was obliged to make a halt of a few hours. They both required food
and rest.

The young girl led her companion to the extremity of the town. There
they found an empty house, the door wide open. An old rickety wooden
bench stood in the middle of the room, near the high stove which is to
be found in all Siberian houses. They silently seated themselves.

Nadia gazed in her companion's face as she had never before gazed. There
was more than gratitude, more than pity, in that look. Could Michael
have seen her, he would have read in that sweet desolate gaze a world of
devotion and tenderness.

The eyelids of the blind man, made red by the heated blade, fell half
over his eyes. The pupils seemed to be singularly enlarged. The rich
blue of the iris was darker than formerly. The eyelashes and eyebrows
were partly burnt, but in appearance, at least, the old penetrating look
appeared to have undergone no change. If he could no longer see, if his
blindness was complete, it was because the sensibility of the retina and
optic nerve was radically destroyed by the fierce heat of the steel.

Then Michael stretched out his hands.

"Are you there, Nadia?" he asked.

"Yes," replied the young girl; "I am close to you, and I will not go
away from you, Michael."

At his name, pronounced by Nadia for the first time, a thrill passed
through Michael's frame. He perceived that his companion knew all, who
he was.

"Nadia," replied he, "we must separate!"

"We separate? How so, Michael?"

"I must not be an obstacle to your journey! Your father is waiting for
you at Irkutsk! You must rejoin your father!"

"My father would curse me, Michael, were I to abandon you now, after all
you have done for me!"

"Nadia, Nadia," replied Michael, "you should think only of your father!"

"Michael," replied Nadia, "you have more need of me than my father. Do
you mean to give up going to Irkutsk?"

"Never!" cried Michael, in a tone which plainly showed that none of his
energy was gone.

"But you have not the letter!"

"That letter of which Ivan Ogareff robbed me! Well! I shall manage
without it, Nadia! They have treated me as a spy! I will act as a spy! I
will go and repeat at Irkutsk all I have seen, all I have heard; I swear
it by Heaven above! The traitor shall meet me one day face to face! But
I must arrive at Irkutsk before him."

"And yet you speak of our separating, Michael?"

"Nadia, they have taken everything from me!"

"I have som