Suddenly the Tsarevitch removed his hands from his face, and the expression upon it was dreadful.
“Where is the child? Where has it been taken to?” he demanded, fixing a feverish gaze upon his father. “What has happened to it?”
“What child?” asked Peter, not understanding him all at once.
The Tsarevitch pointed to the door through which Afrossinia had disappeared.
“It is dead,” answered Peter, avoiding his son’s glance. “It never lived.”
“That is a lie,” exclaimed Alexis, raising his fists as though threatening his father. “It has been killed! Strangled, or else drowned like a whelp! Why has this been done to him, innocent babe as he was?—It was a boy?”
“Yes.”
“If God had granted to me to rule over this country,” continued Alexis thoughtfully, as though speaking to himself, “I would have made him my heir—— I meant to call him Ivan—Tsar Ivan Alexeyevitch. The body—where is it? What has been done with it—— Speak!”
Peter remained silent.