Her Highness's firm refusal to reveal to me the contents of those
letters, the knowledge of which had caused Madame de Rosen and her
daughter to be sent to Siberia, while the Grand Duke Nicholas, her
father, hid lost his life, disappointed me.
For a full hour I remained there, trying by all means in my power to
persuade her to assist me in the overthrow of the feted Chief of Secret
Police.
She would have done so, she declared, were it not for the fact that she
had given her solemn word of honour to Marya de Rosen not to divulge
anything she knew concerning the contents of those mysterious letters.
That compact she held sacred. She had given her faithful promise to her
friend.
I pointed out to her the determination she had expressed to me in
Petersburg that she intended to reveal to the Emperor his favourite in
his true light, and thus avenge the lives of thousands of innocent
persons who had died on their way to exile or in the foetid, overcrowded
prisons of Moscow, and Tomsk, and the vermin-infested _etapes_ of the
Great Post Road.
But in reply she sighed deeply, and, looking straight before her in
desperation, declared that she had now no proof; and even if she had,
she had not the permission of Marya de Rosen to make the exposure. "It
is her secret--her own personal secret," she said. "I vowed not to
reveal it."
Then for the first time I indicated her own peril. Hitherto I had not
wished to alarm her. But I now showed her how it would be to the
advantage of the General, cunning, daring and unscrupulous as he was,
that some untoward incident should occur by which her life would be
sacrificed in his desperate attempt to conceal the truth.
In silence she listened to me, her beautiful face pale and graver than I
had ever before seen it. At last she realised the peril.
"Ah!" she sighed, and then, as though speaking to herself, said: "If
only I could obtain Marya's consent to speak--to tell the Emperor the
truth! But that is now quite impossible. No letter could ever reach
her, and, indeed, we have no idea where she is. She is, alas! as dead
to the world as though she were in her grave!" she added sadly.