t, Michael! I love him not. He loves me
not.

MICH. You love him not? Shall he not die then?

VERA (_with an effort, clenching her hands_). Ay, it is right that he
should die. He hath broken his oath. [25]There should be no crowned man
in Europe. Have I not sworn it? To be strong our new Republic should be
drunk with the blood of kings. He hath broken his oath. As the father
died so let the son die too.[25] Yet not to-night, not to-night. Russia,
that hath borne her centuries of wrong, can wait a week for liberty.
Give him a week.

PRES. We will have none of you! Begone from us to this boy you love.

MICH. Though I find him in your arms I shall kill him.

CONSPS. To-night! To-night! To-night!

MICH. (_holding up his hand_). A moment! I have something to say.
(_Approaches VERA; speaks very slowly._) Vera Sabouroff, have you
forgotten your brother? (_Pauses to see effect; VERA starts._) Have you
forgotten that young face, pale with famine; those young limbs twisted
with torture; the iron chains they made him walk in? What week of
liberty did they give him? What pity did they show him for a day? (_VERA
falls in a chair._) Oh! you could talk glibly enough then of vengeance,
glibly enough of liberty. When you said you would come to Moscow, your
old father caught you by the knees and begged you not to leave him
childless and alone.[26] I seem to hear his cries still ringing in my
ears, but you were as deaf to him as the rocks on the roadside; as chill
and cold as the snow on the hill. You left your father that night, and
three weeks after he died of a broken heart. You wrote to me to follow
you here. I did so; first because I loved you; but you soon cured me of
that; whatever gentle feeling, whatever pity, whatever humanity, was in
my heart you withered up and destroyed, as the canker worm eats the
corn, and the plague kills the child. You bade me cast out love from my
breast as a vile thing, you turned my hand to iron, and my heart to
stone; you told me to live for freedom and for revenge. I have done so;
but you, what have you done?

VERA. Let the lots be drawn! (_CONSPIRATORS applaud._)

PRINCE PAUL (_aside_). Ah, the Grand Duke will come to the throne sooner
than he expected. He is sure to make a good king under my guidance. He
is so cruel to animals, and never keeps his word.

MICH. Now you are yourself at last, Vera.

VERA (_standing motionless in the middle_). The lots, I say, the lots!
I am no woman now. M