"

"No," she replied to her father, in accents of perfect fury. "No, I
don't know any such man."

"Mademoiselle," said Koupriane, in a firm, terribly hostile voice, "you
have yourself, with your own hands, opened that window to-night; and you
have opened it to him many other times besides. While everyone else here
does his duty and watches that no person shall be able to enter at night
the house where sleeps General Trebassof, governor of Moscow, condemned
to death by the Central Revolutionary Committee now reunited at Presnia,
this is what you do; it is you who introduce the enemy into this place."

"Answer, Natacha; tell me, yes or no, whether you have let anybody into
this house by night."

"Father, it is true."

Feodor roared like a lion:

"His name!"

"Monsieur will tell you himself," said Natacha, in a voice thick with
terror, and she pointed to Koupriane. "Why does he not tell you himself
the name of that person? He must know it, if the man is dead."

"And if the man is not dead," replied Feodor, who visibly held onto
himself, "if that man, whom you helped to enter my house this night, has
succeeded in escaping, as you seem to hope, will you tell us his name?"

"I could not tell it, Father."

"And if I prayed you to do so?"

Natacha desperately shook her head.

"And if I order you?"

"You can kill me, Father, but I will not pronounce that name."

"Wretch!"

He raised his stick toward her. Thus Ivan the Terrible had killed his
son with a blow of his boar-spear.

But Natacha, instead of bowing her head beneath the blow that menaced
her, turned toward Koupriane and threw at him in accents of triumph:

"He is not dead. If you had succeeded in taking him, dead or alive, you
would already have his name."

Koupriane took two steps toward her, put his hand on her shoulder and
said:

"Michael Nikolajevitch."

"Michael Korsakoff!" cried the general.

Matrena Petrovna, as if revolted by that suggestion, stood upright to
repeat:

"Michael Korsakoff!"

The general could not believe his ears, and was about to protest when he
noticed that his daughter had turned away and was trying to flee to her
room. He stopped her with a terrible gesture.

"Natacha, you are going to tell us what Michael Korsakoff came here to
do to-night."

"Feodor Feodorovitch, he came to poison you."

It was Matrena who spoke now and whom nothing could have kept silent,
for she saw in Natacha's attempt at flight the most