It was evening in the Winter Palace—evening of the day on which Vladimir Mellikoff had entered on the first stage of his new mission: to make war upon a woman.

Within the Palace all was hushed and still; the servants passed to and fro with noiseless footsteps and that well-trained air of repose only attainable by long and constant effort. For once no official or social entertainment was on hand, and the Imperial Family were enjoying the novelty of a comparatively quiet evening—a novelty, whose rarity precluded any possibility of its charm waxing dim.

The great State apartments, the Onyx Hall, and the Salle des Palmiers were empty, dark, and silent, hiding their wonderful treasures in the gloom and shadows: their priceless tables of malachite and lapis-lazuli; their jewel-encrusted frames to pictures rarer and more valuable than the gems that surrounded them. From out the dark corners started a thousand and one memories of bygone kings and dynasties—of that great and licentious Catherine II., to whose energy Petersburg owes so much, and the Winter Palace its existence; of Peter, also called the Great, who first raised his nation from out of its barbarism; of Napoleon, and his restless ambition; of Nicholas, who died broken-hearted when Sevastopol fell; of Alexander, the wise and beneficent, father of the Tsar who now occupies the Imperial throne, and who strove in vain to stem the current of mad republicanism that spread disaffection broadcast from the Baltic to the Caspian, and which gathering strength year by year and month by month, rolled on like some gigantic wave far out at sea, tossing high above the surrounding breakers, riding fearlessly to its doom, and breaking with devastating effect against the ill-protected breakwaters of monarchical institutions and traditions.

When the Court was alone, so to speak, and free from the onerous duties of perfunctory ceremonial, the Tsarina—whose nature was as gentle and loving and peaceful as that of her sister, the beloved Princess of England's hopes—shunned the vast State chambers, and held her petites rÉunions in a smaller suite of apartments, within which were gathered every luxury of modern civilisation, and where, when the heavy plush portiÈres were drawn, the great stoves emitting the heat of a furnace, and the logs piled high on the low fire-dogs, it was possible to forget the ice and snow without, even as in looking upon the various spoils and souvenirs of every clime and country, from the rich silks and perfumed woods of the Orient, to the more homely comforts of Great Britain, it was possible to forget that this was Petersburg, and become oblivious to those frowning walls and cruel dungeons, mocked by the names of the two Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul.

Nevertheless, there they stood, grim, real, dauntless, and within them languished the poor "prisoners of hope," wrapped, at least let us pray, in that merciful and dreamless sleep, which the dark hours bring even to the most miserable.

This favourite set of rooms of the Tsarina's opened one from another, each growing smaller until the last was reached, which was indeed a veritable nest of down for the fair Danish dove who had mated with the bold Russian eagle. Here the Empress received her most privileged guests, and permitted audiences that were of a peculiarly private or domestic order. Here, too, would come the Tsar, and throwing himself down into one of the low velvet ottomans, put from him his habitual air of reserve and anxiety, and enter with affectionate raillery into the spirit of the hour; or should such be his mood, at a sign all would withdraw, leaving him alone with the Empress, who at such times threw aside the conventionalities of a life hedged in by etiquette, and became only the loving, faithful wife, the intelligent companion, the cheerful counsellor and consoler.

Much indeed might the walls of that blue chamber have revealed could they have spoken: secrets on which hung the fate of nations; decisions that were to make history; and confidences that wrung tears of blood from the stern Tsar, whose heart, like that of his father, loved his mighty empire, but who, unlike him, failed to inspire complete trust in his nation's heart.

On these occasions, the larger room of all was given up to the use of the Court; and here gathered the different ladies and gentlemen attached to the personnel of their Imperial Majesties; and here, too, were often admitted particular friends of the bedchamber ladies, the maids of honour, the equerries, and other official personages of the Court. The orders, however, for such entrance were somewhat difficult to obtain, and each person who entered was keenly watched by a member of the secret committee of the Chancellerie, whose function, unknown to any but himself, obtained for him the fullest opportunities of scrutiny.

And in this incognito lay the power of the Chancellerie; for it might be the very individual to whom you spoke so confidingly; the friend, man or woman, on whose fidelity you relied implicitly, the young girl with the innocent face, the youth with the bold free carriage, the elderly courtier with venerable grey locks, or the dame d'honneur of highest repute, who was the secret agent and in the secret pay of the Chancellerie, and who, at a given signal, would deliver you up to its iron laws, its fearless judgments, and cruel sentence.

