"as to that--though no one ever
hinted that either from fear or neglect your conduct has not been what
it should have been--well, I have a bit of intelligence...."

Razumov could not prevent himself from raising his head, and Sophia
Antonovna nodded slightly.

"I have. You remember that letter from St. Petersburg I mentioned to you
a moment ago?"

"The letter? Perfectly. Some busybody has been reporting my conduct on
a certain day. It's rather sickening. I suppose our police are greatly
edified when they open these interesting and--and--superfluous letters."

"Oh dear no! The police do not get hold of our letters as easily as you
imagine. The letter in question did not leave St. Petersburg till the
ice broke up. It went by the first English steamer which left the Neva
this spring. They have a fireman on board--one of us, in fact. It has
reached me from Hull...."

She paused as if she were surprised at the sullen fixity of Razumov's
gaze, but went on at once, and much faster.

"We have some of our people there who...but never mind. The writer
of the letter relates an incident which he thinks may possibly be
connected with Haldin's arrest. I was just going to tell you when those
two men came along."

"That also was an incident," muttered Razumov, "of a very charming
kind--for me."

"Leave off that!" cried Sophia Antonovna. "Nobody cares for Nikita's
barking. There's no malice in him. Listen to what I have to say. You
may be able to throw a light. There was in St. Petersburg a sort of town
peasant--a man who owned horses. He came to town years ago to work for
some relation as a driver and ended by owning a cab or two."

She might well have spared herself the slight effort of the gesture:
"Wait!" Razumov did not mean to speak; he could not have interrupted
her now, not to save his life. The contraction of his facial muscles had
been involuntary, a mere surface stir, leaving him sullenly attentive as
before.

"He was not a quite ordinary man of his class--it seems," she went on.
"The people of the house--my informant talked with many of them--you
know, one of those enormous houses of shame and misery...."

Sophia Antonovna need not have enlarged on the character of the house.
Razumov saw clearly, towering at her back, a dark mass of masonry veiled
in snowflakes, with the long row of windows of the eating-shop shining
greasily very near the ground. The ghost of that night pursued him. He
stood up to it with rage