"Or his very life"--then paused and stood still "For all I know, he may
have had to leave Geneva the very day he saw me."

"Without telling you!" I exclaimed incredulously.

"I did not give him time. I left him quite abruptly. I behaved
emotionally to the end. I am sorry for it. Even if I had given him the
opportunity he would have been justified in taking me for a person not
to be trusted. An emotional, tearful girl is not a person to confide in.
But even if he has left Geneva for a time, I am confident that we shall
meet again."

"Ah! you are confident.... I dare say. But on what ground?"

"Because I've told him that I was in great need of some one, a
fellow-countryman, a fellow-believer, to whom I could give my confidence
in a certain matter."

"I see. I don't ask you what answer he made. I confess that this is good
ground for your belief in Mr. Razumov's appearance before long. But he
has not turned up to-day?"

"No," she said quietly, "not to-day;" and we stood for a time in
silence, like people that have nothing more to say to each other and
let their thoughts run widely asunder before their bodies go off their
different ways. Miss Haldin glanced at the watch on her wrist and made a
brusque movement. She had already overstayed her time, it seemed.

"I don't like to be away from mother," she murmured, shaking her head.
"It is not that she is very ill now. But somehow when I am not with her
I am more uneasy than ever."

Mrs. Haldin had not made the slightest allusion to her son for the last
week or more. She sat, as usual, in the arm-chair by the window, looking
out silently on that hopeless stretch of the Boulevard des Philosophes.
When she spoke, a few lifeless words, it was of indifferent, trivial
things.

"For anyone who knows what the poor soul is thinking of, that sort of
talk is more painful than her silence. But that is bad too; I can hardly
endure it, and I dare not break it."

Miss Haldin sighed, refastening a button of her glove which had come
undone. I knew well enough what a hard time of it she must be having.
The stress, its causes, its nature, would have undermined the health
of an Occidental girl; but Russian natures have a singular power of
resistance against the unfair strains of life. Straight and supple, with
a short jacket open on her black dress, which made her figure appear
more slender and her fresh but colourless face more pale, she compelled
my wonder and admiration.

"I c