On this particular evening the outer salon was well filled with guests, whose gay voices and subdued rippling laughter mingled with the strains of the Household band, and bespoke some hearts at least among the number as free from carking care. French was the language spoken, for Petersburg outvies even gay Lutetia itself in its undeviating worship of all things Parisian.

Within an embrasure of one of the heavily-draped windows, the curtains of which had been pulled somewhat hastily apart, sat a youthful couple, who would in any assembly have stood boldly forth as being more beautiful and distinguished than is the usual type of humanity. Of these, one was a young man, the other a woman scarcely entering her second decade, but with so much of imperious grandeur and haughty pride of race about her that to call her by the less dignified title of girl or maiden would seem an impertinence.

The young man was of more than ordinary proportions, tall and broad-shouldered, with a look of the innocence of childhood still clinging to the soft curves of his fair Northern face, that was revealed in his joyous azure-blue eyes, and reflected in the crisp golden curls which, despite the rigid cropping according to the last Paris mode, lay in tiny rings all over his round and well-shaped head. A close observer would perhaps have noted that his throat, though full and well developed, owned a straight and clean back line, denoting a lack of amative passion, and that the head and forehead were most developed where the phrenologists tell us to look for cruelty and perseverance. His hands were remarkably white, and kept in scrupulous order, even to the finely-rounded filbert nails that shone with the reflected sheen of a polissoire and poudre des ongles. This was his only bit of cox-combry, however, and for the rest, it may be said, he had a hearty laugh, a merry jest, and a cheerful word for every one, and, while boasting more friends than any young patrician in Petersburg, yet admitted no one to a closer intimacy than that accorded by outward cordiality of manner.

This was Ivor Tolskoi. We have seen him before, in the inner sanctum of the Chancellerie, when Vladimir Mellikoff accepted his mission; and Ivor cursed the fate that trembling in the balance, fell in the favour of the older and more experienced man, and thus shut him out from winning his first spurs in the service of his master.

Ivor Tolskoi was, in many ways, an enfant gÂtÉ of his world. He was an orphan, and very rich; a ward of the Tsar's, owning large estates in the wild Ural province, which he seldom visited, and serfs whose numbers he had never counted, who were free in name only, and whose sole use in the world was so to labour for him that his revenues year by year never failed, and never grew less. He owned no title, and he would have scorned the acceptance of any mere bauble of to-day's creation; he would have told you, with a toss of his golden head and a ringing laugh, that the Tolskois were lords of the soil and of human souls long centuries before Peter came to the Imperial throne, and raised his nation from out their barbaric indolence; and that while the imperious Tsar was learning ship-building at Deptford, his ancestor of that period was riding at large over his vast properties, hunting the wild boar and the wolf, the ermine and marten, across his own territory, whose boundaries not even he could define. It would ill become him, then, the last scion of his grand old race, to accept a tawdry title in place of his own simple name, Ivor Tolskoi, which each eldest son had born in succession for generation after generation, and before which the peasants upon his wide western property turned pale and trembled.

His companion was his equal in feminine beauty, and there were many circumstances in the life of each strangely similar, which served to draw them closer together, and more intimately than is usually the case in a country and a Court where etiquette governs rather than affinity.

The face of the young woman who leant back negligently against the pile of velvet cushions Ivor had placed for her, was strangely beautiful, with the weird, almost unholy beauty of an enchantress of old; such beauty as Faustine wore, or Cleopatra, or Messalina, which enslaves the senses at once, without leaving any loophole for calm reason. She too was tall and grand of build, though slight, as became her three-and-twenty years; her shoulders bore the curves of the Milo Venus; her neck and bosom fell in the round charming lines of maidenhood; her head rose proudly from the short classic pillar of her throat, and was carried with an almost royal grace; the sweep from chin to ear was perfect in its fine symmetry; the low arched forehead bespoke more than ordinary intelligence; beneath it her eyes, set wide apart and wearing a look of innocent fearlessness, were of the deepest shade of violet, to which the black lashes and pencilled brows gave the piquancy of unexpectedness, for her hair, which was rolled high in heavy masses and fastened with a jewelled arrow, was brown in colour, shot through with a thousand lights of golden auburn; her complexion was pale but warm, and the small perfectly modelled bow of her mouth was tinged with vivid crimson, adding the perfecting note to her ideal countenance.

