to kill me because of the misdeeds of my Ministers!” cried the Emperor in reproach.

“If Your Majesty dismisses and punishes those who are responsible, then there will be no more Terrorism in Russia. I am a leader; I have bred and reared the serpent of the Revolution, and I myself can strangle it—and I promise Your Majesty that as soon as General Markoff is removed from office—I will do so.”

Chapter Thirty Four.

The Emperor’s Command.

Again the Emperor turned to his table and scribbled a few lines in Russian, which he handed to the man.

It was an impressive moment. What he had written was the dismissal in disgrace of his favourite, the most powerful official in the Empire.

“I shall receive him in audience to-night, and shall give this to him,” he said. “The punishment I can afterwards consider.”

Then, after a pause, he added:

“I have to thank you, Danilo Danilovitch, for all that you have revealed to me. Go and tell your comrades of the Revolution all that I have said and what I have done. Tell them that their Emperor will himself see that justice is accorded them—that his one object in future shall be to secure, by God’s grace, the peace, prosperity and tranquillity of the Russian nation.”

Then the Emperor bowed as sign that the audience was at an end, and the man, unused to the etiquette of Court, bowed, turned, and wishing us farewell, walked out.

“All this utterly astounds me, Trewinnard,” said His Majesty, when Danilovitch had gone. He was speaking as a man, not as an Emperor. “Yet what Tattie has revealed only confirms what I suspected regarding the death of my poor brother Peter,” he went on. “You recollect that I told you my suspicions—of my secret—on the day of the fourth Court ball last year. It is now quite plain. He was ruthlessly killed by the one man in my entourage whom I have so foolishly believed to be my friend. Ah! How grossly one may be deceived—even though he be an Emperor!” and he sighed, drawing his strong hand wearily across his brow.

After a pause he added: “I have to thank you, Trewinnard, for thus tearing the scales from my eyes. Indeed, I have to thank you for much in connection with what I have learned to-day.”

“No, Sire,” was my reply. “Rather thank Her Imperial Highness. To her efforts all is due. She has sacrificed her great love for a most worthy man in the performance of this, her duty. Had she not resolved to return to Russia and speak openly at risk of giving you offence, she might have remained in England—or, rather, in Scotland, still preserving her incognita, and still retaining at her side the honest, upright young Englishman with whom she has been in love ever since her school-days at Eastbourne.”

“I quite realise the great sacrifice you have made, Tattie,” said the Emperor, turning to her kindly, and noting how pale was her beautiful countenance and how intense her look. “By this step you have, in all probability, saved my life. Markoff and his gang of corrupt Ministers would have no doubt killed me whenever it suited their purpose to do so. But you have placed your duty to myself and to the nation before your love, therefore some adequate recompense is certainly due to you.”

The great man of commanding presence strode across the room from end to end, his bearded chin upon his breast, deep in thought. Suddenly he halted before her, and drawing himself up with that regal air which suited him so well, he looked straight at her, placed his hand tenderly upon her shoulder as she sat, and said:

“Tell me, Tattie; do you really and truly love this Englishman?”

“I do, uncle,” the girl faltered, her fine eyes downcast. “Of course I do. I—I cannot tell you a lie and deny it.”

“And—well, if Richard Drury took out letters of naturalisation as a Russian subject, and I made him a Count—and I gave you permission to marry—what then—eh?” he asked, smiling merrily as he stood over her.

She sprang to her feet and grasped both his big hands.

“You will!” she cried. “You really will! Uncle, tell me!”

The Emperor, smiling benignly upon her—for, after all, she was his favourite niece—slowly nodded in the affirmative.

Whereupon she turned to me, exclaiming:

“Oh! Uncle Colin. Dear old Uncle Colin! I’m so happy—so very happy! I must telegraph to Dick at once—at once!”

“No, no, little madcap,” interrupted the Emperor; “not from here. The Secret Police would quickly know all about it. Send someone to the German frontier with a telegram. One of our couriers shall start to-night. Drury will receive the good news to-morrow evening, and, Tattie,”—he added, taking both her little hands again, “I have known all along, from various reports, how deeply and devotedly you love this young Englishman. Therefore, if I give my consent and make your union possible, I only hope and trust that you will both enjoy every happiness.”

In her wild ecstasy of delight the girl raised her sweet face to his heavy-bearded countenance, that face worn by the cares of State, and kissed him fervently, thanking him profoundly, while I on my part craved for the immediate release of poor Luba de Rosen.

