She disappeared after the man of the false astrakhan.
A few moments afterwards she returned. She appeared
even more agitated.
“I beg your pardon,” she murmured, “but
I cannot let them go like this. They are much
chagrined. They have insisted on knowing where
they have failed in their service. I have appeased
them with money.”
“Yes, and tell me the whole truth, madame.
You have directed them not to go far away, but to
remain near the villa so as to watch it as closely
as possible.”
She reddened.
“It is true. But they have gone, nevertheless.
They had to obey you. What can that paper be
you have shown them?”
Rouletabille drew out again the billet covered with
seals and signs and cabalistics that he did not understand.
Madame Trebassof translated it aloud: “Order
to all officials in surveillance of the Villa Trebassof
to obey the bearer absolutely. Signed: Koupriane.”
“Is it possible!” murmured Matrena Petrovna.
“But Koupriane would never have given you this
paper if he had imagined that you would use it to
dismiss his agents.”
“Evidently. I have not asked him his advice,
madame, you may be sure. But I will see him
to-morrow and he will understand.”
“Meanwhile, who is going to watch over him?”
cried she.
Rouletabille took her hands again. He saw her
suffering, a prey to anguish almost prostrating.
He pitied her. He wished to give her immediate
confidence.
“We will,” he said.
She saw his young, clear eyes, so deep, so intelligent,
the well-formed young head, the willing face, all
his young ardency for her, and it reassured her.
Rouletabille waited for what she might say.
She said nothing. She took him in her arms and
embraced him.
NATACHA
In the dining-room it was Thaddeus Tchnichnikoff’s
turn to tell hunting stories. He was the greatest
timber-merchant in Lithuania. He owned immense
forests and he loved Feodor Feodorovitch* as a brother,
for they had played together all through their childhood,
and once he had saved him from a bear that was just
about to crush his skull as one might knock off a
hat. General Trebassof’s father was governor
of Courlande at that time, by the grace of God and
the Little Father. Thaddeus, who was just thirteen
years old, killed the bear with a single stroke of
his boar-spear, and just in time. Close ties
were knit between the two families by this occurrence,
and though Thaddeus was neither noble-born nor a soldier,
Feodor considered him his brother and felt toward
him as such. Now Thaddeus had become the greatest
timber-merchant of the western provinces, with his
own forests and also with his massive body, his fat,
oily face, his bull-neck and his ample paunch.
He quitted everything at once — all his affairs,
his family — as soon as he learned of the first
