"Father, it is that I want Irina's pardon.—Listen! Sergius Lihnoff has been her undoing. Freed from his fanaticism, his fascination, she will be as dangerous as a baby.—She always hated the treachery.—Before that supper she even begged me to give it up, or to postpone it to Sunday—a day when Ternoff wouldn't leave the offices at his hour.—I am willing to give myself as guarantee for her. If ever again she involves herself in a plot, I will come here and surrender."
He was interrupted by his father's harsh laugh. "Useful act!" he said.
Ivan flushed, but nevertheless repeated, steadily:
"Give her her pardon!—I've not asked much of you in my life. Do this thing for me.—I won't want another."
Gregoriev frowned, but seemed to ponder the question. Finally, leaning across the table, he growled: "Don't you know that never, in my life as a Russian official, have I done such a thing as you ask? In all the years of my service, a criminal hunted has been a criminal sentenced."
"And now I ask you to prove your rule by this one exception.—I swear to you that the only person Irina is dangerous to, is—herself."
There ended Ivan's fight for the girl. The rest of the struggle, and it was a fierce one, passed silently within his father's breast. Ten unbearable minutes, and then, Michael raised his hand.
That conference with the last of the four prisoners, ended in one of the profoundest sensations ever experienced by Prince Michael's entourage. For the young man, a Nihilist "political" of the type the Chief hated with a hatred undying, emerged from the cabinet alone, unguarded, bearing a pass of complete freedom, signed, "Michael." Two of the men, examining it, rushed back to the inner cabinet to discover if their Chief had been foully murdered, as he had so often been warned would happen when he persisted in interviewing, unattended, desperadoes of the lowest class. But to-night the Prince was not only alive, but also, Ossa upon Pelion, in a good humor!
The guards in-doors had by no means finished gaping over this fact, when one of the soldiers who, on examination nights, stood at the outer gate, came hurrying in with a fresh item. The freed "political," so evidently under the special protection of all the saints, had paused as he reached the bottom of the entrance stairs of the palace, and burst into a fit of uncontrollable, hysterical laughter.