After the night of what she came gradually to call the Holy Dream, the years passed more swiftly, with less of inward tumult, for Sophia Ivanovna Gregoriev. It was now the close of the year 1851; and the reign of the Iron Czar was wavering towards its dark end. Meantime the son of the chief of the secret section in Moscow was eleven years and three months old: a straight-limbed, quiet child, the son of his mother. And all Sophia's recent life, that life which had entwined itself wholly about the promised babe, was mingled the inexplicable strangeness of her dream-memory. To her, New Year's night had become a sacred time; and she loved to keep a vigil through it in her own, lonely way. This year, however, it was to be marked in a different manner. For Michael Gregoriev had planned that, on the first night of 1852, he, and perforce his wife, should make a final effort to obtain that social recognition which had never been the accompaniment of his political advancement.

At this time—as, indeed, to-day, there stood, in the south-central part of trans-Moskva Moscow, only two private buildings of any note. One of these was the low-spreading palace of the Governor; the other that of Prince Michael Petrovitch Gregoriev. The first had stood in its gardens for a century and a half. The other was nearly fifty years older. The dwelling of the Gregorievs was at some distance from its stately neighbor, however; for it stood on the southeast corner of the Konnaia Square, approachable by carriage only through the Serpoukhovskaia. Its surroundings were of the humblest sort; for it was a long way south of the Merchants' quarter, and so far from the sacred precincts of the Kremlin that the voice of Ivan Veliki had melted into an echo ere it reached the Gregoriev gateway.

It is certain that neither age nor environment made this old place less grewsomely interesting: this ancient dwelling of a family whose unsavory annals were lost in the gloom of TÁtar rule. The Gregorievs were closely bound to the gloomy stone pile; and would dwell there, in all probability, as long as their line continued. Michael, the present Prince, was loyal to his house. Yet its situation was one of the greatest of crosses to this man, who had known and cast away many a heavier burden during his career. Remote as he was from the fashionable districts, there was neither man nor woman in the city, from the proudest house in the Equerries' quarter to the outskirts of the Novaia Andronovka, but knew and shuddered, agreeably, at the Gregoriev reputation.

It was not strange, then, that the affair of New Year's night had become the sensation of the season. For on this night Prince Gregoriev had vowed a triumph over the massed society of the Mother City. He intended to accomplish now what his wedding with a daughter of one of the oldest and most honored families had failed to do: what no use of his unscrupulous power could force, what all Moscow society, for once banded unanimously together, had sworn he should never accomplish—enter their ranks, the ranks of the old nobility of the Empire.

By New Year's morning, however, the numbers were admitting, bitterly, their defeat. Once more Gregoriev was about to achieve the impossible. Eighteen years before, Moscow society had defeated him, superbly. At the time of his marriage to a daughter of the Blashkovs, the question of his admission into the "court circle" had been violently agitated. But at that time even his prospective father-in-law had not had the hardihood to suggest an informal presentation of this man to his Majesty. Nay, it was the bride, pale, pretty, sensitive Sophia, who, when it was seen that she had no slightest influence over her dread husband, had been, not, perhaps, without a sigh, dropped from their acquaintance by her former associates: nay, by her very family, all save one sister, a girl younger than herself.

For eighteen years, then, the Gregoriev palace had stood in its isolation, echoing only to the revelry that money can always obtain. For eighteen years its master, buying what the world had to sell, had been secretly planning to obtain what was not for sale: had faced, unmoved, an isolation which, to a nature less strong, would have been unbearable.

Now, at last, he was about to win. His amazing intrigue had succeeded. Its results were for the eyes of all men. For Moscow society had been suddenly commanded to his house, to a ball, given on New Year's night, in honor of his Imperial Majesty Nicholas I., who had decided, by his appearance, to honor the house of his subject and immediate servant.

It was eleven o'clock on that night of nights; and the bed and dressing rooms of the Princess Sophia were lighted to suffocation with smoking candles. Two maids and old MÁsha, general factotum of her mistress, were bustling importantly from one room to the other, bearing to her, piece by piece, their mistress's burden of jewels. At her dressing-table, pale, still wearing, as always in public, her mask of emotionless impenetrability, sat Sophia. Her neck and shoulders, which, according to the rigid etiquette of court-dress, were fully exposed, were white, and, considering her extreme slenderness, surprisingly round. A broad collar of sapphires and diamonds clasped above an Oriental necklace of pearls, successfully hid whatever there was to betray the too-visible marks of the "certain" age. On her head she bore the oddly becoming kakoshnik, which, in her case, was set with a triple row of superb diamonds. The face below this gleaming structure, the delicate, weary face, robbed of its customary frame of smoothly banded yellow hair, looked more sharply pointed than usual, but surprisingly pretty. For there was actually a fire—whether of pleasure, expectancy or nervousness—in her gray eyes; and there had come a delicate flush to the usually pallid cheeks. Sophia was, indeed, living with her dead to-night. Dreams of the old days held her in a kind of spell. The woman of memories—memories of a brief youth, a swiftly blighted flowering of life—had for once been forced back to a forgotten theme. And she found, recalling the days of her first balls, that the customary bitterness of contrast had suddenly disappeared. There was much that was new in this present situation: she was alive to sensations unfelt for years. There stirred in her heart what she was only to define after it had gone again: that which for most people forms the great staff of the inner life: on which she had been so long unaccustomed to lean—the great Phoenix, Hope.

