On every hand there were rumors that Sophia feared the treachery of the Naryshkins, and believed that Peter’s uncle, Ivan Naryshkin, was himself aiming at the throne. But Von Gaden, in his private talks with me, scoffed at the idea; he thought the czarevna far too shrewd to dream of such absurdities, and that she was merely circulating these _canards_ for the purpose of inflaming the ignorant and seditious. I was myself confronted with a new situation, for since the affair of the packet, I had noticed a decided change at the palace, and the Czarina Natalia, on one occasion, treated me with marked coldness. Therefore, as my lot seemed cast with the Miloslavskys, I could no longer pose as an indifferent spectator, but watched the moves at court with the interest of one of the players at dice; and in those few days before the 25th of May, 1682, it was a desperate game, desperately played. Preparations were in progress for the coronation of Peter Alexeivitch, and the whole strength of the aristocratic party was rallying to his support; some of the most honorable names in Russia were reckoned among his immediate adherents; yet there was no master hand to grip the helm of state, and arrayed against them was a clever woman, seconded by Basil Galitsyn and Ivan Miloslavsky, a strong trio, two of them destined to rule Russia for seven years. But in the midst of this public excitement, came a call upon me that turned my mind from such intrigues and concentrated it upon an effort to secure my own happiness. Ever since my first agreement with Mademoiselle Eudoxie, I had persistently watched Ramodanofsky’s residence, that no ill might come to Zénaïde without a warning to me. I had been at the Kremlin all day, and it was in the dusk of evening that I made my pilgrimage past the gloomy house, and as I approached, it struck me as more than usually forbidding in its aspect; either it was too early for lights, or they were not near the windows, and the effect was somber in the extreme. The gates of the courtyard were closed, and there was no sign of life. I passed around the front of the house and down the lane which had been the scene of Michael’s attack upon me. This lane continued around the back of the house, which was flanked by the other wing, where Mademoiselle Eudoxie’s room commanded a part of the lane from one small window; and it was here that she had agreed to place a signal in the hour of need. I had made the pilgrimage many afternoons without result, but as soon as I turned the corner of the wall that evening, I saw a white handkerchief fluttering on the window sill. Mademoiselle Eudoxie’s signal! For a moment I was taken by surprise, as we always are when we discover anything that we have looked for assiduously but without success day after day; so it was that I was not only astonished but alarmed at the sight of the signal, and was not slow to conjecture the danger which threatened Zénaïde.