h. The
wide-open eyes stared fixedly at the sky; no breath moved the rags which
covered her breast; from under her wretched dress projected the lean
way-worn feet. Near her lay a wallet. A little living creature clung to
the motionless body and tried to raise it.

"What are you doing there?" asked the old man in a hoarse voice.

"Oh, I am so frightened, so frightened!" sobbed the child. A little
ragged girl lifted her pale face to the convict, and then, seized with
alarm, tried to hide herself again in her mother's clothing. Ivan
touched the woman's ice-cold forehead.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Anjuta," whispered the child without letting go of the body.

"Have you been here long?"

"I do not know. Oh, I am so frightened!"

"Was the sun still high when your mother fell down?"

"Yes, Grandfather."

Ivan stepped to one side, and piled up a heap of dry twigs which he set
on fire. The merry flames licked with red tongues at the branches.

"Go and warm yourself," said the old man, speaking as abruptly as before
to the child. "Do it quickly."

"And mother?"

"Let mother rest. She is asleep."

The fire-light played on the face of the dead woman and lent it a
ghostly semblance of life. The convict sat by the fire, buried in his
thoughts. Perhaps he also would soon be somewhere in the forest or by
the road-side like this woman. The thought was not a new one to him. How
cold-bloodedly he had himself often engaged in a deadly affray with
knives and turned his back on his fallen opponent without compunction.
And yet he felt moved at the sight of this stranger woman, who lay there
in such a pitiable way like an animal which has breathed its last. "It's
a pity, a pity!" he growled to himself.

[Illustration: "At the edge of the wood lay a dead woman, with a little
living creature sobbing over her."]

Anjuta approached the fire timidly and stared straight at him. Perhaps
the rapidly increasing darkness alarmed her, for she came nearer,
without his observing it; suddenly with her little hand she seized his
finger and held it fast.

"Well, little thing, what do you want?" he growled, involuntarily laying
his free hand on her head.

"What are we to do?"

Anjuta raised her clear little eyes. For the first time a human being
looked at him, the thief and murderer, trustfully.

"It is all right, all right; don't worry!" he said half-embarrassed. And
for the first time something strange came into his eyes and r