"Let those who are loyal to me serve them as they would serve Alexander, if there is any sign of insubordination," was the haughty rejoinder. "Such is my order; and now, Ivan, you must go. Stay though! What of Jean Morét?"
"He is dead."
"Dead? Do you know that to be true?"
"No. He has disappeared from the palace, nobody knows whither. He has not gone to Siberia and our agents cannot find him in the city prisons. We have made every effort. Doubtless he betrayed himself in some manner and was quietly put out of the way."
"I will investigate the matter. He might have betrayed us, if caught and put to the torture. I can make Prince Michael tell me. Morét was more fool than knave, and he might have been induced to talk."
"He might have betrayed us; he would never betray you, Zara."
"I do not think so; and yet, it may be that I have gone too far with him. It is plain that I must make my prince talk."
Her prince! God! How the expression rankled! What revelations this overheard conversation was bringing to pass! From being in the seventh heaven of bliss, transported there by the few moments I had passed in the society of Zara, I was now plunged into the hell of doubt, uncertainty, and disillusionment. She spoke of "her prince"—and there could be no possible doubt that she referred to Prince Michael—as if he were already a mere puppet in her hands, to bow before her and fawn at her feet, as she willed it. And the prince, great and noble by instinct and nature, who had with such dignity admitted to me his love for her, was having his feelings and his affections played upon as a skilled performer touches the keys of a piano.
It was a new and unsuspected phase of Zara's character thus unfolded to me; and it was a most disquieting one. Standing with her as I had done among her guests, seated beside her as I had been for a few moments before I left her to go into the garden, I had believed in her as a devout worshipper believes in his deity, thinking no evil, believing that she could do no wrong, and placing her upon a pedestal that was high above all of the petty considerations of ordinary humanity. And then, as if to add to the sudden pain that was in my heart, this man who dared to address her by her given name, and whom she called Ivan, chuckled aloud as he remarked with unwonted intimacy:
"You have only to encourage him a little, Zara. The prince will talk. Never fear. Your power——"