e betrayed most basely. You must
believe what I say now, you can't refuse to believe this. Most basely.
It is through you that I came to feel this so deeply. After all, it is
they and not I who have the right on their side?--theirs is the
strength of invisible powers. So be it. Only don't be deceived, Natalia
Victorovna, I am not converted. Have I then the soul of a slave? No! I
am independent--and therefore perdition is my lot."

On these words, he stopped writing, shut the book, and wrapped it in the
black veil he had carried off. He then ransacked the drawers for
paper and string, made up a parcel which he addressed to Miss Haldin,
Boulevard des Philosophes, and then flung the pen away from him into a
distant corner.

This done, he sat down with the watch before him. He could have gone out
at once, but the hour had not struck yet. The hour would be midnight.
There was no reason for that choice except that the facts and the words
of a certain evening in his past were timing his conduct in the present.
The sudden power Natalia Haldin had gained over him he ascribed to the
same cause. "You don't walk with impunity over a phantom's breast,"
he heard himself mutter. "Thus he saves me," he thought suddenly. "He
himself, the betrayed man." The vivid image of Miss Haldin seemed to
stand by him, watching him relentlessly. She was not disturbing. He had
done with life, and his thought even in her presence tried to take an
impartial survey. Now his scorn extended to himself. "I had neither the
simplicity nor the courage nor the self-possession to be a scoundrel,
or an exceptionally able man. For who, with us in Russia, is to tell a
scoundrel from an exceptionally able man?..."

He was the puppet of his past, because at the very stroke of midnight he
jumped up and ran swiftly downstairs as if confident that, by the power
of destiny, the house door would fly open before the absolute necessity
of his errand. And as a matter of fact, just as he got to the bottom
of the stairs, it was opened for him by some people of the house coming
home late--two men and a woman. He slipped out through them into the
street, swept then by a fitful gust of wind. They were, of course, very
much startled. A flash of lightning enabled them to observe him walking
away quickly. One of the men shouted, and was starting in pursuit, but
the woman had recognized him. "It's all right. It's only that young
Russian from the third floor." The darkness returned