the
society lady of the court. She had seemed of late rather cooler to
Rudin. 'What is the secret of it?' he thought, with a sidelong look at
her haughtily-lifted head.

He had not long to wait for the solution of the enigma. As he was
returning at twelve o'clock at night to his room, along a dark corridor,
some one suddenly thrust a note into his hand. He looked round; a girl
was hurrying away in the distance, Natalya's maid, he fancied. He went
into his room, dismissed the servant, tore open the letter, and read the
following lines in Natalya's handwriting:--

'Come to-morrow at seven o'clock in the morning, not later, to Avduhin
pond, beyond the oak copse. Any other time will be impossible. It will
be our last meeting, all will be over, unless... Come. We must make
our decision.--P.S. If I don't come, it will mean we shall not see each
other again; then I will let you know.'

Rudin turned the letter over in his hands, musing upon it, then laid it
under his pillow, undressed, and lay down. For a long while he could not
get to sleep, and then he slept very lightly, and it was not yet five
o'clock when he woke up.

IX

The Avduhin pond, near which Natalya had fixed the place of meeting, had
long ceased to be a pond. Thirty years before it had burst through
its banks and it had been given up since then. Only by the smooth flat
surface of the hollow, once covered with slimy mud, and the traces of
the banks, could one guess that it had been a pond. A farm-house
had stood near it. It had long ago passed away. Two huge pine-trees
preserved its memory; the wind was for ever droning and sullenly
murmuring in their high gaunt green tops. There were mysterious tales
among the people of a fearful crime supposed to have been committed
under them; they used to tell, too, that not one of them would fall
without bringing death to some one; that a third had once stood there,
which had fallen in a storm and crushed a girl.

The whole place near the old pond was supposed to be haunted; it was
a barren wilderness, dark and gloomy, even on a sunny day--it seemed
darker and gloomier still from the old, old forest of dead and withered
oak-trees which was near it. A few huge trees lifted their grey heads
above the low undergrowth of bushes like weary giants. They were a
sinister sight; it seemed as though wicked old men had met together bent
on some evil design. A narrow path almost indistinguishable wandered
beside it. No o