ed him by the arm, and, whispering
a few words of the explanation that brought Ivan's heart into his
throat, drew him swiftly up-stairs, to the threshold of her room, and
there turned, leaving him alone.

Five minutes before the priest, his last rites accomplished, had passed
out of the doorway on which the boy now halted, straining his eyes into
the room beyond. He saw a bed surrounded by silent figures; and only
then became conscious of the meaning of the sound that had filled his
ears since his coming: the high, long-drawn, wailing of Sophia's piteous
struggle for breath. Immediately over her hung Weimann and one of the
nurses, just finishing an injection of strychnine. At the foot of the
bed sat Madame Dravikine, white, silent, dry-eyed. Across the room,
before the largest of the three ikons, knelt Sonya and old Masha,
praying, silently. And upon them all, even the deathlike figure on the
bed, was an air of listening, of waiting, of expectancy, which was
presently relieved by the apparition of the tall, lean, boyish figure,
who wavered for one moment, and then came hurriedly forward.

Ivan was scarcely conscious of his movements. His limbs were trembling,
his hands were icy cold and damp with sweat, his tightened throat seemed
as if it must break the drawn muscles in its straining. But his great
black eyes shone tearless as he walked straight to the bed and stood
gazing down upon the quivering face upturned to him. Then, after a
moment of preparation, the dreadful breathing ceased, and a faint,
shaking voice replaced it:

"Ivan! Dearest! You have come!"

Taking his mother's transparent hands with a movement of infinite
gentleness into his own, Ivan dropped upon his knees by the bedside, his
two eyes still fixed longingly, hungrily, upon the beloved face. For an
instant he was conscious that others in the room were stealing away, and
presently, save for one nurse, he was alone with her who, sixteen years
before, had brought him into the world.

In the silence that surrounded him Ivan felt his very soul pierced by a
medley of unknown emotions, chief of which was the sense that he stood
alone and helpless before a separation that he could not bear. And
presently that dread was voiced for him, in the strange, weak, tender
tones of his mother's voice:

"I must leave you soon now, Ivan."

At last a sob tore its way through his rigid throat, and his answer was
given in a passionate whisper: "No, mother! No!"

"De