he principal agent in the
conspiracy."

"Then I am lost!" sighed Lestocq, gliding down upon a chair.

"No, not quite," said Elizabeth, with a smile, "for I have saved you.
Ah, I should never have believed that the playing of comedy was so
easy, but I tell you I have played one in a masterly manner. Fear was my
teacher; it taught me to appear so innocent, to implore so affectingly,
that Anna herself was touched. Ah, and I wept whole streams of tears, I
tell you. That quite disarmed the regent. But you must bear the blame if
my eyes to-day are yet red with weeping, and not so brilliant as usual."

And Princess Elizabeth ran to the toilet-table to examine critically her
face in the glass.

"Yes, indeed," she cried, with a sort of terror, "it is as I feared. My
eyes are quite dull. Lestocq, you must give me a means, a quick and sure
means, to restore their brightness."

Thus speaking, Elizabeth looked constantly in the glass, full of care
and anxiety about her eyes.

"I shall appear less beautiful to him to-day," she murmured; "he will,
in thought, compare me with Eleonore Lapuschkin, and find her handsomer
than I. Lestocq, Lestocq!" she then called aloud, impatiently stamping
with her little foot, "I tell you that you must immediately prescribe a
remedy that will restore the brilliancy of my eyes."

"Princess," said Lestocq, with solemnity, "I beseech you for a moment
to forget your incomparable beauty and the unequalled brilliancy of your
eyes. Be not only a woman, but be, as you can, the great czar's great
daughter. Princess, the question here is not only of the diminished
brilliancy of your eyes, but of a real danger with which you are
threatened. Be merciful, be gracious, and relate to me the exact words
of your yesterday's conversation with the regent."

The princess looked up from her mirror, and turned her head toward
Lestocq.

"Ah, I forgot," she carelessly said, "you are not merely my physician,
but also a revolutionist, and that is of much greater importance to
you."

"The question is of your head, princess, and as a true physician I would
help you to preserve it. Therefore, dearest princess, I beseech you,
repeat to me that conversation with the regent."

"Will you then immediately give me a recipe for my eyes?"

"Yes, I will."

"Well, listen, then."

And the princess repeated, word for word, to the breathless Lestocq, her
conversation with Anna Leopoldowna. Lestocq listened to her with
most i