“Alas, Sire! If she has fallen into the hands of the revolutionists, then without doubt she is dead,” was the cunning official’s reply.
Was he revealing to his Imperial Master a fact that he knew? Was he preparing the Emperor for the receipt of bad news?
I glanced at his grey, coarse, sphinx-like countenance, and felt convinced that such was the case. Had she, after all, fallen a victim of his craft and cunning, and were her lips sealed for ever?
I stood there staring at the pair, the Emperor and his all-powerful favourite, like a man in a dream. Suddenly I roused myself with the determination that I would leave no stone unturned to unmask this man and reveal him in his true light to the Sovereign who had trusted him so complacently, and had been so ingeniously blinded and misled by this arch-adventurer, to whose evil machinations the death of so many innocent persons were due.
“Then you are not certain whether, after all, it is an elopement?” asked the Emperor, glancing at him a few moments later. And turning impatiently to me he said in reproach: “I gave her into your hands, Trewinnard. You promised me solemnly to exercise all necessary vigilance in order to prevent a repetition of that affair in Moscow, when the madcap was about to run away to London. Yet you relaxed your vigilance and she has escaped while you have been on your wild-goose chase through Siberia.”
“With greatest respect to your Majesty, I humbly submit that my mission was no wild-goose chase. It concerned a woman’s honour and her liberty,” and I glanced at Markoff’s grey, imperturbable countenance. “But the unfortunate lady was sent to her death—purposely killed by exhaustion and exposure, ere I could reach Yakutsk.”
“She was a dangerous person,” the General snapped, with a smile of sarcasm.
“Yes,” I said in a hard, bitter voice. “She was marked as such upon the list of exiles—and treated as such—treated in a manner that no woman is treated in any other country which calls itself Christian!”
I saw displeasure written upon the Emperor’s face, therefore I apologised for my outburst.
“It ill becomes you, an Englishman, to criticise our penal system, Trewinnard,” the Emperor remarked in quiet rebuke. “And, moreover, we are not discussing it. Madame de Rosen conspired against my life and she is dead. Therefore the question is closed.”