e already been ordered away
from this house as unworthy to guard the most loyal subject of His
Majesty; I have not protested, but now I in my turn ask you to prove to
me that the most dangerous enemy you have had in your house is not your
daughter."

These words, which summed up the horrible situation, came as a relief
for Feodor. Yes, they must know. Koupriane was right. She must speak. He
ordered his daughter to tell everything, everything.

Natacha fixed Koupriane again with her look of hatred to the death,
turned from him and repeated in a firm voice:

"I have nothing to say."

"There is the accomplice of your assassins," growled Koupriane then, his
arm extended.

Natacha uttered a cry like a wounded beast and fell at her father's
feet. She gathered them within her supplicating arms. She pressed them
to her breasts. She sobbed from the bottom of her heart. And he, not
comprehending, let her lie there, distant, hostile, somber. Then she
moaned, distractedly, and wept bitterly, and the dramatic atmosphere in
which she thus suddenly enveloped Feodor made it all sound like those
cries of an earlier time when the all-powerful, punishing father
appeared in the women's apartments to punish the culpable ones.

"My father! Dear Father! Look at me! Look at me! Have pity on me, and do
not require me to speak when I must be silent forever. And believe me!
Do not believe these men! Do not believe Matrena Petrovna. And am I not
your daughter? Your very own daughter! Your Natacha Feodorovna! I cannot
make things dear to you. No, no, by the Holy Virgin Mother of Jesus
I cannot explain. By the holy ikons, it is because I must not. By my
mother, whom I have not known and whose place you have taken, oh, my
father, ask me nothing more! Ask me nothing more! But take me in your
arms as you did when I was little; embrace me, dear father; love me.
I never have had such need to be loved. Love me! I am miserable.
Unfortunate me, who cannot even kill myself before your eyes to prove
my innocence and my love. Papa, Papa! What will your arms be for in the
days left you to live, if you no longer wish to press me to your heart?
Papa! Papa!"

She laid her head on Feodor's knees. Her hair had come down and hung
about her in a magnificent disorderly mass of black.

"Look in my eyes! Look in my eyes! See how they love you, Batouchka!
Batouchka! My dear Batouchka!"

Then Feodor wept. His great tears fell upon Natacha's tears. He raised
her