rdon me, sire, but I am too proud to borrow what I could never repay.
By selling what little property I have left, I shall raise two or three
hundred rubles."

"Scarcely sufficient for a quarter of the journey. Do you know the
distance from here to Tobolsk, my poor girl?"

"Yes, sire--about eight hundred French leagues."

"And how will you get over the five or six hundred leagues you will
still have to travel when your last ruble is spent?"

"There are towns on the road, sire. When I reach a town I will work till
I have enough to continue my journey to the next."

"That may do as far as Perm," replied the Emperor; "but after that you
have the Ural mountains, and you are at the end of Europe. After that
nothing but a few scattered villages; no inns upon the road; large
rivers without bridges or ferries, and which must be traversed by
dangerous fords, whence men and horses are frequently swept away."

"Sire, when I reach the rivers they will be frozen; for I am told that
in those regions the winter begins earlier than at St Petersburg."

"What!" cried the Emperor, astonished, "do you think of setting out
now--of performing such a journey in winter?"

"It is during the winter that _his_ solitude must be most intolerable."

"It is impossible. You must be mad to think of it."

"Impossible if your Majesty so wills it. No one can disobey your
Majesty."

"_I_ shall not prevent it; but surely your own reason, and the immense
difficulties of such an undertaking, will."

"Sire! I will set out to-morrow."

"But if you perish on the road?"

"If I perish, sire, he will have lost nothing, for I am neither his
mother, his daughter, nor sister, but only his mistress--that is, a
woman to whom society gives no rights, and who must consider herself
fortunate if the world looks upon her with no harsher feeling than
indifference. But if I _am_ able to join him, I shall be _every thing_
to him--mother, sister, family, and friends. We shall be two to suffer
instead of one, and that fearful exile will lose half its terrors. You
see, sire, I _must_ rejoin him, and that as soon as possible."

"You are right," said the Emperor, looking fixedly at her, "and I no
longer oppose your departure."

He rang; an aide-de-camp appeared.

"Is Corporal Ivan in attendance?"

"He waits your Majesty's orders."

"Let him come in."

The aide-de-camp bowed, and disappeared. Two minutes afterwards the door
reopened, and Corporal Ivan stepped