you--"

"I am not going to America, Natalie."

She looked up bewildered.

"I have been commissioned to perform another duty, more immediate, more
definite. And I must tell you now, Natalie, all that I dare tell you:
you must be prepared; it is a duty which will cost me my life!"

"Your life?" she repeated, in a bewildered, wild way, and she hastily
drew her hand away from his. "Your life?"

"Hush, Natalie!"

"You are to die!" she exclaimed, and she gazed with terror-stricken eyes
into his face. She forgot all about his allegiance to the Society; she
forgot all about her theories of self-sacrifice; she only heard that the
man she loved was doomed, and she said, in a low, hoarse voice, "And it
is I, then, who have murdered you!"

"Natalie!" he cried, and he would have taken her hand again, but she
withdrew from him, shuddering. She clasped her hands over her face.

"Oh, do not touch me," she said, "do not come near me. I have murdered
you: it is I who have murdered you!"

"For Heaven's sake, Natalie, be calm!" he said to her, in a low, earnest
voice. "Think of your mother: do not alarm her. You knew we might be
parted for years--well, this parting is a little worse to bear, that is
all--and you, who gave me this ring, you are not going to say a word of
regret. No, no, Natalushka, many thousands and thousands of people in
the world have gone through what stands before us now, and wives have
parted from their husbands without a single tear, so proud were they."

She looked up quickly; her face was white.

"I have no tears," she said, "none! But some wives have gone with their
husbands into the danger, and have died too--ah, how happy that were for
any one!--and I, why may not I go? I am not afraid to die."

He laid his hand gently on the dark hair.

"My child, it is impossible," he said; and then he added, rather sadly,
"It is not an enterprise that any one is likely to gain any honor by--it
is far from that; but it has to be undertaken--that is enough. As for
you--you have your mother to care for now; will not that fill your life
with gladness?"

"How soon--do--you go away?" she asked, in a low voice.

"Almost immediately," he said, watching her. She had not shed a
single tear, but there was a strange look on her face. "Nothing
is to be said about it. I shall be supposed to have started on a
travelling-expedition, that is all."

"And you go--forever?"

"Yes."

She rose.

"We shall see you yet befo