The Emperor at once scribbled something upon an official telegraph form, and touching a bell, the sentry carried it out.

“The young lady so cruelly wronged will be free and on her way back to Petersburg within three hours,” the Monarch said quietly, after the sentry had made his exit.

“Oh! Uncle Colin!” cried Her Highness excitedly to me, “what a red-letter day this is for me!”

“And for me also, Tattie,” remarked His Majesty in his deep, clear voice. “Owing to your efforts, I have learned some amazing but bitter truths; I have at last seen the reason why my people have so cruelly misjudged me, and why they hate me. I realise how I have, alas! been blinded and misled by a corrupt and unscrupulous Ministry who have exercised their power for their own self-advancement, their methods being the stirring-up of the people, the creation of dissatisfaction, unrest, and the actual manufacture of revolutionary plots directed against my own person. I now know the truth, and I intend to act—to act with a hand as strong and as relentless as they have used against my poor, innocent, long-suffering subjects.” Her Highness was all anxiety to send a telegram by courier over the frontier to Eydtkuhnen. If he left Petersburg by the night train at a quarter-past ten, he would, she reckoned, be at the frontier at six o’clock on the following evening. It was half an hour by train from Tzarskoie-Selo to Petersburg, and she was now eager to end the audience and be dismissed.

But His Majesty seemed in no hurry. He asked us both many questions concerning Markoff, and what we knew regarding his dealings with the bomb-throwers.

Natalia explained what had occurred in Brighton, and how she had been constantly watched by Danilovitch, while I described the visit of Hartwig and myself to that dingy house in Lower Clapton. That sinister, unscrupulous chief of Secret Police had been directly responsible for the death of Natalia’s father; and Her Highness was bitter in her invectives against him.

“Leave him to me,” said the Emperor, frowning darkly. “He is an assassin, and he shall be punished as such.”

Then, ringing his bell again, he ordered the next Imperial courier in waiting to be summoned, for at whatever palace His Majesty might be there were always half a dozen couriers ready at a moment’s notice to go to the furthermost end of the Empire.

“I know, Tattie, you are anxious to send your message. Write it at my table, and it shall be sent from the first German station. Here, in Russia, the Secret Police are furnished with copies of all messages sent abroad or received. We do not want your secret disclosed just yet!” he laughed.

So the girl seated herself in the Emperor’s chair, and after one or two attempts composed a telegram containing the good news, which she addressed to Richard Drury at his flat in Albemarle Street.

Presently the courier, a big, bearded man of gigantic stature, in drab uniform, was ushered into the Imperial presence, and saluted. To him, His Majesty gave the message, and ordered him to take it by the next train to Eydtkuhnen. Whereupon the man again saluted, backed out of the door, and started upon his errand. What, I wondered, would Dick Drury think when he received her reassuring message?

Natalia’s face beamed with supreme happiness, while the Emperor himself for the moment forgot his enemies in the pleasure which his niece’s delight gave to him.

Again His Majesty, with darkening brow, referred to the brutal murder of his favourite brother, the Grand Duke Peter, saying:

“You will recollect, Trewinnard, the curious conviction which one day so suddenly came upon me. I revealed it to you in strictest secrecy—the ghastly truth which seemed to have been forced upon me by some invisible agency. It was my secret, and the idea has haunted me ever since. And yet here to-day my suspicion that poor Peter was killed by some person who feared what secret he might reveal stands confirmed; and yet,” he cried, “how many times have I, in my ignorance, taken the hand of my brother’s murderer!”

Colonel Polivanoff, the Imperial Marshal; my old friend, Captain Stoyanovitch, equerry-in-waiting, both craved audience, one after the other, for they bore messages for His Majesty. Therefore they were received without ceremony and impatiently dismissed. The subject the Sovereign was discussing with us was of far more importance than reports from the great military camps at Yilna and at Smolensk, where manoeuvres were taking place.

The Emperor turned to his private telephone and was speaking with Trepoff, the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Petersburg, when the Marshal Polivanoff again entered, saying:

“His Excellency General Markoff petitions audience of Your Majesty.”

Natalia and I exchanged quick glances, and both of us rose.

For a second the Emperor hesitated. Then, turning to us, he commanded us to remain.

“I will see him at once,” he said very calmly, his face a trifle paler.

