She shook her head.

"Thank G.o.d!" he cried. "If you are going home now, take my arm," he said, and they walked together along the path leading across the meadow. "You have been fighting a hard and despairing battle, Vera. So much you do not conceal. Are you going to conquer this agonising and dangerous pa.s.sion?"

"And if I do, Cousin?" she asked despondently.

"The richer for a great experience, strengthened against future storms, your portion will be a great happiness, sufficient to fill your whole life."

"I cannot comprehend any other happiness," she said, thoughtfully. She stood still, leaning her head on his shoulder, and her eyes filled with tears. He did not know that he had probed her wound by touching on the very point that had caused her separation from Mark.

At that moment there was the report of a shot in the depths below the precipice, and the sound was re-echoed from the hills. Raisky and Vera both started. She stood listening for a moment. Her eyes, still wet with tears, were wide and staring now. Then she loosed her hold of his arm, and hurried in the direction of the precipice, with Raisky hurrying at her heels. When she had gone half way, she stopped, laid her hand on her heart, and listened once more.

"A few minutes ago your mind was made up, Vera!"

Raisky's face was pale, and his agitation nearly as great as hers. She did not hear his words, and she looked at him without seeing him. Then she took a few steps in the direction of the precipice, but suddenly turned to go slowly towards the chapel.

"I am not going," she whispered. "Why does he call me? It cannot be that he has changed his att.i.tude in the last few days."

She sank down on her knees before the sacred picture, and covered her face with her hands. Raisky came up to her, and implored her not to go.

She herself gazed at the picture with expressionless, hopeless eyes.

When she rose she shuddered, and seemed unaware of Raisky's presence.

A shot sounded once more. With a cry Vera ran over the meadow towards the cliff. Perhaps my conviction has conquered, she thought. Why else should he call her? Her feet hardly seemed to touch the gra.s.s as she ran into the avenue that led to the precipice.

CHAPTER XX

Vera came that night to supper with a gloomy face. She eagerly drank a gla.s.s of milk, but offered no remark to anyone.

"Why are you so unhappy, Veroshka?" asked her aunt. "Don't you feel well."

"I was afraid to ask," interposed Tiet Nikonich politely. "I could not help noticing, Vera Va.s.silievna, that you have been altered for some time; you seem to have grown thinner and paler. The change becomes your looks, but the symptoms ought not to be overlooked, as they might indicate the approach of illness."

"I have a little tooth-ache, but it will soon pa.s.s," answered Vera unwillingly.

Tatiana Markovna looked away sadly enough, but said nothing, while Raisky tapped his plate absently with a fork, but ate nothing, and maintained a gloomy silence. Only Marfinka and Vikentev took every dish that was offered them, and chattered without intermission.

Vera soon took her leave, followed by Raisky. She went into the park, and stood at the top of the cliff looking down into the dark wood below her; then she wrapped herself in her mantilla, and sat down on the bench.

Silently she acceded to Raisky's request to be allowed to sit down beside her.

"You are in trouble, and are suffering, Vera."

"I have tooth-ache."

"It is your heart that aches, Vera. Share your trouble with me."

"I make no complaint."

"You have an unhappy love affair, with whom?"

She did not answer. She knew that her hopes were still not dead, mad though they might be. What if she went away for a week or two to breathe, to conjure up her strength.

"Cousin," she said at last, "to-morrow at daybreak I am going across the Volga, and may stay away longer than usual. I have not said good-bye to Grandmother. Please say it for me."

"I will go away too."

"Wait, Cousin, until I am a little calmer. Perhaps then I can confide in you, and we can part like brother and sister, but now it is impossible.

Still, in case you do go away, let us say good-bye now. Forgive me my strange ways, and let me give you a sister's kiss."

She kissed him on the forehead and walked quickly away, but she had only taken a few steps before she paused to say: "Thank you for all you have done for me. I have not the strength to tell you how grateful I am for your friendship, and above all for this place. Farewell, and forgive me."

"Vera," he cried in painful haste. "Let me stay as long as you are here or are in the neighbourhood. Even if we don't see one another, I yet know where you are. I will wait till you are calmer, till you fulfil your promise, and confide in me, as you have said you would. You won't be far away, and we can at least write to one another. Give me at least this consolation, for G.o.d's sake," he murmured pa.s.sionately. "Leave me at least that Paradise which is next door to h.e.l.l."

She looked at him with a distraught air, and bent her head in a.s.sent.

But she saw the glow of delight which swept over his agitated face, and wondered sorrowfully why _he_ did not speak like that.

"I will put off my journey till the day after tomorrow. Good-night!" she said, and gave him her hand to kiss before they separated.

Early next day Vera gave Marina a note with instructions to deliver it and to wait for the answer. After the receipt of the answer she grew more cheerful and went out for a walk along the riverside. That evening she told her aunt that she was going on a visit to Natalie Ivanovna, and took leave of them all, promising Raisky not to forget him.

The next day a fisherman from the Volga brought him a letter from Vera, in which she called him "dear cousin," and seemed to look forward to a happier future. Into the friendly tone of the letter he contrived to read tender feeling, and he forgot, in his delight, his doubts, his anxiety, the blue letters, and the precipice. He wrote and dispatched immediately a brief, affectionate reply.

Vera's letter aroused in him the artist sense, and drove him to set out his chaotic emotions in defined form. He sought to crystallise his thoughts and affections; his very pa.s.sion took artistic shape, and a.s.sumed in the clear light Vera's charming features.

"What are you scribbling day and night?" inquired Tatiana Markovna. "Is it a play or another novel?"

"I write and write, Granny, and don't know myself how it will end."

"It doesn't matter what the child does so long as he is amused," she remarked, not altogether missing the character of Raisky's occupation.

"But why do you write at night, when I am so afraid of fire, and you might fall asleep over your drama. You will make yourself ill, and you often look as yellow as an over-ripe gherkin as it is."

He looked in the gla.s.s, and was struck with his own appearance. Yellow patches were visible on the nose and temples, and there were grey threads in his thick, black hair.

"If I were fair," he grumbled, "I should not age so quickly. Don't bother about me, Granny, but leave me my freedom. I can't sleep."

"You too ask me for freedom, like Vera. It is as if I held you both in chains," she added with an anxious sigh. "Go on writing, Borushka, but not at night. I cannot sleep in peace, for when I look at your window the light is always burning."

"I will answer for it, Grandmother, that there shall be no fire, and if I myself were to be burnt...."

"Touch wood! Do not tempt fate. Remember the saying that 'my tongue is my enemy.'"

Suddenly Raisky sprang from the divan and ran to the window.

"There is a peasant bringing a letter from Vera," he cried, as he hurried out of the room.

"One might think it was his father in person," said Tatiana Markovna to herself. "How many candles he burns with his novels and plays, as many as four in a night!"