ly
dawned upon her.

"Godun wants to free his nephew--you remember him? You liked
Yevchenko, a blacksmith, quite a dude." Nikolay nodded his head.
"Godun has arranged everything all right. But I'm beginning to doubt
his success. The passages in the prison are used by all the inmates,
and I think when the prisoners see the ladder many will want to run--"
She closed her eyes and was silent for a while. The mother moved nearer
to her. "They'll hinder one another."

They all three stood before the window, the mother behind Nikolay and
Sasha. Their rapid conversation roused in her a still stronger sense
of uneasiness and anxiety.

"I'm going there," the mother said suddenly.

"Why?" asked Sasha.

"Don't go, darling! Maybe you'll get caught. You mustn't!" Nikolay
advised.

The mother looked at them and softly, but persistently, repeated: "No;
I'm going! I'm going!"

They quickly exchanged glances, and Sasha, shrugging her shoulders,
said:

"Of course--hope is tenacious!"

Turning to the mother she took her by the hand, leaned her head on her
shoulder, and said in a new, simple voice, near to the heart of the
mother:

"But I'll tell you after all, mamma, you're waiting in vain--he won't
try to escape!"

"My dear darling!" exclaimed the mother, pressing Sasha to her
tremulously. "Take me; I won't interfere with you; I don't believe it
is possible--to escape!"

"She'll go," said the girl simply to Nikolay.

"That's your affair!" he answered, bowing his head.

"We mustn't be together, mamma. You go to the garden in the lot. From
there you can see the wall of the prison. But suppose they ask you
what you are doing there?"

Rejoiced, the mother answered confidently:

"I'll think of what to say."

"Don't forget that the overseers of the prison know you," said Sasha;
"and if they see you there----"

"They won't see me!" the mother laughed softly.

An hour later she was in the lot by the prison. A sharp wind blew
about her, pulled her dress, and beat against the frozen earth, rocked
the old fence of the garden past which the woman walked, and rattled
against the low wall of the prison; it flung up somebody's shouts from
the court, scattered them in the air, and carried them up to the sky.
There the clouds were racing quickly, little rifts opening in the blue
height.

Behind the mother lay the city; in front the cemetery; to the right,
about seventy feet from her, the prison. Near the cemeter