for affairs to remain on their present footing. The two young princes would have to reign jointly, and that meant the regency of Sophia Alexeievna. It was an evil hour for the Naryshkins, and the prospects of the young Peter never looked more gloomy. Glancing back upon those days of blood, it seems impossible that no one should have foreseen the advent of the great czar; that every eye was absorbed by the subtlety of the clever czarevna, never dreaming of the day of reckoning, when Peter should reclaim his own. It was on the evening of the third day, when I had returned from the Kremlin, that Pierrot, who had been on duty constantly to guard Zénaïde, answered a gentle summons at the side door. I was in the lower hall at the time, and saw him admit two closely veiled women, followed by a young fellow, whom I recognized as one of the attendants of the imperial household. The foremost female figure was undoubtedly Mademoiselle Eudoxie. “This was a risk, mademoiselle,” I said smiling, as I held out my hand, at the same time looking beyond her at the veiled figure, which I did not know. “I could not stay there any longer,” mademoiselle exclaimed with a shudder. “It is too horrible. I seem to hear the shrieks of those poor murdered creatures all the time. Besides, I wanted to be with Zénaïde; I am not happy when I do not know that she is safe; and madame wanted to see you.” This surprised me, and I glanced inquiringly at the muffled form. Seeing my look, the stranger raised her veil, and I saw the face of Madame von Gaden, changed as I have scarcely ever seen a woman’s face change in a few days. She looked old with her pallor and the dark rings under her eyes. I divined her errand in a moment, and sending mademoiselle to Zénaïde, turned to the poor woman with as gentle a manner as I could command. “Have you seen him?” she asked in a broken voice; “have you heard anything?” Very tenderly I told her of my parting with her husband after our escape from his house. “And you have never seen him since?” she exclaimed, pressing her hand to her heart. “Where can he be?” “Far away, I trust, madame,” I replied gravely. “Let us not wish to see him until this frenzy is over. It is almost spent; it cannot last a great while now.” She shook her head. “Alas!” she said, “they will not be satisfied until they have his blood. I thought that they would have mine when they dragged me through the streets to the Kremlin. Nothing saved me but Sophia and the young Czarina Martha; she concealed me in her own room until now, when I could endure it no longer. Poor Jan Gutmensch was killed, in spite of the intercession of the princesses, you know, M. le Vicomte?” “Let us hope that your good husband has escaped from Moscow,” I said, reassuringly. “I pray so,” the poor woman replied brokenly. “But I hear their howls for his blood all the time. They were like the cries of wolves, M. de Brousson; they have less pity than the beasts.”