conspiracy!  Oh, Lord!  Odessa!  The gallows!  Froloff!  Well, it was Stephanie Gavaud who was the cause of it.  Don’t tell that to Marsa!  Ah! that little Stephanie!  ’J’ai vu le vieux Bacchus sur sa roche fertile!’ Tautin—­no, Tautin couldn’t sing like that little Stephanie!  Well,” continued Vogotzine, hiccoughing violently, “because all that happened then, I now lead here the life of an oyster!  Yes, the life of an oyster, of a turtle, of a clam! alone with a woman sad as Mid-Lent, who doesn’t speak, doesn’t sing, does nothing but weep, weep, weep!  It is crushing!  I say just what I think!  Crushing, then, whatever my niece may be—­cr-r-rushing!  And—­ah—­really, my dear fellow, I should be glad if you would come.  Why did you go away?  Yes, yes, that is your affair, and I don’t ask any questions.  Only—­only you would do well to come—­”

“Why?” interrupted Andras, turning quickly to Vogotzine.

“Ah! why?  Because!” said the General, trying to give to his heavy face an expression of shrewd, dignified gravity.

“What has happened?” asked the Prince.  “Is she suffering again?  Ill?”

“Oh, insane, I tell you! absolutely insane! mad as a March hare!  Two days ago, you see—­”

“Well, what? two days ago?”

“Because, two days ago!—­”

“Well, what?  What is it?  Speak, Vogotzine!”

“The despatch,” stammered the General.

“What despatch?”

“The des—­despatch from Florence.”

“She has received a despatch from Florence?”

“A telegram—­blue paper—­she read it before me; upon my word, I thought it was from you!  She said—­no; those miserable bits of paper, it is astonishing how they alarm you.  There are telegrams which have given me a fit of indigestion, I assure you—­and I haven’t the heart of a chicken!”

“Go on!  Marsa?  This despatch?  Whom was it from?  What did Marsa say?”

“She turned white as a sheet; she began to tremble—­an attack of the nerves—­and she said:  ’Well, in two days I shall know, at last, whether I am to live!’ Queer, wasn’t it?  I don’t know what she meant!  But it is certain—­yes, certain, my dear fellow—­that she expects, this evening, some one who is coming—­or who is not coming, from Florence—­that depends.”

“Who is it?  Who?” cried Andras.  “Michel Menko?”

“I don’t know,” faltered Vogotzine in alarm, wondering whether it were Froloff’s hand that had seized him by the collar of his coat.

“It is Menko, is it not?” demanded Andras; while the terrified General gasped out something unintelligible, his intoxication increasing every yard the carriage advanced in the Bois.

Andras was almost beside himself with pain and suspense.  What did it mean?  Who had sent that despatch?  Why had it caused Marsa such emotion?  “In two days I shall know, at last, whether I am to live!” Who could make her utter such a cry?  Who, if not Michel Menko, was so intimately connected with her life as to trouble her so, to drive her insane, as Vogotzine said?