never avenge the fate of your sister unless you acted at
once. You told nobody of your intention, but you armed yourself with a
pistol and started for the palace. You had determined to kill the czar
before your reason fled utterly."

"Regarding the two hours that passed between the time you were last
seen by your friends, and the events that happened in the palace that
day, nothing is known. What streets you traversed on your way there;
how you gained admittance to the palace, which was guarded as strictly
as it is now; how you passed the guards and gained access even to the
cabinet of the emperor, are mysteries which have never been solved, and
never will be this side of the grave. All that is known is that you
ware your old uniform, the same one from which the czar once tore the
buttons, and it is possible that it had something to do with passing
you through. At all events you did pass them all, and you did reach the
person of the emperor himself. Ah, it must have been grand! I would
that I could have been with you then! I would that I could have seen
and heard all that took place there at that time--the only time when
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth has been told to
his august majesty. There was one of our agents there who heard it all;
that is how I know about it now."

"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