In manner she was cold, proud, repellent, though beneath the outward ice ran a fire of passion that once let loose would sweep away all barriers of conventionality, and stop at nothing to accomplish its desires.

Like Ivor, she was an orphan, and like him untitled, but there ran within her veins a strain of the great Catherine's blood, transmuted to her from an ancestor who could boast of Imperial favours, and of this bar sinister in the past Olga—for she it was—was prouder than of any patent of a lesser nobility. It may be that, generations intervening notwithstanding, this last fair representative of her race possessed some traits and characteristics of her Imperial ancestress, for like her, she was both strong and weak, impetuous and calculating, passionate and mercenary, forgiving and tyrannical; and was indeed a pure specimen of the Russian type, in which are so strongly and so dispassionately blended the master passions of cruelty and remorse.

Olga Naundorff had known no home save that of the Court, for though she inherited a fair property from her father, it was situated many long miles from Petersburg, on the southern frontier amidst the trackless wastes of the steppes, where for nine months continual snow reigned, and where the long dreariness of winter was fraught with the terror of isolation and dull monotony.

Olga remembered but little of this far-away home, and shunned such memories whenever they came to her, with an instinctive shrinking from the unknown and undesirable.

Her father, who had been a brave and gallant officer, who had served his country on many a battle-field, and loved his Tsar, the Alexander of good deeds, with a strong and fervent love, which nothing, not even the claims of his little daughter, could outweigh, and who was trusted and loved in return by his Emperor, brought the little motherless Olga, when but a child of ten, to Gatschina, presented her to the Tsar, demanding an asylum for the pretty child, whose mother was dead, and whose fearlessness and beauty made her the more open to an untoward fate.

The great Alexander was pleased to gratify his faithful friend and servant, and was also captivated by the tiny maid's rare loveliness; and so it came about that General Naundorff's desire was granted, and his little Olga became the pet and plaything of the Imperial Court. There she grew from girlhood to maidenhood, and, as her beauty developed more and more, and her intelligence expanded, she became a special favourite with the Tsar, to whose private apartments she had free access, and from whom she gained by her pretty imperious pleading, many a coveted favour for some loyal subject of his Majesty.

The news came of her father's death, but it made little difference to Olga; she had scarcely known him, she could not be expected to weep for one she did not love. Her first real sorrow fell upon her when by the hand of an assassin, the kind and gracious Alexander II. passed from life to death. Her grief was inconsolable then; she wept for days and nights, and mourned him with a deep abiding sorrow, that fostered and strengthened her hate and abhorrence of those who, while calling themselves Russians and patriots, planned secretly, and in the dark, for the overthrow of the Imperial throne.

She was grown a woman then, and a rarely beautiful one, with her fair proud face with its touch of royal scorn, and her free, upright, graceful form. It was at this time that Vladimir Mellikoff first saw her, and claiming distant cousinship, proceeded straightway to fall in love with her and worship her; a worship she accepted as a right, but a love which she only tolerated with indifference.

When the new Tsarina formed her personal Court, she named Olga as maid of honour, and when first the young girl entered on her duties, received her with such winning sweetness and graciousness, as to subdue utterly the proud heart, and cause it to transfer to the young and still lovely woman all its treasure of intense veneration, affection, and allegiance which it had held for the beloved Alexander.

Count Mellikoff, meantime, succeeded but poorly in his suit; Olga was neither touched nor won by his persistency; she accepted his homage and his passionate devotion with her superb Imperial grace, but granted him nothing in return, save perhaps when she saw him wavering and uncertain, torn between his love and his self-respect, then she would bestow on him a smile of dazzling softness, or let her slim firm fingers rest a moment within his, or murmur some half inaudible word of praise or protest, when he would be again at her feet, her slave, her adorer, her passionate lover.

He had spoken out his love at last, and urged his claims upon her so vehemently and with such emotional force, as to rouse her even from her habitual indifference, and to call forth that half promise, on account of which Vladimir had started on his new mission with such an exulting heart and such visions of glorified future bliss.

