t her
chair and glided among the worshippers, nearly as far as the railing.

But when she had arrived there, she was stopped by the group of the
general's servants. But Arina had not come so far to be, stopped so
easily: she tried to push between them, but they opposed her; she
persisted, and one of them pushed her roughly back. The child fell,
struck her head against a seat, and got up bleeding and crying, "You are
very proud for a slave. Is it because you belong to the great lady who
burnt the Red House?"

These words, uttered in a loud voice, in the midst of the silence
which preceded, the sacred ceremony, were heard by everyone. They were
answered by a shriek. Vaninka had fainted. The next day the general,
at the feet of Paul, recounted to him, as his sovereign and judge, the
whole terrible story, which Vaninka, crushed by her long struggle, had
at last revealed to him, at night, after the scene in the church.

The emperor remained for a moment in thought at the end of this strange
confession; then, getting up from the chair where he had been sitting
while the miserable father told his story, he went to a bureau, and
wrote on a sheet of paper the following sentence:

"The priest having violated what should have been inviolable, the
secrets of the confessional, is exiled to Siberia and deprived of his
priestly office. His wife will follow him: she is to be blamed for not
having respected his character as a minister of the altar. The little
girl will not leave her parents.

"Annouschka, the attendant, will also go to Siberia for not having made
known to her master his daughter's conduct.

"I preserve all my esteem for the general, and I mourn with him for the
deadly blow which has struck him.

"As for Vaninka, I know of no punishment which can be inflicted upon
her. I only see in her the daughter of a brave soldier, whose whole
life has been devoted to the service of his country. Besides, the
extraordinary way in which the crime was discovered, seems to place the
culprit beyond the limits of my severity. I leave her punishment in
her own hands. If I understand her character, if any feeling of dignity
remains to her, her heart and her remorse will show her the path she
ought to follow."

Paul handed the paper open to the general, ordering him to take it to
Count Pahlen, the governor of St. Petersburg.

On the following day the emperor's orders were carried out.

Vaninka went into a convent, where towards th