de a
bundle of linen, thrown down, as if by accident, into the embrasure of a
window. Under the linen was a large chest with a spring lock.
Annouschka pressed a button, Vaninka raised the lid. The two women
uttered a loud cry: the chest was now a coffin; the young officer,
stifled for want of air, lay dead within.

For a long time the two women hoped it was only a swoon. Annouschka
sprinkled his face with water; Vaninka put salts to his nose. All was in
vain. During the long conversation which the general had had with his
daughter, and which had lasted more than half an hour, Foedor, unable to
get out of the chest, as the lid was closed by a spring, had died for
want of air. The position of the two girls shut up with a corpse was
frightful. Annouschka saw Siberia close at hand; Vaninka, to do her
justice, thought of nothing but Foedor. Both were in despair. However,
as the despair of the maid was more selfish than that of her mistress, it
was Annouschka who first thought of a plan of escaping from the situation
in which they were placed.

"My lady," she cried suddenly, "we are saved." Vaninka raised her head
and looked at her attendant with her eyes bathed in tears.

"Saved?" said she, "saved? We are, perhaps, but Foedor!"

"Listen now," said Annouschka: "your position is terrible, I grant that,
and your grief is great; but your grief could be greater and your
position more terrible still. If the general knew this."

"What difference would it make to me?" said Vaninka. "I shall weep for
him before the whole world."

"Yes, but you will be dishonoured before the whole world! To-morrow your
slaves, and the day after all St. Petersburg, will know that a man died
of suffocation while concealed in your chamber. Reflect, my lady: your
honour is the honour of your father, the honour of your family."

"You are right," said Vaninka, shaking her head, as if to disperse the
gloomy thoughts that burdened her brain,--"you are right, but what must
we do?"

"Does my lady know my brother Ivan?"

"Yes."

"We must tell him all."

"Of what are you thinking?" cried Vaninka. "To confide in a man? A man,
do I say? A serf! a slave!"

"The lower the position of the serf and slave, the safer will our secret
be, since he will have everything to gain by keeping faith with us."

"Your brother is a drunkard," said Vaninka, with mingled fear and
disgust.

"That is true," said Annouschka; "but where will you find a sl