Ere long, the name of Natalie came before the Secret Chancery, as a prisoner in Schlusselburg; and, like the rest, she was tried and condemned in absence, undefended and unheard; and sentenced, too, amid the solitude of her prison. To Balgonie the charm of life seemed to have passed away; and, during the week or two that followed his return to St. Petersburg, dreary, weary, and unmeaning, indeed, seemed the routine of his duties as aide-de-camp at the vast parades, the brilliant receptions, the courts-martial, and other public affairs to which he followed his _chef_, General Weymarn, at the palaces of Tsarsky Selo or Oranienbaum, and elsewhere, while ignorant of the fate of Natalie--while the very life of her he loved hung in the balance. When compared with their fate, how happy seemed those lovers, who, though separated for a period, could look confidently forward through the long succession of hours, of days and nights, of weeks, and months, or even years, and reckon with certainty on the time of reunion! With him and Natalie, time stretched into a length that seemed interminable: their future had no background; their separation was one without hope. Charlie, in his desperation, applied to the Marquis de Bausset and to Sir George Macartney, then the Ambassadors from France and Britain; and both received his verbal prayers--he dared not write on such a subject--for mercy to the Count's family: but they were unheeded; and the Ministers replied only by bows, grimaces, and shrugs of their diplomatic shoulders. Their interference was impossible--quite; and, unfortunately, his old patron, Admiral Thomas Mackenzie, was with the fleet in the Black Sea. The suspicions excited against his Regiment and the Grenadiers of Valikolutz, might procure the banishment of both; he feared it in the form of service in Siberia, or at the Crimean lines of Perecop. In either case, unless Weymarn stood his friend, how could he hope to succour Natalie! At every tea-house, hotel, and café, his uniform of the Smolensko Infantry, and the knowledge that he was the staff officer who had been in Schlusselburg, and who brought the first tidings of the late affair, made him an object of special interest; but the subject was alike a perilous and painful one. Walls have many ears in Russia; so he was compelled to be silent, or discreet, even to rudeness, though the following declaration, which was issued by the Empress, might have allayed his fears:--