As Ivor gazed half spell-bound, and half disbelieving, the woman who knelt before the Virgin's statue got up and moved slowly towards the door. She had thrown back her long veil, and her face against its blackness stood out in cameo relief. As Tolskoi's glance fell upon it, he started violently, and put out one hand involuntarily, as though to bar her way. But the woman dropped her veil instantly, and pushing rudely by him, walked rapidly down the steps and across the promenade; disappearing from view even as Ivor, recovering from his amazement, turned to follow her.
"Good God!" he exclaimed, standing for a moment uncertain what to do, the look of horror still stamped upon his features, "as I am a living man, that was the face of Adèle Lamien, the murderer of Stevan Lallovich, and his repudiated wife!"
At twelve o'clock that day, just as the great fortress cathedral chimes rang out the hour, repeating again the melody taken from the Eastern liturgy, "How glorious is our Lord in Sion," Ivor Tolskoi reached the side-entrance of the Palace court-yard, and, passing between the saluting sentinels, made his way towards a small door in one side of the building, before which marched constantly two of the Imperial Guard, whose business it was to watch jealously all in-going or out-coming traffic, and who, fully armed as they were, presented a sufficiently terrifying appearance, even to the most peaceful-minded.
Before this door two open sleighs were standing, their magnificent black horses handsomely decked out in gold-plated harness, and each wearing a triangle of gold bells spanning its back, from which the slightest movement evoked a shower of tinkling notes that fell melodiously, one after the other, on the frost-bitten air, and were echoed back again by the high walls of the court-yard. Sumptuous rugs and wraps of the costliest furs were thrown across the velvet cushions, while the coachmen and footmen were wrapped in mink-skin capes and tall, conical-shaped hats.
A short distance ahead of the equipages a selected division of the Imperial body-guard sat immovable upon their splendid chargers, the scarlet of their kaftans contrasting finely with the glossy coats of their steeds and the dazzling snow that lay as a pall of innocence upon the great metropolis.