CHAPTER XXI.
THE PRISONER.
I determined to search the house, and assure myself that Zénaïde was not incarcerated in any part of it. All possibility of obtaining information from Ramodanofsky was at an end forever, but I had now the opportunity to examine the premises. Passing through the anterooms, I entered a large apartment which had evidently been his bedroom, and which showed signs of recent occupation. On a small table beside the bed lay a bunch of keys, and these I appropriated. Opening a small door behind the high bedstead, I found myself in a long corridor, which seemed to lead in the direction of the kitchen, with several doors opening upon it. I was impressed by the silence of the place; not a sound reached my ears. I walked along, trying the doors; two opened into a large banqueting-room, and a third upon a short passage which I knew must lead towards the wing. I mended my pace now, and going down this hall, came into the rooms below Zénaïde’s, already familiar to me; they were all vacant, and I ascended the stairs, not without a thought of that first night when I had stumbled up those steps and found Zénaïde. But this time her rooms were deserted and dreary. I searched every corner of this wing, even the place where I had formerly been confined, but without result; it looked the same in every spot as it had on the evening on which I had taken the two women away,—only, as it had proved, to lead them into further disaster. Satisfied that there was no clew here, I came slowly down the stairs; near the foot a sound in the hall roused me, and I looked about just in time to see a man trying to avoid me. He was one of the serfs, and I spoke to him in Russian; he stopped in a startled way, and stared at me as if uncertain what to do. I was determined to carry things with a high hand.
“Your master wishes me to see Mademoiselle Zénaïde,” I said sharply, “and you can conduct me to her.”
The fellow stared at me more stupidly than before.
“Do you hear me, sirrah?” I exclaimed impatiently. “It will not be well for you to delay obedience to a Ramodanofsky.”
He evidently knew this, for he roused himself.
“I will go willingly, master,” he said humbly, “when the boyar tells me the way. I do not know where the young lady is.”
His sincerity was too obvious to doubt, and I saw at once that I was face to face with a new difficulty. I determined, however, to probe him.
“If you do not know where Mademoiselle Ramodanofsky is,” I said sharply, “perhaps you can take me to Mademoiselle Eudoxie.”
His face brightened at once.