Next moment the man whose dismissal in disgrace was already lying upon the Emperor’s desk stood upon the threshold and bowed himself into the Imperial presence.

Chapter Thirty Five.

“From Our Own Correspondent.”

That moment was indeed a breathless one.

The Emperor’s countenance was grey with anger. Yet he remained quite calm and firm. He was about to deal with an enemy more bitter and more dangerous than the most relentless firebrand of the whole Revolutionary Party.

“I was not aware that Your Majesty was engaged with Her Imperial Highness,” the sinister-faced official began. “I have a confidential report to make—a matter of great urgency.”

“Well, I hope it is not another plot,” remarked the Sovereign with bitter, weary sarcasm. “But whatever report you wish to make, Markoff, may be made here—before my niece and Mr Trewinnard.”

He glanced at us suspiciously and then said:

“This afternoon the Moscow police have unearthed a most desperate plot to wreck Your Majesty’s train early to-morrow morning at Chimki. I furnished them with information, and twenty-eight arrests have been made.”

“Indeed,” remarked his Imperial Master, raising his eyebrows, quite unmoved. “Have you the list of names?”

In answer, the General produced a yellow official paper, which he placed upon His Majesty’s table. Then, with but a casual glance, the Emperor took up his quill and scribbled some words across the sheet and handed it back.

Markoff glanced at the words written, then, much puzzled, looked at His Majesty.

“Yes,” the latter said. “I order their immediate release. And, let me tell you, Serge Markoff, that this afternoon I have given audience to a very intimate friend of yours; your agent-provocateur, Danilo Danilovitch!”

The General’s countenance went white as paper. Such a reception was entirely unexpected.

“Ah!” exclaimed His Majesty, with a bitter smile, “I see what surprise and apprehension my talk with Danilovitch causes you. Well, I will not give utterance to the loathing I feel towards you—the man in whose hands I have placed such supreme power, and whom I have so implicitly trusted. Suffice it to say that he has revealed to me the ingenious manner in which plots have been formed in order to terrorise me, and your inhuman method of sending hundreds of innocent ones into exile, merely in order to obtain my favour.”

“I have never done such a thing!” cried the man in uniform, standing at attention as his master spoke. “The fellow lies.”

“Enough,” said the Emperor, in a loud, commanding voice. “Hear me! You are an assassin. You killed my brother the Grand Duke Peter with your own dastardly hand in order to hide your disgraceful tactics. You sent your own wife to her grave, and you paid your catspaw to kill the Grand Duke Nicholas. To-day there is a plot afoot to close the lips of my niece and my good friend Trewinnard! These are only a few of your disgraceful crimes. No; do not attempt to deny them, brute and liar that you are. Rather reflect upon the terrible fate of the thousands of poor wretches who have been sent to the Arctic settlements by your relentless, inhuman hand. The souls of all those who have been worn out by the journey and died like dogs upon the Great Post Road, or in other ways have fallen innocent victims of your plots, call loudly for vengeance. And I tell you, Serge Markoff,” he said, his dark, heavy brows narrowing in fierce anger, “I tell you that I shall find means by which adequate punishment will be awarded to you. Here is your dismissal!” he added, taking the document from his table. “It will be gazetted to-morrow. Go back to Petersburg at once and there remain. Do not attempt to leave Russia, or even to leave Petersburg, or you will at once be placed under arrest and sent to the fortress. Go home, place your affairs in order, and await until I send for you again.”

The Emperor had not yet decided what form his punishment should take.

“But—but surely Your Imperial Majesty will allow me to—” he gasped with difficulty.

“I will allow you nothing—nothing! You are my enemy, Serge Markoff—a crafty, cunning enemy, who now stands revealed as a brutal assassin! Ah! I shall avenge my brother Peter’s death—depend upon it! Go! Get from my presence!” he commanded, and raising his hand, he pointed with his finger imperiously to the door. I had never before seen such a look upon His Majesty’s strong face.

And the man whose evil actions had spread terror into every corner and every home throughout the Russian Empire, thus receiving his sudden congé, slowly crossed the room, his head bowed, his face ashen.

He was unable to speak or to protest.

For a second he stood still, then, opening the door, he passed out in silence.

Extract from the second edition of The Times issued on the following day:

“From Our Own Correspondent.

“St. Petersburg, May 16th.

