which led to the sitting-room before
Natacha's chamber.

"He is there," said Ermolai in a low voice.

Ermolai need have said nothing, for that matter, since Madame
Matrena was aware of a stranger's presence in the sitting-room by the
extraordinary attitude of an individual in a maroon frock-coat bordered
with false astrakhan, such as is on the coats of all the Russian police
agents and makes the secret agents recognizable at first glance. This
policeman was on his knees in the drawing-room watching what passed in
the next room through the narrow space of light in the hinge-way of the
door. In this manner, or some other, all persons who wished to approach
General Trebassof were kept under observation without their knowing it,
after having been first searched at the lodge, a measure adopted since
the latest attack.

Madame Matrena touched the policeman's shoulder with that heroic hand
which had saved her husband's life and which still bore traces of the
terrible explosion in the last attack, when she had seized the infernal
machine intended for the general with her bare hand. The policeman rose
and silently left the room, reached the veranda and lounged there on a
sofa, pretending to be asleep, but in reality watching the garden paths.

Matrena Petrovna took his place at the hinge-vent. This was her rule;
she always took the final glance at everything and everybody. She
roved at all hours of the day and night round about the general, like a
watch-dog, ready to bite, to throw itself before the danger, to receive
the blows, to perish for its master. This had commenced at Moscow after
the terrible repression, the massacre of revolutionaries under the walls
of Presnia, when the surviving Nihilists left behind them a placard
condemning the victorious General Trebassof to death. Matrena Petrovna
lived only for the general. She had vowed that she would not survive
him. So she had double reason to guard him.

But she had lost all confidence even within the walls of her own home.

Things had happened even there that defied her caution, her instinct,
her love. She had not spoken of these things save to the Chief of
Police, Koupriane, who had reported them to the Emperor. And here now
was the man whom the Emperor had sent, as the supreme resource, this
young stranger--Joseph Rouletabille, reporter.

"But he is a mere boy!" she exclaimed, without at all understanding the
matter, this youthful figure, with soft, rounded cheeks,