selves up together as soon as
they are beside the general. Who are the two victims designated for this
horrible vengeance, and who have light-heartedly accepted such a death
for themselves as well as for the general? That is what we don't know.
That is what we would have known, perhaps, if you had not prevented
me from seizing the papers that Prince Galitch has now," Koupriane
finished, turning hostilely toward Rouletabille.

Rouletabille had turned pale.

"Don't regret what happened to the papers," he said. "It is I who tell
you not to. But what you say doesn't surprise me. They must believe that
Natacha has betrayed them."

"Ah, then you admit at last that she really is their accomplice?"

"I haven't said that and I don't admit it. But I know what I mean, and
you, you can't. Only, know this one thing, that at the present moment
I am the only person able to save you in this horrible situation. To do
that I must see Natacha at once. Make her understand this, while I wait
at my hotel for word. I'll not leave it."

Rouletabille saluted Koupriane and went out.

Two days passed, during which Rouletabille did not receive any word from
either Natacha or Koupriane, and tried in vain to see them. He made a
trip for a few hours to Finland, going as far as Pergalovo, an isolated
town said to be frequented by the revolutionaries, then returned, much
disturbed, to his hotel, after having written a last letter to Natacha
imploring an interview. The minutes passed very slowly for him in the
hotel's vestibule, where he had seemed to have taken up a definite
residence.

Installed on a bench, he seemed to have become part of the hotel staff,
and more than one traveler took him for an interpreter. Others thought
he was an agent of the Secret Police appointed to study the faces of
those arriving and departing. What was he waiting for, then? Was it
for Annouchka to return for a luncheon or dinner in that place that
she sometimes frequented? And did he at the same time keep watch upon
Annouchka's apartments just across the way? If that was so, he could
only bewail his luck, for Annouchka did not appear either at her
apartments or the hotel, or at the Krestowsky establishment, which
had been obliged to suppress her performance. Rouletabille naturally
thought, in the latter connection, that some vengeance by Gounsovski lay
back of this, since the head of the Secret Service could hardly forget
the way he had been treated. The reporter