“A startling tragedy occurred just after seven o’clock last evening in front of the barracks in the Zagarodny Prospect in St. Petersburg, just outside the Tzarskoie-Selo Station. According to the journal Novosti, His Excellency General Serge Markoff, Chief of Secret Police, and one of the Emperor’s most trusted officials, who had been to Tzarskoie-Selo for audience with His Majesty, had arrived at the station unexpectedly on his return to Petersburg, and his carriage not being there, he resolved to walk down into the city. He had turned out of the station, when he was followed by an unknown man, who had, it seems, arrived by the same train. In front of the barracks the pair apparently recognised each other, and, according to a bystander, His Excellency drew a revolver and fired point-blank at the stranger, who next instant drew his own weapon and shot the General dead.

“All took place in the space of a few seconds, so suddenly, indeed, that the stranger, who certainly fired in self-protection, was able to get clear away before any of the passers-by could stop him. The General’s body was removed by the military ambulance to his residence facing the Summer Gardens, and the strange affair created the greatest sensation throughout the city.

“It is believed that the man so suddenly recognised by His Excellency must have been a prominent Terrorist from whom the General feared assassination; but it is proved by an onlooker—a butcher who was walking only a few feet from them—that His Excellency, who appeared seized by sudden anger, fired the first shot.

“The police are making every inquiry, and it is believed that the assassin of the well-known official will be arrested.

“Another curious feature in connection with the strange affair is that the same journal in another column publishes in the ‘Official Gazette’ the announcement that His Majesty the Emperor only two hours before the tragic occurrence dismissed his favourite official in disgrace. No reason is given, but it is rumoured in the diplomatic circle that certain grave administrative scandals have been discovered, and this dismissal is the first of several which are to follow. In fact, in certain usually well-informed quarters it is persistently declared that the whole Cabinet will be dismissed.

“The Emperor left with the Tzarina for Moscow last evening. The Grand Duchess Natalia accompanied them, and Mr Colin Trewinnard, of the British Embassy, travelled by the same train.”

Chapter Thirty Six.

Describes To-day.

Three months later.

It was hot August in Russia—the month of drought and dust.

Luba de Rosen had returned to her mother’s house in Petersburg, where her property and her dead mother’s handsome income, which had been confiscated by the State, had been returned to her. Several times both Her Highness and myself had visited her, while one afternoon she had been received in private audience at Gatchina by the Emperor, who had sympathised with her and promised to make amends in every way for the injustice she had suffered.

The camarilla who had so long ruled Russia, placing the onus of their oppression upon the Emperor, had, thanks to Natalia, been broken up, and a new and honest Cabinet established in its place.

Danilo Danilovitch, on the day following Markoff’s assassination, had telegraphed openly from Germany to His Majesty, announcing that he had rid Russia of her worst enemy. And probably that message did not cause the Emperor much displeasure. It was the carrying out of the old Biblical law of an eye for an eye. And as the catspaw was beyond the frontier, and the crime a political one, its perpetrator was immune from arrest.

Five weeks later, however, the Supreme Council of the People’s Will, held in an upstairs room in Greek Street, Soho, and presided over by Danilovitch in person, heard from him a long and complete statement, in which he described his audience at Tzarskoie-Selo, and delivered the message sent by the Emperor to the Revolutionists.

Unanimously it was then decided to put an end to all militant measures, now that the Emperor knew the truth, and to trust the assurances given from the throne. A loyal reply was drafted to His Majesty’s message, and this was duly despatched by a confidential messenger to Russia and placed in the Emperor’s own hands—a declaration of loyalty which gave him the greatest gratification.

Diplomatic Europe, in ignorance of what was actually in progress, was surprised at the sudden turn of events in Russia, and on account of the unexpected dismissal of Ministers and the establishment of the Duma, felt that open revolution was imminent. From the official busybodies at the various Embassies the truth was carefully concealed. It was, of course, known that General Markoff had all along been the worst enemy of Russia, and in consequence the Revolutionary Party made open rejoicing at the news of his death. Yet the actual facts were ingeniously suppressed, both from the diplomatic corps and from the correspondents of the foreign newspapers.

The entire change in the Emperor’s policy and the granting of many much-needed reforms were regarded abroad as the natural reaction after the drastic autocracy. But nobody dreamed of the truth, how the Emperor, after all a humane man and a benign ruler, had at last learned the bitter truth, and had instantly acted for the welfare and safety of his beloved people.

