"The emperor was alone when you entered, and you had closed and locked the door of the cabinet before he discovered your presence. He did not know that you were there until a sharp command from you caused him to raise his head; but it was only to see you standing there with the pistol in your hand aimed at his head, and to hear you say that if he uttered one cry for assistance, or attempted to call for help in any way, you would shoot."
Zara leaped to her feet and strode rapidly across the room twice, wringing her hands. She paused, confronting me.
"Oh, my God!" she cried. "To think, if you had only told your friends of the errand, and of the plans you had made for reaching the presence of the czar, that it would have succeeded and you would have killed him—killed him."
She rushed again to my side, and seized me by the shoulders, so that she turned my face until it exactly confronted hers.
"Dubravnik," she cried. "I can almost believe that I am indeed talking to him—to the man whose history I am relating—when I look at you. In some ways you are like him, so like him! But I will still deceive myself with the idea that I am really talking to him about himself. It is easier so. Oh, my love, be patient with me. I must forget for the moment that you are the man I love. I must compel myself to believe that I am talking to him—to the brother of Yvonne."
"Alexander was always a coward, and he proved it then. He thought that his hour had come, and that a just vengeance for all the lives that he had taken, was about to fall upon him.
"'Do not shoot,' he pleaded. 'You shall have any demand you wish to make. Everything you desire shall be granted.' You only laughed at him.
"'Do you know who I am?' you cried.
"'No,' he replied. 'Who are you?'
"You told him your name, and he cowered lower in his chair, begging for mercy as a hungry dog begs for food; and all the time you laughed, repeating at every pause he made, those words so terrible for him to hear: 'I have come to kill you because you killed Yvonne.'