since the latest attack.

Madame Matrena touched the policeman's shoulder with that heroic
hand which had saved her husband's life and which still bore traces
of the terrible explosion in the last attack, when she had seized
the infernal machine intended for the general with her bare hand.
The policeman rose and silently left the room, reached the veranda
and lounged there on a sofa, pretending to be asleep, but in
reality watching the garden paths.

Matrena Petrovna took his place at the hinge-vent. This was her
rule; she always took the final glance at everything and everybody.
She roved at all hours of the day and night round about the general,
like a watch-dog, ready to bite, to throw itself before the danger,
to receive the blows, to perish for its master. This had commenced
at Moscow after the terrible repression, the massacre of
revolutionaries under the walls of Presnia, when the surviving
Nihilists left behind them a placard condemning the victorious
General Trebassof to death. Matrena Petrovna lived only for the
general. She had vowed that she would not survive him. So she had
double reason to guard him.

But she had lost all confidence even within the walls of her own
home.

Things had happened even there that defied her caution, her
instinct, her love. She had not spoken of these things save to the
Chief of Police, Koupriane, who had reported them to the Emperor.
And here now was the man whom the Emperor had sent, as the supreme
resource, this young stranger - Joseph Rouletabille, reporter.