“Nitchevo!  Not worth speaking about; it’s nothing.”

“And the general and -!  Ah, that frightful night!  And those two unfortunates who -?”

“Nitchevo!  Nitchevo!”

“And poor Ermolai!”

“Nitchevo!  Nitchevo!  It is nothing.”

Rouletabille looked him over.  The Prefect of Police had an arm in a sling, but he was bright and shining as a new ten-rouble piece, while he, poor Rouletabille, was so abominably soiled and depressed.  Where did he come from?  Koupriane understood his look and smiled.

“Well, I have just come from the Finland train; it is the best way.”

“But what can you have come here to do, Excellency?”

“The same thing as you.”

“Bah!” exclaimed Rouletabille, “do you mean to say that you have come here to save Natacha?”

“How — to save her!  I come to capture her.”

“To capture her?”

“Monsieur Rouletabille, I have a very fine little dungeon in Saints Peter and Paul fortress that is all ready for her.”

“You are going to throw Natacha into a dungeon!”

“The Emperor’s order, Monsieur Rouletabille.  And if you see me here in person it is simply because His Majesty requires that the thing be done as respectfully and discreetly as possible.”

“Natacha in prison!” cried the reporter, who saw in horror all obstacles rising before him at one and the same time.  “For what reasons, pray?”

“The reason is simple enough.  Natacha Feodorovna is the last word in wickedness and doesn’t deserve anybody’s pity.  She is the accomplice of the revolutionaries and the instigator of all the crimes against her father.”

“I am sure that you are mistaken, Excellency.  But how have you been guided to her?”

“Simply by you.”

“By me?”

“Yes, we lost all trace of Natacha.  But, as you had disappeared also, I made up my mind that you could only be occupied in searching for her, and that by finding you I might have the chance to lay my hands on her.”

“But I haven’t seen any of your men?”

“Why, one of them brought you here.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.  Didn’t you climb onto a telega?”

“Ah, the driver.”

“Exactly.  I had arranged to have him meet me at the Sestroriesk station.  He pointed out the place where you dropped off, and here I am.”

The reporter bent his head, red with chagrin.  Decidedly the sinister idea that he was responsible for the death of an innocent man and all the ills which had followed out of it had paralyzed his detective talents.  He recognized it now.  What was the use of struggling!  If anyone had told him that he would be played with that way sometime, he, Rouletabille! he would have laughed heartily enough — then.  But now, well, he wasn’t capable of anything further.  He was his own most cruel enemy.  Not only was Natacha in the hands of the revolutionaries through his fault, by his abominable error, but worse yet, in the very moment when he wished to save her, he foolishly, naively, had conducted the police to the very spot where they should have been kept away.  It was the depth of his humiliation; Koupriane really pitied the reporter.