se attached to that one name; and for
him to see that exceptional girl was enough. The only cause for surprise
was his gloomy aloofness before her clearly expressed welcome. But he
was young, and however austere and devoted to his revolutionary ideals,
he was not blind. The period of reserve was over; he was coming forward
in his own way. I could not mistake the significance of this late visit,
for in what he had to say there was nothing urgent. The true cause
dawned upon me: he had discovered that he needed her and she was moved
by the same feeling. It was the second time that I saw them together,
and I knew that next time they met I would not be there, either
remembered or forgotten. I would have virtually ceased to exist for both
these young people.

I made this discovery in a very few moments. Meantime, Natalia Haldin
was telling Razumov briefly of our peregrinations from one end of Geneva
to the other. While speaking she raised her hands above her head to
untie her veil, and that movement displayed for an instant the seductive
grace of her youthful figure, clad in the simplest of mourning. In the
transparent shadow the hat rim threw on her face her grey eyes had an
enticing lustre. Her voice, with its unfeminine yet exquisite timbre,
was steady, and she spoke quickly, frank, unembarrassed. As she
justified her action by the mental state of her mother, a spasm of pain
marred the generously confiding harmony of her features. I perceived
that with his downcast eyes he had the air of a man who is listening
to a strain of music rather than to articulated speech. And in the same
way, after she had ceased, he seemed to listen yet, motionless, as if
under the spell of suggestive sound. He came to himself, muttering--

"Yes, yes. She has not shed a tear. She did not seem to hear what I
was saying. I might have told her anything. She looked as if no longer
belonging to this world."

Miss Haldin gave signs of profound distress. Her voice faltered. "You
don't know how bad it has come to be. She expects now to see _him_!" The
veil dropped from her fingers and she clasped her hands in anguish. "It
shall end by her seeing him," she cried.

Razumov raised his head sharply and attached on her a prolonged
thoughtful glance.

"H'm. That's very possible," he muttered in a peculiar tone, as if
giving his opinion on a matter of fact. "I wonder what...." He
checked himself.

"That would be the end. Her mind shall be gone then, and