“I think you must have dreamed it,” said the Princess with extreme composure. “Marie, have you seen any letter about?”
“No, your highness,” returned the servant submissively.
“If you think there is anything here, you are welcome to look,” her mistress added with a pleasant smile. “As for me, I never keep letters, my own or anybody else’s. I always tear them up.”
And with these words, and another smile and a nod, she stepped gracefully past us, and went to take her seat in the part of the train reserved for ladies.
Somewhere, doubtless, on the white Manchurian plain we had crossed in the night, the fragments of the imperial peacemaker’s letter were being scattered by the wind.
Menken’s face had changed utterly in the last minute. He resembled an elderly man.
“Tell the Czar that I alone am to blame,” were his last words.
Before I could prevent him, he had drawn a revolver from his pocket, and put two bullets through his head.