"If," said Barbara, addressing the emperor, "if duelling be so agreeable to your Majesty, on what ground do you now justify your former demand for the extradition of the duke?"
Nicholas, little accustomed to be catechised or to give reasons for his conduct, frowned and was silent.
Zabern laughed.
"Princess, you demand too much in requiring a Czar to be logical."
"And how," asked Radzivil of the emperor, "how if we should ignore the duke's claim and should proceed with the coronation of the princess?"
The Czar's eyes flashed at this defiance of his authority.
"If you will not uphold your own laws, there is a power upon the frontier that shall compel you to do so."
Ill-starred Barbara! Publicly stigmatized as illegitimate; her principality void of its boasted Charter; her dream of a Polish empire vanished; her own throne of Czernova forfeited to the duke, inasmuch as it meant death to any one who should meet him in combat. And all this occurring in the space of one brief hour upon the day which she had anticipated as the most splendid of her life!
Was this to be the end of her triumphal progress through the shouting crowds of her capital—doomed amid the mocking laughter of the Muscovites to quit the cathedral a discrowned princess, attended by a melancholy train of fallen ministers?
"I am—I AM princess!" she murmured between her set teeth. "They shall not drive me from the throne."