story which Boris now heard was soon heard by all Russia, and
Boris realized that something must be done to refute it.

But something more than assurances--his own assurances--were
necessary if the Muscovites were to believe him. And so at last
Boris bethought him of the Tsarina Maria, the mother of the
murdered boy. He had her fetched to Moscow from her convent, and
told her of this pretender who was setting up a claim to the
throne of Russia, supported by the King of Poland.

She listened impassively, standing before him in the black robes
and conventual coif which his tyranny had imposed upon her. When
he had done, a faint smile swept over the face that had grown so
hard in these last twelve years since that day when her boy had
been slain almost under her very eyes.

"It is a circumstantial tale," she said. "It is perhaps true. It
is probably true."

"True!" He bounded from his seat. "True? What are you saying,
woman? Yourself you saw the boy dead."

"I did, and I know who killed him."

"But you saw him. You recognized him for your own, since you set
the people on to kill those whom you believed had slain him."

"Yes," she answered. And added the question: "What do you want of
me now?"