Chapter 23 - Page 2

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 some roubles still, and my eyes! I can see for you, Michael; and I will lead you thither, where you could not go alone!"

"And how shall we go?"

"On foot."

"And how shall we live?"

"By begging."

"Let us start, Nadia."

"Come, Michael."

The two young people no longer kept the names "brother" and "sister." In their common misfortune, they felt still closer united. They left the house after an hour's repose. Nadia had procured in the