Natalia’s face beamed with supreme happiness, while the Emperor himself for the moment forgot his enemies in the pleasure which his niece’s delight gave to him.
Again His Majesty, with darkening brow, referred to the brutal murder of his favourite brother, the Grand Duke Peter, saying:
“You will recollect, Trewinnard, the curious conviction which one day so suddenly came upon me. I revealed it to you in strictest secrecy—the ghastly truth which seemed to have been forced upon me by some invisible agency. It was my secret, and the idea has haunted me ever since. And yet here to-day my suspicion that poor Peter was killed by some person who feared what secret he might reveal stands confirmed; and yet,” he cried, “how many times have I, in my ignorance, taken the hand of my brother’s murderer!”
Colonel Polivanoff, the Imperial Marshal; my old friend, Captain Stoyanovitch, equerry-in-waiting, both craved audience, one after the other, for they bore messages for His Majesty. Therefore they were received without ceremony and impatiently dismissed. The subject the Sovereign was discussing with us was of far more importance than reports from the great military camps at Yilna and at Smolensk, where manoeuvres were taking place.
The Emperor turned to his private telephone and was speaking with Trepoff, the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Petersburg, when the Marshal Polivanoff again entered, saying:
“His Excellency General Markoff petitions audience of Your Majesty.”
Natalia and I exchanged quick glances, and both of us rose.
For a second the Emperor hesitated. Then, turning to us, he commanded us to remain.
“I will see him at once,” he said very calmly, his face a trifle paler.
Next moment the man whose dismissal in disgrace was already lying upon the Emperor’s desk stood upon the threshold and bowed himself into the Imperial presence.