assent.

"You--you shot the Grand-Duke?"

Her lips moved and she bowed her head.

The General stood paralyzed with horror. He was like one on the verge
of apoplexy; his tongue stammered, his limbs refused to move. Then he
drew back slowly, inch by inch, and stared at the girl with the anger
and passion growing in his eyes.

"You are no daughter of mine!" he cried stammering, "You are a
murderess, a criminal! You have killed the Grand-Duke--in his own
house you have killed him!"

"Father!--Father!"

He gasped and put his hand to his throat. "Be still! I am not your
father. You are no child of mine. I curse you--with my last breath I
curse you.--Do with her as you like."

He turned to the Chief, staggering like a drunken man, panting. "Take
her away--Take her out of my sight. Send her to Siberia, to the
Mines--anywhere! Let her pay the uttermost penalty! Let her die! She
is nothing to me!--Curse her!--Curse her!--Curse her!"

The Chief made a sign to the Cossacks and they sprang forward, one on
either side of the girl. She shrank back.

"Father!" she cried.

"Chort vozmi, I am not your father! Take her away, I tell you." With
a stifled oath the General flung his hands to his head and rushed from
the room.

Velasco still stood dazed, clasping his violin. He was shivering as
though he had a chill, and the roughness, the brutality of the words,
the slamming of the door, went through him like a knife. He dropped
his violin on the litter of papers.

"By heaven!" he cried, "What a terrible thing! What brutes you all
are! She is my wife--mine! No matter what she has done, she is my
wife. Let go of her you savages!--Kaya! Help her, some of you--don't
let them take her! They are dragging her away!--Kaya! Stop them--stop
them!"

He was struggling like a madman in the arms of the official, fighting
with all his strength; but the muscles of the Cossack were like iron,
they held him in a vice. The Chief sprang forward. They held him, and
the girl was dragged from the room, brutally, roughly with blows.

She looked back over her shoulder and her eyes, with a strange, tense
look, gazed deep into Velasco's. They were dark and blue, full of
anguish. Her whole soul was in them; they were beseeching him, they
were thanking him, they were saying goodbye. He struggled towards her.
A moment--and she was gone.

The great door swung back on its hinges, the latch clicked.

A faint, low cry came b