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Natacha's voice was sweet, and the charm of it subtly pervasive. The words as she uttered them seemed to have all the quality of a prayer and there were tears in all eyes, excepting those of Michael Korsakoff, the second orderly, whom Rouletabille appraised as a man with a rough heart not much open to sentiment.
At least, it was so that Rouletabille believed he saw the mysterious struggle go in the half-light, amid most impressive silence, after that frightened cry of Natacha's. The whole affair had lasted only a few seconds, and the man was still hanging over the balcony, when from the bottom of the hall a new person sprang. It was Matrena Petrovna.
He looked attentively at the grass, the ferns, the broken and trampled twigs. Certainly a struggle had occurred there. He could distinguish clearly in the soft earth of a narrow glade the prints of Natacha's two little boots among all the large footprints. He continued his search with his heart heavier and heavier, he had a presentiment that he was on the point of discovering a new misfortune.
But he gave her a glance that frightened her, and said low: "Go and give orders right away that dinner be served in the veranda. All through dinner it is absolutely necessary that the door of Natacha's sitting-room, and that of the stairway passage, and that of the veranda giving on the drawing-room remain open all the time. Do you understand me?
It was indeed he, the erstwhile brilliant officer whose elegance and charm the reporter had admired as he saw him at beautiful Natacha's feet in the datcha at Eliaguine.
In her transport she tried to take him in her trembling arms, but he waved her back. She caught her breath and resumed: "Did the examination of all the hat-pins tell you anything?" "Yes. The fifth hat-pin of Mademoiselle Natacha's, the one in the toque out in the veranda, has the tip newly broken off." "O misery!" cried Matrena, crumpling in her chair. Rouletabille raised her.
His great tears fell upon Natacha's tears. He raised her head and demanded simply in a broken voice: "You can tell me nothing now? But when will you tell me?" Natacha lifted her eyes to his, then her look went past him toward heaven, and from her lips came just one word, in a sob: "Never."
There was no poison, either, in the small bottle you took to Pere Alexis and into which you yourself had poured the contents of Natacha's glass and yours; no trace of poison excepting in two of the four glasses, arsenate of soda was found only on the soiled napkins of Trebassof and his wife and in the two glasses they drank from."
One instant he sought refuge in some vague hope that Koupriane was less assured than he pretended of the orderly's guilt. But that, after all, was only a detail of no importance in his eyes. What alone mattered was the significance of Natacha's act, and the unhappy girl seemed not to be concerned over what he would think of it.
Rouletabille was already across the garden and had hoisted himself by his fingers to the window of Natacha's chamber, where he listened. He plainly heard Natacha walking about in the dark chamber.
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