The Emperor's Candlesticks

In the meanwhile Iván Volenski had suffered terribly. His was a peculiar position at that moment. Anxious as he had been to serve the great cause, he had imperilled it -- unwittingly -- almost beyond recall. His comrades had trustingly placed their lives, their freedom in his hands, lured by his promises of immunity, and twenty-four hours later he had placed them all in the hands of an agent of that very police they so justly dreaded.

And yet the Nuncio, in the morning following that eventful night, had succeeded in somewhat reassuring him. Perhaps his Eminence felt a trifle guilty in the matter of those candlesticks, and thought his secretary was blaming him for allowing them to pass out of his hands. He took great care to explain to Iván the accident to one of the Cupid's arms, which both he and Madame Demidoff had noticed, and which finally decided him to accept her kind offer. Little by little Volenski gleaned from the Cardinal a minute account of all that passed between him and the fair Russian, on the subject of the Emperor's candlesticks. He heard that madame had, with her own hands, packed the damaged _bibelot_ and placed it on one side, and had herself professed to take the utmost care that not the slightest accident should happen further.