“Such a promise!  Such an attitude toward me!” cried Koupriane.  “But I will wait for the Emperor to tell me all these fine things.  And your Natacha, what do you do with her?”

“We release her also, monsieur.  Natacha never has been the monster that you think.”

“How can you say that?  Someone at least is guilty.”

“There are two guilty.  The first, Monsieur le Marechal.”

“What!” cried the Marshal.

“Monsieur le Marechal, who had the imprudence to bring such dangerous grapes to the datcha des Iles, and — and -”

“And the other?” asked Koupriane, more and more anxiously.

“Listen there,” said Rouletabille, pointing toward the Emperor’s cabinet.

The sound of tears and sobs reached them.  The grief and the remorse of Matrena Petrovna passed the walls of the cabinet.  Koupriane was completely disconcerted.

Suddenly the Emperor appeared.  He was in a state of exaltation such as had never been known in him.  Koupriane, dismayed, drew back.

“Monsieur,” said the Tsar to him, “I require that Natacha Feodorovna be here within the next two hours, and that she be conducted with the honors due to her rank.  Natacha is innocent, and we must make reparation to her.”

Then, turning toward Rouletabille: 

“I have learned what she knows and what she owes to you — we owe to you, my young friend.”

The Tsar said “my young friend.”  Rouletabille, at this last moment before his departure, spoke Russian?

“Then she knows nothing, Sire.  That is better, Sire, because Your Majesty and me, we must forget right from to-day that we know anything.”

“You are right,” said the Tsar thoughtfully.  “But, my friend, what am I to do for you?”

“Sire, one favor.  Do not let me miss the train at 10:55.”

And he threw himself on his knees.

“Remain on your knees, my friend.  You are ready, thus.  Monsieur le Marechal will prepare at once a brevet, which I will immediately sign.  Meantime, Monsieur le Marechal, find me, in my own closet, one of my St. Anne’s collars.”

And it was thus that Joseph Rouletabille, of “L’Epoque,” was created officer of St. Anne of Russia by the Emperor himself, who gave him the accolade.

“They combine the whole course of time in this country,” thought Rouletabille, pressing his hand to his eyes to hold back the tears.

For the train at 10:55 everybody had crowded at Tsarskoie-Coelo station.  Among those who had come from St. Petersburg to press the young reporter’s hand when they learned of his impending departure were Ivan Petrovitch, the jolly Councilor of the Emperor, and Athanase Georgevitch, the lively advocate so well known for his famous exploits with knife and fork.  They had come naturally with all their bandages and dressings, which made them look like glorious ruins.  They brought the greetings of Feodor Feodorovitch, who still had a little fever, and of Thaddeus Tchitchnikoff, the Lithuanian, who had both legs broken.