lves not to dangers
only, but to privation, humiliation, perhaps----'

'I know, I know all--I love you----'

'That you will have to give up all you are accustomed to, that out there
alone among strangers, you will be forced perhaps to work----'

She laid her hand on his lips. 'I love you, my dear one.'

He began hotly kissing her slender, rosy hand. Elena did not draw it
away from his lips, and with a kind of childish delight, with smiling
curiosity, watched how he covered with kisses, first the palm, then the
fingers....

All at once she blushed and hid her face upon his breast.

He lifted her head tenderly and looked steadily into her eyes. 'Welcome,
then, my wife, before God and men!'

XIX

An hour later, Elena, with her hat in one hand, her cape in the other,
walked slowly into the drawing-room of the villa. Her hair was in slight
disorder; on each cheek was to be seen a small bright spot of colour,
the smile would not leave her lips, her eyes were nearly shutting and
half hidden under the lids; they, too, were smiling. She could scarcely
move for weariness, and this weariness was pleasant to her; everything,
indeed, was pleasant to her. Everything seemed sweet and friendly to
her. Uvar Ivanovitch was sitting at the window; she went up to him, laid
her hand on his shoulder, stretched a little, and involuntarily, as it
seemed, she laughed.

'What is it?' he inquired, astonished.

She did not know what to say. She felt inclined to kiss Uvar Ivanovitch.

'How he splashed!' she explained at last.

But Uvar Ivanovitch did not stir a muscle, and continued to look with
amazement at Elena. She dropped her hat and cape on to him.

'Dear Uvar Ivanovitch,' she said, 'I am sleepy and tired,' and again she
laughed and sank into a low chair near him.

'H'm,' grunted Uvar Ivanovitch, flourishing his fingers, 'then you
ought--yes----'

Elena was looking round her and thinking, 'From all this I soon must
part... and strange--I have no dread, no doubt, no regret.... No, I am
sorry for mamma.' Then the little chapel rose again before her mind,
again her voice was echoing in it, and she felt his arms about her.
Joyously, though faintly, her heart fluttered; weighed down by the
languor of happiness. The old beggar-woman recurred to her mind. 'She
did really bear away my sorrow,' she thought. 'Oh, how happy I am! how
undeservedly! how soon!' If she had let herself go in the least she
would have melted into swee