“It seems almost a boudoir.”

“It does serve as a boudoir for my step-daughter, whose bedroom opens directly from it; you see the door there. It is simply for the present that the luncheon table is set there, because for some time the police have pre-empted the veranda.”

“Is your dog a watch-dog, madame?” asked Rouletabille, caressing the beast, which had followed him.

“Khor is faithful and had guarded us well hitherto.”

“He sleeps now, then?”

“Yes. Koupriane has him shut in the lodge to keep him from barking nights. Koupriane fears that if he is out he will devour one of the police who watch in the garden at night. I wanted him to sleep in the house, or by his master’s door, or even at the foot of the bed, but Koupriane said, ‘No, no; no dog. Don’t rely on the dog. Nothing is more dangerous than to rely on the dog. ‘Since then he has kept Khor locked up at night. But I do not understand Koupriane’s idea.”

“Monsieur Koupriane is right,” said the reporter. “Dogs are useful only against strangers.”

“Oh,” gasped the poor woman, dropping her eyes. “Koupriane certainly knows his business; he thinks of everything.”

“Come,” she added rapidiy, as though to hide her disquiet, “do not go out like that without letting me know. They want you in the dining-room.”

“I must have you tell me right now about this attempt.”

“In the dining-room, in the dining-room. In spite of myself,” she said in a low voice, “it is stronger than I am. I am not able to leave the general by himself while he is on the ground-floor.”

She drew Rouletabille into the dining-room, where the gentlemen were now telling odd stories of street robberies amid loud laughter. Natacha was still talking with Michael Korsakoff; Boris, whose eyes never quitted them, was as pale as the wax on his guzla, which he rattled violently from time to time. Matrena made Rouletabille sit in a corner of the sofa, near her, and, counting on her fingers like a careful housewife who does not wish to overlook anything in her domestic calculations, she said:

“There have been three attempts; the first two in Moscow. The first happened very simply. The general knew he had been condemned to death. They had delivered to him at the palace in the afternoon the revoluntionary poster which proclaimed his intended fate to the whole city and country. So Feodor, who was just about to ride into the city, dismissed his escort. He ordered horses put to a sleigh. I trembled and asked what he was going to do. He said he was going to drive quietly through all parts of the city, in order to show the Muscovites that a governor appointed according to law by the Little Father and who had in his conscience only the sense that he had done his full duty was not to be intimidated. It was nearly four o’clock, toward the end of a winter day that had been clear and bright, but very cold. I wrapped myself in my furs and took my seat beside him, and he said, ‘This is fine, Matrena; this will have a great effect on these imbeciles.’ So we started. At first we drove along the Naberjnaia. The sleigh glided like the wind. The general hit the driver a heavy blow in the back, crying, ‘Slower, fool; they will think we are afraid,’ and so the horses were almost walking when, passing behind the Church of Protection and intercession, we reached the Place Rouge. Until then the few passers-by had looked at us, and as they recognized him, hurried along to keep him in view. At the Place Rouge there was only a little knot of women kneeling before the Virgin.