Was she acting? I asked myself the question even while I felt a scorn of myself for being contemptuous in my judgment of a stricken woman; for truly, in losing her elder brother, she had lost her chief stay and hope. Yet I knew the great Sophia too well to be wholly sure that her emotion was entirely without thought of its effect upon the people; I knew her to be an astute politician and an adroit manager. Yet it was a pathetic scene,--the strong woman’s abandon in her grief and despair. The effect upon the multitude was at once apparent; there was a murmur through the crowd, low but deep. And it was then that the Czarina Natalia took that step which caused so much unfavorable comment. Taking the little Czar Peter by the hand, she left the cathedral, and in a few moments, by some mysterious agency, the news spread through the crowd; and in that hour the czarina lost more prestige than she was likely to regain for many a long day. The sharp contrast between the agony of Sophia’s grief, and the absence of reverence for the dead in the czarina’s conduct was too strikingly presented to the people. The excuse that Natalia pleaded, that the child Peter was weary with the long service, was insufficient, for the Miloslavskys were only too eager to fan the flame of popular resentment against the young czar’s mother. It was when we were at last leaving the cathedral, pressed and hemmed in by the crowd, that I was pushed almost against the Boyar Ramodanofsky. As I glanced at him, I saw a curious look come over his face; his features seemed to freeze with sudden horror, and his eyes fixed themselves in a stare. Following the direction of his glance, I saw in the crowd the tall figure of my acquaintance of election day, Peter Lykof. He was apparently looking at the boyar, and there was a smile on his lips; and was it the scar that so distorted it, and made it horrible, mocking, revengeful? I watched them in keen surprise, until the people surged between, and I saw Lykof no more. Ramodanofsky walked before me like a man in a dream, and I kept him in sight as long as it was possible; but presently, in the press and confusion, I lost him also. Later, I heard that he had been taken suddenly ill, and leaving the procession, had been driven home. All the way along I looked eagerly for another sign of Lykof, but my vigilance was not rewarded with success. Meanwhile, the funeral _cortége_ took its slow course, returning across the Grand Square of the Kremlin, and once more the figure of the bereaved czarevna absorbed all attention, and she continued to give way to her grief. We had almost reached the centre of the Red Place when she made her appeal to the people. It was the climax of the scene, and took the opposing faction completely by surprise. Pausing, and facing the vast multitude, she stretched out her hands to them with an eloquent gesture; in a moment there was a profound silence, and her voice was distinctly heard at a long distance:--