The very evening the pretended courier arrived, Wassili Fedor
went to the governor-general's palace and, acquainting Ogareff
with the circumstances under which his daughter must have left
European Russia, told him all his uneasiness about her.
Ogareff did not know Nadia, although he had met her at Ichim
on the day she was there with Michael Strogoff; but then,
he had not paid more attention to her than to the two reporters,
who at the same time were in the post-house; he therefore could
give Wassili Fedor no news of his daughter.
"But at what time," asked Ogareff, "must your daughter have left
the Russian territory?"
"About the same time that you did," replied Fedor.
"I left Moscow on the 15th of July."
"Nadia must also have quitted Moscow at that time.
Her letter told me so expressly."
"She was in Moscow on the 15th of July?"
"Yes, certainly, by that date."
"Then it was impossible for her--But no, I am mistaken--
I was confusing dates. Unfortunately, it is too probable
that your daughter must have passed the frontier, and you can
only have one hope, that she stopped on learning the news
of the Tartar invasion!"
The father's head fell! He knew Nadia, and he knew too well
that nothing would have prevented her from setting out.
Ivan Ogareff had just committed gratuitously an act of real cruelty.
With a word he might have reassured Fedor. Although Nadia had passed
the frontier under circumstances with which we are acquainted,
Fedor, by comparing the date on which his daughter would have
been at Nijni-Novgorod, and the date of the proclamation which
forbade anyone to leave it, would no doubt have concluded thus:
that Nadia had not been exposed to the dangers of the invasion,
and that she was still, in spite of herself, in the European
territory of the Empire.
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