isible to my sight. Also, her naked feet had on them only slippers,
and as she sat in her chair she kept rocking one foot to and fro in a
maddening way.

"'What are we to do about it all?' she repeated.

"'What am I to say about it, at length I replied, 'save that I feel as
though I were not really existing on earth?'

"'Are you one who can hold your tongue?' was her next question.

"I nodded--nothing else could I compass, for further speech had become
impossible. Whereupon, rising with brows puckered, she fetched a couple
of small phials, and, with the aid of ingredients thence, mixed a
powder which she wrapped in paper, and handed me with the words:

"'Only one way of escape offers from the Plagues of Egypt. Here I have
a certain powder. Tonight the doctor is to dine with us. Place the
powder in his soup, and within a few days I shall be free!--yes, free
for you!'

"I crossed myself, and duly took from her the paper, whilst a mist
rose, and swam before my eyes, as I did so, and my legs became
perfectly numb. What I next did I hardly know, for inwardly I was
swooning. Indeed, until Kliachka's arrival the same evening I remained
practically in a state of coma."

Here Kalinin shuddered--then glanced at me with drawn features and
chattering teeth, and stirred uneasily.

"Suppose we light a fire?" he ventured. "I am growing shivery all over.
But first we must move outside."

The torn clouds were casting their shadows wearily athwart the sodden
earth and glittering stones and silver-dusted herbage. Only on a single
mountain top had a blur of mist settled like an arrested avalanche, and
was resting there with its edges steaming. The sea too had grown calmer
under the rain, and was splashing with more gentle mournfulness, even
as the blue patches in the firmament had taken on a softer, warmer
look, and stray sunbeams were touching upon land and sea in turn, and,
where they chanced to fall upon herbage, causing pearls and emeralds to
sparkle on every leaf, and kaleidoscopic tints to glow where the
dark-blue sea reflected their generous radiance. Indeed, so goodly, so
full of promise, was the scene that one might have supposed autumn to
have fled away for ever before the wind and the rain, and beneficent
summer to have been restored.

Presently through the moist, squelching sound of our footsteps, and the
cheerful patter of the rain-drippings, Kalinin's narrative resumed its
languid, querulous course:

"When, that