scorn, refused both the request and the proffered honour. "Am not I," he
said, "a Count, a Field-Marshal, a man of wealth? all of which I owe to
the kindness of my dear, dead mistress. Are not such honours enough for
the peasant's son whom she raised from the mire to sit by her side, that
I should purchase another bauble by an act of treachery to her memory?

"But wait one moment," he continued; and, leaving the room, he returned
carrying a small bundle of papers, which he proceeded to examine one by
one. Then, collecting them, he placed the bundle in the heart of the
fire, to the horror of the onlooking Chancellor; and, as the flames were
reducing the precious documents to ashes, he said, "Go now and tell
those who sent you, that I never was more than the slave of my august
benefactress, the Empress Elizabeth, who could never so far have
forgotten her position as to marry a subject."

Thus with a lie on his lips--the last crowning evidence of loyalty to
his beloved Queen and wife--Alexis Razoum makes his exit from the stage
on which he played so strangely romantic a part. A few years later his
days ended in peace at his St Petersburg palace, with the name he loved
best, "Elizabeth," on his lips.




CHAPTER IV


A CROWN THAT FAILED

Henri of Navarre, hero of romance and probably the greatest King who