A chaos of fear, doubt, pride, shame and wrath, the prince sent his horse galloping past the palaces that border the Neva, over the Palace Bridge, and through the dark, arched gateway of the Fortress. Here he sprang from his sleigh and started to hurry into the governor’s office; then remembering himself, he slowed down and strode in with all the dignity of a military governor. The place of the imprisoned Governor Delwig had been that day filled by Colonel Kavelin of Odessa, who had previously been determined on as Delwig’s successor and who had arrived in St. Petersburg the evening before. The new chief of the prison, burly, heavy-faced, greeted Prince Valenko with obsequious, flurried pleasure, which the prince returned with the hauteur that a high official gives one far beneath him. “I came over, Colonel Kavelin,” he said, “on a matter of business concerning the prisoners Borodin and Sonya Varanova.” “Yes, yes,” said the gratified governor. “All is ready for the execution. Everything will be carried out just as Your Excellency commanded.” “I desire to examine them upon certain points. Let me see them at once.” “Certainly. Will Your Excellency examine them here? I can be a witness to their testimony, and my clerk here can take it down.” “No. I wish to see them in their cells, alone. Put them both into one cell.” “It shall be done immediately,” said the governor, and withdrew. He presently returned, and led the prince through chill, dark corridors. The utter prison stillness was broken only by the chimes of the Fortress Cathedral, sounding out the hymn, “How Glorious is Our God in Zion.” Before the dungeon doors stood silent guards. Here was the dungeon said to be the one in which Peter the Great with his own hand slew his son Alexis; here the dungeons in which Catherine the Great entombed those who dared lift their voices against her murder of her husband. Dungeons of a black and awful past, of a black and awful present. Colonel Kavelin stopped and thrust a key into a door. Prince Valenko asked the governor to call for him in fifteen minutes; then he stepped into the dungeon and the bolts grated behind him. There was a table, a chair and a bed, all chained to the granite wall. On the table burned a single candle, on the bed sat a man and a woman, their arms about each other. The prince stood stock still, all his fears come true. The pair arose. For a space father and children gazed at each other in a silence that was a part of the vast chill silence of this vast cold tomb. First the prince’s gaze had centred on Sonya; then on the son whom he had not seen these five years--a man of thirty, as tall as his father, but more slender, with soft, dark hair brushed straight back from a broad forehead. There were dignity and nobility and power in his bearing, and high purpose glowed in his deep-set eyes. It was Sonya that ended the silence. She took a hesitant step forward. “Father!” she whispered.