Many of the London journals published leading articles upon what they termed “the new era in Russia,” attributing it to all causes except the right one, the popular opinion being that His Majesty had at last been terrorised into granting justice and a proper representation to the people. Exile of political prisoners to Siberia had been suddenly abolished by Imperial ukase, together with the major powers vested in the Secret Police. The safety and sanctity of the home was guaranteed, and no person could in future be consigned to a dungeon or exiled without fair and open trial.

All this, it was said, was a triumph of the Revolution. Journalists believed that the Emperor had been forced to accord the people their demand. Little, indeed, did the world dream the actual truth, the secret of which was so well kept that only the British Foreign Minister at Downing Street was aware of it, for by the Emperor’s express permission I was able to sit one day in that sombre private room in the Foreign Office and there in confidence relate the strange events, the shadows of a throne, which I have endeavoured to set down in the foregoing pages.

Since the day of the dismissal of Serge Markoff with five members of the Cabinet, and the breaking up of that disgraceful camarilla which had surrounded the Sovereign, suppressing the truth, preventing reforms, and ruling Holy Russia with a hand of iron, the nation had indeed entered upon an era of financial and social progress. Russia has become a nation of enlightenment, prosperity and industry, even, perhaps, against the will of her upper classes.

I was present on that August day in the handsome private church attached to the great Palace of Peterhof, and there witnessed the marriage of Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia to Richard Drury, Count of Ozerna, who had become a naturalised Russian subject and been ennobled by the Emperor.

It was a brilliant function, for all the Ministers, foreign Ambassadors and the whole Imperial Court, including the Emperor and Empress, were present. The Court now being out of mourning for the Grand Duke Nicholas, the display of smart gowns, uniforms and decorations was more striking than even at a State ball at the Winter Palace.

Standing beside Captain Stoyanovitch, I was near Natalia, the incorrigible little madcap of the Romanoffs, when with her husband she knelt before the altar while the priest, in his gorgeous robes, bestowed upon them his blessing. And when they rose and passed out, their handsome faces reflected the supreme joy of the triumph of their mutual love.

Some years have now passed.

His Imperial Majesty, alas! lies in his great sarcophagus in Moscow, and the Tzarevitch reigns in his stead. But in Russia the Revolutionary movement is no longer a militant one, for the people know well that their ruler’s aims and aspirations are those of his father, and patiently await the reforms which, though perhaps slow in progress, nevertheless do from time to time become law and bestow the greatest benefits upon the many millions of souls from the German frontier to the Sea of Japan.

Ivan Hartwig, the Anglo-Russian, still lives on the outskirts of Petersburg as Otto Schenk, and is still head of the Russian Sûreté, and from him I only recently heard that Danilo Danilovitch had been discovered in Chicago, leading the life of a highly-respected citizen. He had changed his name into Daniels, and was the proprietor of one of the largest boot factories in that progressive city. Miss West has been pensioned and remains in Brighton, but Davey, the English maid, is still in the Grand Duchess’s service.

As for myself—well, I am still a diplomat, and still a bachelor.

After service as Councillor of Embassy in Berlin, Washington and Paris, I was appointed by the late King Edward his Envoy extraordinaire et Ministre plénipotentiaire to a certain brilliant Court in the South of Europe, where I still reside in the great white Embassy as chief of a large and brilliant staff.

Sometimes when I go on leave, I manage to snatch a week or two with Count Drury and his pretty wife, at the Grand Ducal Palace in Petersburg, where they live together in perfect idyllic happiness, and where splendid receptions are given during the winter season. More than once, too, I have been guest at their great Castle of Ozerna, a gloomy mediaeval fortress, near Orel in Central Russia, to enjoy the excellent boar-hunting in the huge forests surrounding.

And often as I have sat at their table, waited on by the gorgeous flunkeys in the blue-and-gold Grand Ducal livery, headed by old Igor, I have looked into Natalia’s pretty face and reflected how Little the Russian people ever dream that for the liberty which has recently come to them they are indebted solely to a woman—to the girl who was once declared to be an incorrigible flirt, and who had scandalised the Imperial family—the little Grand Duchess, who, at the sacrifice of her own great love, boldly exposed and denounced that unscrupulous and powerful official, Markoff, the one-time Chief of Secret Police, the man who had sacrificed so many innocent lives as the Price of Power.

The End.

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Chapter 1

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