"For the saving of your life. Do you know, Katina, that if you should shoot Orloff, I, as Minister of Justice, would have to see that you were hanged?" "So you have divined my purpose?" she said, with a bitter smile. "And must frustrate it. Come, Katina, be sensible. Would you violate the common law of nations? In assassinating the Czar's ambassador you would be playing the very devil with the public safety. Nicholas would have good pretext, then, for annexing Czernova." "And you would rob me of my vengeance?" she said with a gesture of despair. "What other opportunity shall I ever have? Long ago would I have entered Russia to slay him, but that my face is known to all the police agents there. The moment I set foot over the frontier I should be seized and sent again to Orenburg." "I sympathize with you, and probably if I were Katina I should be tempted to do even as she would. But I am Zabern, you see, and the princess's government is my first care. Were Orloff in neutral territory you might shoot him without hindrance from me--and glad would I be to hear of his death--but on Czernovese ground--no! We should have to respect the devil himself if he should come in the character of ambassador." The distant fanfare of trumpets now rose and fell on the air, signal that the envoy had arrived at the entrance of the palace. The sound seemed to madden Katina. "Is he come here in pomp, to be graciously received by the princess, to be feasted by her ministers, while I, his victim, scarred with the knout for refusing to become his plaything, am to remain still and do nothing to avenge myself? Your state policy to the winds," she cried passionately. "Stand aside. You shall not stay my hand." She made as if she would have escaped from the apartment, but Zabern, on the watch for this movement, intercepted her and placed his back against the door. "Nay, Katina, here you must remain till Orloff shall have quitted Czernova." She recognized the futility of resistance, and turning away with her face very white, and speaking very slowly, she said,-- "Then if you prevent me from killing Orloff I will kill myself." Her words startled Zabern from his cynical composure. For a moment he hesitated whether to leave her, for Katina looked as if she fully intended to carry out her threat. "Be it so," he said, coldly. "The guilt will not be mine. Better that maid perish by her own hand than that the liberties of a whole people be destroyed." With that saying the marshal withdrew and having locked the door upon Katina, he darkly wended his way to the audience chamber. With a view of rendering due honor to the imperial envoy it had been decided by Barbara that the reception should be attended with considerable pomp.