There was one habituÉ of the Court, however, whom Olga often favoured with her rare smiles, and in whose company she always appeared frankly content; this was Ivor Tolskoi, in whose fair good looks she took honest pride, and for whom she laid aside something of her haughty, imperious manner. Indeed, Ivor was so bright and joyous, such an incarnation of the brilliant sparkling cold sun of Petersburg, which exhilarates but does not warm, it was impossible not to like him, and not to melt under the cool fire of his blue eyes, and the fine if cruel smile of his lips; only Olga failed to see the coldness or the cruelty.

She fancied she knew Ivor Tolskoi's life from Alpha to Omega, that there was not a page of his daily existence that was not open to her inspection, and yet she in reality knew nothing; not even his daily avocations, beyond the light ones imposed upon him by Court regulations, and never dreamed that he was one of the most vigilant and most active members in the secret service of the Chancellerie. Indeed, Ivor Tolskoi's boyish face and youthful laugh seemed incompatible with intrigue and surveillance; and Ivor knew this, and took good care to play both his rÔles with diplomatic finesse and success.

"And so, Ivor," Olga was saying in her clear, cold voice, "you really believe that that wretched woman of the bourgeoisie had a hand in the murder of poor Stevan Lallovich? Upon my word, to what heights will the canaille next aspire, if even a Prince of Russia is not safe from the stab of a knife in the hand of a red republican? Do you think she murdered him, Ivor?"

"Ah," replied Tolskoi, "you put a blunt question, Mdlle. Naundorff," for though Olga addressed him with the familiarity of a sister, Ivor never so far forgot himself as to reply in like manner. "How dare one express any opinion on any subject in these days of treachery, since the very walls have ears and the very doors speak? And even should you press me, mademoiselle, I could not answer; I never have any opinion on any subject more important than a ball cotillon; c'est trop de peine." And Ivor threw back his head and laughed, his full and hearty peal, at sound of which several of the other guests of the salon stopped their idle occupations and laughed in sympathy. But Olga frowned and beat her pointed slipper impatiently against the foot-stool on which it rested.

"Don't be silly, Ivor," she said; "and don't laugh so loud, you will have old Madame Bettcheriski down upon us for breach of etiquette. When will you cease to be such a boy?"

"When I cease to sun myself in your smiles, mademoiselle," replied the young man, gallantly, and with a half-mocking bow. "When that unhappy day dawns for me I shall take leave of my youth for ever, and seeing it fall from me, grow as 'grave and reverend a signior' as Count Vladimir himself."

To this allusion to her absent lover, Olga made no rejoinder save by a scarcely perceptible upward movement of her head. She waited a moment before she spoke again, and in the silence that fell between them, there floated across the room the conclusion of a sentence, spoken in a musical though rather high-pitched voice:

"It is true, nevertheless. She may not care for him, but when he returns to Court our proud and haughty favourite will be prepared to bestow her hand upon him."

Then the speaker's voice faded away into space, and Olga looking up found Ivor's eyes fixed upon her with a strange and unwonted fierceness in their blue depths. Her own fell beneath his glance, and she felt with annoyance the blood rise in her face, and spread its crimson over her pale cheeks.

She was angry at this school-girl exhibition, and drew herself upright into a more dignified attitude, folding her hands on her knees, and looking up boldly into Ivor's face; as she did so the colour faded as quickly as it had come, leaving her paler than before. Tolskoi continued to gaze at her intently; he bent forward a little, bringing his golden head nearer her dark one, and said, in a voice quite different from his usual gay insouciant tones:

"It is my turn to ask a question. Is this true, mademoiselle?"

"Is what true?" replied Olga, under her breath, half fascinated by the face and eyes looking down so close upon her; a face that bore the familiar lineaments of Ivor, but with an expression she had never seen there before, and which made this very familiarity seem strange and repellent.

"Is it true," repeated Ivor, in the same low voice, "that when Count Vladimir Mellikoff returns—if he returns—Mademoiselle Naundorff will bestow upon him the honour of her hand? Is it true? For that is the reading between the lines, is it not? Our Court recognises but one proud favourite, mademoiselle, and who should know her name so well as you? At present she lacks but one courtier in her train, Count Vladimir. You see the riddle is not difficult of solution; but is it true—Olga?"

It was the first time he had ever called her by her name, and Mademoiselle Naundorff winced perceptibly as she heard it fall from his lips, in the low suppressed tones of his voice. She started, and threw back her head with her favourite gesture, as if she would throw off the burden of the hour, and free herself from its restrictions.

