"This man becomes a nihilist and a dangerous one. He plots and plans
for your overthrow, and for the possession of your sister whom he
continues to persecute in many ways. She does not tell you these
things, fearing the consequences if you were to fight another duel. At
last, however, more or less of it comes to your attention, and the
consequence is that you publicly horsewhip him, for which act you are
suspended from attendance at the palace for thirty days. During that
interval a horrible thing occurs. It is at the time when the extremists
among nihilists are rampant, and when the secret police does its deadly
work unquestioned; a time five years ago. People are arrested and
spirited away, from among the highest and the lowest. Victims are found
in the palace as well as in the hovel. No person is sacred from these
mysterious arrests; no tribunal hears a victim's defense; no official
dares to interfere. Even you may at any moment become a victim of this
awful method. A complaint is lodged against a wholly innocent person,
no matter by whom; it may even be anonymous. In the dead of night
police from the Third Section visit the house of the person complained
against, a search is made, and if incriminating documents are found,
that person disappears forever. Where? nobody knows save those who
carry out the secret decree. I will not worry you with the useless
details; in fact you have had sufficient introduction to the story
already.
"Twice each week since your expulsion from the palace you are compelled
to remain on duty over night, and at last the morning comes when you
return to your home after one of these vigils to find yourself face to
face with a horror which you knew existed, but which you had never
before comprehended. Ah, it is pitiful; but listen. You find when you
arrive, that all is excitement. The servants are running hither and
thither; they whisper among themselves, and at first you can get no
explanation from them. In vain you call for your sister. Frightened
glances, sobs, and groans, are the only replies you get, and you rush
to her apartment, only to find that it is empty--that she is gone. The
room is in the utmost disorder. Clothing is scattered everywhere.
Yvonne's most sacred treasures are strewn upon the floor. The contents
of her dressing case are tumbled in confusion upon the furniture.
Chairs are overturned. The cushions of the chairs and couches are
ripped open. The bed is a ruin, dismembered, torn apart, and heaped in
a corner. The carpet has been pulled from its fastenings, and is rolled
and tumbled into a mass in the middle of the floor. The pictures are
torn from the walls; vases have been overturned; even the French clock,
on the mantel, has been ruined in the awful search, and the very walls
of the room are dented by the hammer which has pounded them in the
effort to find a secret hiding place. You know only too well what has
happened, and yet you do not realize it. You are dazed. You think that
you will awake and find that it is all a dream. You cannot believe that
it is the sleeping room of your own sister that has been thus invaded
and desecrated. At last from one of the older and more trusted servants
you hear the truth, and while he speaks, you listen dumbly,
wonderingly."