went, arrived when one least expected them, and
quitted their company--even the highest society--without formality. It
was what they called in France "leaving English fashion." However,
it appeared it was not meant to be impolite. Perhaps he had gone to
telegraph. A journalist had to keep in touch with the telegraph at all
hours. Poor Matrena Petrovna roamed the solitary garden in tumult of
heart. There was the light in the general's window on the first floor.
There were lights in the basement from the kitchens. There was a light
on the ground-floor near the sitting-room, from Natacha's chamber
window. Ah, the night was hard to bear. And this night the shadows
weighed heavier than ever on the valiant breast of Matrena. As she
breathed she felt as though she lifted all the weight of the threatening
night. She examined everything--everything. All was shut tight, was
perfectly secure, and there was no one within excepting people she was
absolutely sure of--but whom, all the same, she did not allow to go
anywhere in the house excepting where their work called them. Each in
his place. That made things surer. She wished each one could remain
fixed like the porcelain statues of men out on the lawn. Even as she
thought it, here at her feet, right at her very feet, a shadow of one
of the porcelain men moved, stretched itself out, rose to its knees,
grasped her skirt and spoke in the voice of Rouletabille. Ah, good! it
was Rouletabille. "Himself, dear madame; himself."

"Why is Ermolai in the veranda? Send him back to the kitchens and tell
the schwitzar to go to bed. The servants are enough for an ordinary
guard outside. Then you go in at once, shut the door, and don't concern
yourself about me, dear madame. Good-night."

Rouletabille had resumed, in the shadows, among the other porcelain
figures, his pose of a porcelain man.

Matrena Petrovna did as she was told, returned to the house, spoke to
the schwitzar, who removed to the lodge with Ermolai, and their mistress
closed the outside door. She had closed long before the door of the
kitchen stair which allowed the domestics to enter the villa from below.
Down there each night the devoted gniagnia and the faithful Ermolai
watched in turn.

Within the villa, now closed, there were on the ground-floor only
Matrena herself and her step-daughter Natacha, who slept in the chamber
off the sitting-room, and, above on the first floor, the general asleep,
or who ought to be asleep if