"Have you a right to ask, Ivor?" she answered, coldly. "How can you be so foolish as to heed a bit of incomplete gossip, blown to us from the lips of Countess Vera, light as feather-down, and without beginning or end, as are most of the Countess's scandals?"

"You may laugh at me if it pleases you," replied the young man, brusquely; "but I will have my answer. Is it true?"

"Will have—and to me!" cried out Mademoiselle Naundorff, hasty anger in her voice, then laughing a little. "You deserve to be punished for your temerity. What—since you will have it so, Ivor—what if to oblige you I admit that perhaps when Count Mellikoff returns, if I see my way to it, and am not too bornÉe or fatigued, I may—what is the happy phrase?—bestow my hand upon him. There, you have your answer, sir."

She leant back again against the cushions, and scrutinised him through her half-closed eyelids. Ivor's face was white with passion; his blue eyes seemed made of steel, so hard and brilliant was their lustre. He did not move from his position, or take his gaze from her face, and when he spoke it was with no outburst of anger or eloquence, but in the same repressed low voice.

"Then I warn you, Olga, let him take heed, for you shall never give to him what I know you would refuse to me. Should he dare to boast of you as won by him, I will make him eat his own words, even though it be with a knife of steel."

Olga shuddered involuntarily, but controlling herself quickly, said quietly, with a little laugh: "You speak at random, my poor Ivor; what wish of yours have I disregarded, or what request left unfulfilled? Is there anything more I can do for you?"

But Tolskoi was not to be put off with light words or meaningless phrases; his face did not relax, nor a softer expression come to his eyes, at her bantering words, though he spoke somewhat less harshly.

"Yes, you can give me one thing more; you can give me your promise never to marry Vladimir Mellikoff without my consent. Will you promise me this, Olga?"

Mdlle. Naundorff was now, however, thoroughly roused; she sprang to her feet and drew up her tall figure to its full height, while the proud lines of her face became prouder and more imperious, and her voice vibrated with suppressed anger, though her tones fell calm and cold.

"Certainly not, Monsieur Tolskoi; you presume too far on good fellowship. I make no promise to you, or any one, that shall control my free actions; what you ask is preposterous, Ivor, preposterous."

"Then I will kill him," said Tolskoi, quite calmly, and without any extraordinary vehemence in his voice or manner; "I will kill him."

And as Olga drew back, startled at his unexpected reply, he bent forward and caught her hand in his.

"Remember what I say, Olga; if he presumes to think that he has won you, or dares to say so, or if I learn in any way that you are his promised wife, I will kill him. He shall not possess what I would give my life to gain, and what you know would be refused me."

Then he dropped her hand, and before Olga could recover from her surprise, had passed down the long salon, and through the open portiÈres into the great corridor that led to the palace court-yard.

Olga remained for some moments dazed and astonished, trying in vain to reconcile the Ivor of the past with the Ivor of the moment, wondering vaguely at his strange words and altered aspect. She had known for some months that he made no secret of his devotion to her, but he had always urged his admiration upon her in such a happy half-bantering fashion, she only regarded it as a boy's ardour, nor took him more seriously than his youthful face and careless manner demanded.

He had, indeed, once hinted at a deeper feeling, but she had laughed and told him not to burn his fingers with fire, and he, after a moment's annoyance, had laughed with her, and returned to his old openly expressed adoration.

But now, within this last half-hour, she had seen below the surface of that gay exterior, and she drew back half alarmed, half fascinated at what she beheld there. And although she had had her eyes opened to the other side of Ivor's nature, she had ruled and controlled men too long, seen them become her willing and abject slaves at a mere smile or word too often, to give much weight to Tolskoi's threat; it amused her rather than terrified her.

"Poor Ivor," she mused; "how very melodramatic, and how youthful! I must get you into better training, Ivor, or we shall have you really committing some foolish escapade, and mixing my name up in it, in a way I should not care for."

Then she turned from the window, and as she did so came her summons to the Empress, and hastening to obey the command she forgot Ivor entirely, or remembered him only to say half vexedly: "After all he told me nothing about Count Stevan's murder. Oh, tiresome Ivor!" And thus she dismissed him, and all other annoying subjects, with but scant courtesy.