Certainly the kiosk did rise high above the garden and was completely detached, no wall being near.  They had a clear view.  No branches of trees hung over the roof and no tree hid the view.  The rustic table of rough wood was covered with a short cloth and was spread with zakouskis.  It was a meal under the open sky, a seat and a glass in the clear azure.  The evening could not have been softer and clearer.  And, as the general felt so gay, the repast would have promised to be most agreeable, if Rouletabille had not noticed that Matrena Petrovna and Natacha were uneasy and downcast.  The reporter soon saw, too, that all the general’s joviality was a little excessive.  Anyone would have said that Feodor Feodorovitch spoke to distract himself, to keep himself from thinking.  There was sufficient excuse for him after the outrageous drama of the other night.  Rouletabille noticed further that the general never looked at his daughter, even when he spoke to her.  There was too formidable a mystery lying between them for restraint not to increase day by day.  Rouletabille involuntarily shook his head, saddened by all he saw.  His movement was surprised by Matrena Petrovna, who pressed his hand in silence.

“Well, now,” said the general, “well, now my children, where is the vodka?”

Among all the bottles which graced the table the general looked in vain for his flask of vodka.  How in the world could he dine if he did not prepare for that important act by the rapid absorption of two or three little glasses of white wine, between two or three sandwiches of caviare!

“Ermolai must have left it in the wine-chest,” said Matrena.

The wine-closet was in the dining-room.  She rose to go there, but Natacha hurried before her down the little flight of steps, crying, “Stay there, mamma.  I will go.”

“Don’t you bother, either.  I know where it is,” cried Rouletabille, and hurried after Natacha.

She did not stop.  The two young people arrived in the dining-room at the same time.  They were there alone, as Rouletabille had foreseen.  He stopped Natacha and planted himself in front of her.

“Why, mademoiselle, did you not answer me earlier?”

“Because I don’t wish to have any conversation with you.”

“If that was so, you would not have come here, where you were sure I would follow.”

She hesitated, with an emotion that would have been incomprehensible to all others perhaps, but was not to Rouletabille.

“Well, yes, I wished to say this to you:  Don’t write to me any more.  Don’t speak to me.  Don’t see me.  Go away from here, monsieur; go away.  They will have your life.  And if you have found out anything, forget it.  Ah, on the head of your mother, forget it, or you are lost.  That is what I wished to tell you.  And now, you go.”

She grasped his hand in a quick sympathetic movement that she seemed instantly to regret.