ndt paused for a full five minutes, and that
Ivan's impatience was becoming visible, before he answered, gravely:

"Ivan Mikhailovitch, you've seen a good deal of our 'manly' existence
this winter, in Petersburg. I imagine you've got your own opinion of it.
We won't discuss that. But see here, when a man is seen continually
neglecting his duty; when he is constantly rushing off, without a word
to a soul, and is always seen in the same locality; when he's always
half-drunk but refuses companionship, and threatens his servant with the
knout if he examines the address on the letters he writes every few
hours; when he seems to have lost any sense of duty or decency or
position that he has attained to; what is the infallible explanation of
that man's behavior?"

Ivan sprang to his feet. "You mean it's a woman?--Brodsky can't have
married again, surely?"

De Windt smiled. In his mind he marvelled a little, even while he
rejected the idea of either guile or idiocy in Ivan's simple question.
"Why the secrecy, then?--and the ill-temper?--All the same it _is_ a
woman, though. We've all come to that conclusion.--As a matter of fact,
Ivan, Zedarovsky swears he _saw_ her, walking down officers' row,
probably on her way to the village, two nights ago. By his watch, she
had just time to catch the last train,--the eleven-twenty-five, for
Petersburg. She was going rapidly, with her head down. She wore a thick
white veil, too. And yet he swears also that--he recognized her."

"_Recognized her!_ Great God, Vladimir, it's not--it can't be--any one
we know?"

"Why not?"

"Oh!--Oh because--that brute!--It would be sickening to think of a
woman's even dining with him!"

"That is probably precisely what she had been doing.--He's certainly
getting rather reckless. But we compared notes; and nobody saw him that
day after five-thirty; and Feodor, his orderly, was on guard at the tent
door all evening, the officer of the watch says.--By Heavens, he'll have
her--"

"But you haven't told me whom they say she is, Vladimir. Tell me!"

De Windt hesitated, and then, lifting his eyes to Ivan's, said, in a
grave voice: "Why should you know, old chap?"

"Because I'm not the fool you take me for.--You've thought me
effeminate, de Windt, I suppose, because I have never--cared to go in
for certain things. But it's not effeminacy, believe me. It's--"

"Don't, Ivan! For Heaven's sake don't dream I want your confidence about
any private matter. All