tly--and there are so many lazy fellows about here."

He prided himself, they saw, on a punctilious attention to duty. When he
had to come there for some paper or other he was always extremely
polite, and if they were going away he helped them about their
passports. He told them on another occasion that "he was pleased with
life--although one never knew of course when it might come down upon
one--"

Well, it had come down on him now. A more pitiful object Vera had never
seen. He was dressed in a dirty black suit and wore a shabby fur cap,
his padded overcoat was torn.

But the overwhelming effect of him was terror. Vera had never before
seen such terror, and at once, as though the thing were an infectious
disease, her own heart began to beat furiously. He was shaking so that
the fur cap, which was too large for his head, waggled up and down over
his eye in a ludicrous manner.

His face was dirty as though he had been crying, and a horrid pallid
grey in colour.

His collar was torn, showing his neck between the folds of his overcoat.

Vera looked out down the stairs as though she expected to see something.
The flat was perfectly still. There was not a sound anywhere. She turned
back to the man again, he was crouching against the wall.

"You can't come in here," she repeated. "My sister and I are alone. What
do you want?... What's the matter?"

"Shut the door!... Shut the door!... Shut the door!..." he repeated.

She closed it. "Now what is it?" she asked, and then, hearing a sound,
turned to find that Nina was standing with wide eyes, watching.

"What is it?" Nina asked in a whisper.

"I don't know," said Vera, also whispering. "He won't tell me."

He pushed past them then into the dining-room, looked about him for a
moment, then sank into a chair as though his legs would no longer
support him, holding on to the cloth with both hands.

The sisters followed him into the dining-room.

"Don't shiver like that!" said Vera, "tell us why you've come in
here?"...

His eyes looked past them, never still, wandering from wall to wall,
from door to door.

"They're after me..." he said. "That's it--I was hiding in our cupboard
all last night and this morning. They were round there all the time
breaking up our things.... I heard them shouting. They were going to
kill me. I've done nothing--O God! what's that?"

"There's no one here," said Vera, "except ourselves."

"I saw a chance to get away and I crept out. Bu