Ivan could not answer, nor could he meet the searching gaze of the boy’s young eyes. In broken-hearted silence he turned away. But Henri put his arm around the child and drew him close to him. “God _did_ comfort him, at last,” he said. “The way was rough, rough and long, but the end was peace.--That journey to the south, from which he returned no more, was undertaken partly for the benefit of the Empress Elizabeth, whose health for some time had been failing. Her physicians had recommended her to pass the winter in Germany, but she entreated them not to separate her from her husband; and, to avoid this separation, he fixed upon a residence for her at Taganrog, in the Crimea, the climate being accounted favourable, resolving to make it his own headquarters for the season. There they spent a few quiet, restful weeks together. Elizabeth wrote to her own family that she had never been so happy in all her life. She drove and walked with the Emperor, who watched over her with all the care and tenderness of which he was so capable. Whenever he walked alone, he visited the poor in their humble homes; and many a touching memory of his kindness will linger long on their lips and in their hearts.[85] “But that peaceful breathing space had an end too soon. During a toilsome journey through the Crimea, filled with the usual details of business, the deadly fever and ague smote his frame; while, just at the same time, tidings no less deadly reached his heart. The vaguely treasonable projects of the secret societies had ended in a desperate and deliberate plot, of which his own assassination was a leading feature.” “_His_ assassination!” cried Ivan. “Impossible! They could _never_ have done it.” “So it seemed,” Henri answered. “For the deed was often purposed, never once attempted. Still the shaft struck home. Many of those who plotted to take his life owed all that made their own precious to his bounty; every one of them had received favours at his hands. ‘But what could I expect? It is a just retribution,’ he cried, unconscious in his deafness that he spoke aloud. ‘Almighty God, let thy judgments fall on me alone, and not on my people!’” “A just retribution?” Clémence repeated. “How was it possible to him, even for a moment, to imagine _that_?” “It could only have been possible to shattered nerves and a mind unstrung by suffering. The remembrance of the dark tragedy that began his reign--the thought of his father’s horrible fate, perhaps soon to be his own--came back upon him in the hours of pain and weakness. Moreover, a stem duty was laid upon him. Before treason such as had been now disclosed to him no monarch on earth could remain passive. The ruler ‘beareth not the sword in vain.’ But to Alexander it was easier to suffer than to strike.