tant things for a while. Then she said: "I'm very happy, Mr.
Durward.... Be kind about it. Alexei Petrovitch and I...." She
hesitated.

I looked at her and saw that she was again the young and helpless girl
whom I had not seen since that early morning before our first battle.
I said, very lamely, "If you are happy, Marie Ivanovna, I am glad."

"You think it terrible of me," she said swiftly. "And why do you all
talk of being happy? What does _that_ matter? But I can trust him.
He's strong and afraid of nothing."

I could say nothing.

"Of course you think me very bad--that I have treated
--John--shamefully--yes?... I will not defend myself to you. What is
there to defend? John and I could never have lived together, _never_.
You yourself must see that."

"It does not matter what I think," I answered. "I am Trenchard's
friend, and he has no knowledge of life nor human nature. He has made
a bad start. You must forgive me if I think more of him than of you,
Marie Ivanovna."

"Yes," she said fiercely. "It is John--John--John, you all think of.
But John would not have loved me if he knew me as I truly am. And now,
at last, I can be myself. It does not matter to Alexei Petrovitch what
I am."

"But you have known him so short a time--and you have been so quick.
If you had waited...."

"Waited!" she caught me up. "Waited! How can one wait when one isn't
allowed to wait? It must be finished here, at once, and I'm not going
to finish alone. I'm frightened, Mr. Durward, but also I must see it
right through. He makes me brave. He's afraid of nothing. I couldn't
leave this, and yet I was frightened to go on alone. With him beside
me I'm not afraid."

Anna Petrovna interrupted us.

"It's Goga's stomach again," she said placidly. "He's had great pain
all night. It was those sweets yesterday. Just give me that glass, my
dear. Weak tea's the only thing he can have."

Well, I had said nothing to Marie Ivanovna. What was there I could
have said?

And the next thing about Trenchard was that he had got his wish, and
was lying on his back once more, in one of our nice, simple,
uncomfortable haycarts, looking up at the evening sky. This was the
evening after his conversation with Semyonov. Quite suddenly the
battle had caught us into its arms again. It was raging now in the
woods to the right of us, woods on the further side of the Nestor,
situated on a tributary. I will quote now directly from his diary:

As our line o