It was there, without guards and attended only by a few servants and her waiting-woman, that Catherine Alexeievna spent her days of uneasy retirement, and at that very hour within its flimsy walls the Empress Consort of Russia lay asleep. Her lady-in-waiting, Madame Chargorodsky, knelt at her devotions, her room lit by the flame of that solitary candle, for she was a pious woman, and the silent oppressive atmosphere of Peterhof seemed to her as if it were heavy with the spirit of the late Empress, as well as weighed down by the ill-concealed nervousness and anxiety of the present Czarina. So the good Madame left her bed and sought the comfort of the ikon before which she was even then prostrated. So it was that when her door opened softly and a large shadow darkened the floor, creeping towards her on silent feet, she heard nothing until a hand rested on her shoulder and the touch of a knife blade at her throat stilled the scream she had opened her mouth to utter. “One word and I’ll pin you to the wall by the neck,”
