Two minutes later he reëntered the room. His face was blanched and was filled with fear and horror. “She’s not there—you may be right—I am going to the Fortress,” he said in a husky whisper.
He started out. Drexel caught his arm.
“What are you going to do?”
“I do not know.”
“But I must know what you do!”
“Wait here, then,” he said.
A chaos of fear, doubt, pride, shame and wrath, the prince sent his horse galloping past the palaces that border the Neva, over the Palace Bridge, and through the dark, arched gateway of the Fortress. Here he sprang from his sleigh and started to hurry into the governor’s office; then remembering himself, he slowed down and strode in with all the dignity of a military governor.
The place of the imprisoned Governor Delwig had been that day filled by Colonel Kavelin of Odessa, who had previously been determined on as Delwig’s successor and who had arrived in St. Petersburg the evening before. The new chief of the prison, burly, heavy-faced, greeted Prince Valenko with obsequious, flurried pleasure, which the prince returned with the hauteur that a high official gives one far beneath him.
“I came over, Colonel Kavelin,” he said, “on a matter of business concerning the prisoners Borodin and Sonya Varanova.”
“Yes, yes,” said the gratified governor. “All is ready for the execution. Everything will be carried out just as Your Excellency commanded.”