At length they had fastened the last pin in her veil, the last hook in the heavy gown of cloth of silver. The maids stood off from her a little, whispering. But she herself remained motionless, gazing absently into her quaintly framed old mirror, lost in one of those reveries that her servants had learned not to disturb. The pause had lasted some five minutes when the door opening into the outer hall opened, vigorously, and the Princess started suddenly up, her face changing pathetically, a look of dread painfully contracting her features.

As their mistress rose, the three women shrank instinctively backward. To one understanding it, the act was pathetically familiar. An instant later, however, the Princess cried out, "Caroline! It is you, then?" and so turned deathly white and reeled a little till old MÁsha came to her support.

"Sophie! You are not ill—to-night!" The new-comer, who had spoken in French, halted near the door, an expression of dismay on her face.

Madame Gregoriev, however, laughed faintly, and the color began to creep back into her cheeks. As old MÁsha left her to hobble briskly out of the room, she continued, "No, no! I am perfectly well. It was only that you—startled me a little. I—I thought it was—Michael Petrovitch."

Once more the face of the other changed, but she said nothing as she came slowly forward, examining her companion the while with a critical eye. She was the Countess Dravikine, Sophia's younger sister, who, a year or two after Sophia's misalliance, had herself married remarkably well: a young diplomat of the capital, already high in the graces of the official world, and destined to rise steadily, through the clever management of his wife. The Countess Dravikine fitted her adopted world extremely well. She was a woman whose one tender sentiment was that which she held for the sister of her youth. Otherwise she had, not entirely without justice, been called heartless. She was, in any case, admirably adapted for the life she had chosen. And strife social and political, as well as every move in the great game of state intrigue, were as the breath of life to her. She had not come through the fires unsinged. There had been, nay, still were, whispers about her in her world. But they were whispers such as heightened rather than tarnished the brilliance of her reputation. For, whether wrongly or not, her name had more than once been linked with that of the Iron Ruler himself. This may or may not have been the reason for her presence to-night in Moscow, whither she had journeyed to stand beside her sister at the anticipated triumph. But whatever her motive, no one could deny that the evening would gain by her presence. Here, beside her glittering sister, she was superb, in her magnificently poised maturity, the voluminous gauzes of her Paris gown floating like clouds about her: the numberless opals in her hair and at her breast only continuing the delicate coloring of the green-and-white costume that was as unusual as it was becoming to her chic ugliness of feature. But to-night, for perhaps the first time in her life, Caroline Dravikine was more interested in the costume of another than in her own. She was determined that her sister's appearance should be even more perfect than hers. And to this end she went over the other's toilet detail by detail, only ending the silent scrutiny as MÁsha reappeared with a slender glass of wine for her mistress.

"Eh bien, Sophie,—yes! drink the wine. If you will not rouge you must keep what color you have!—the sapphires are not in the least too heavy. They have done you up very well. Sonya!" turning to one of the maids, "catch up that curl over the right ear of the Princess. It spoils the effect of severity that suits your face so well. So. Et maintenon, ma chÈre, renvoyez vos femmes de chambre. Je veux causer avec vous en particulier."

Sophia complied with the request: the maids, with the simple familiarity of the Russian serf, taking their dismissal reluctantly. But Madame Dravikine held them all in awe, and before her they did not dare the protest that their Princess might have listened to. When the sisters were alone, they crossed the room together and seated themselves on a great sofa upholstered in a beautifully faded old brocade, made before the birth of the great Catharine. And while Caroline, mindful of her fresh gauzes, sat upright, like a bird poised for flight, her sister lay back, wearily, crushing the veil of her headdress against a heap of pillows.

There was a moment's pause; then the Countess began, resolutely: "Has Michael Petrovitch seen you yet?"

"Oh no! He has not come up-stairs. I hope that he will not, Katrelka! He—he would not be satisfied, you know."

"Sophie! Sophie! sometimes I cannot wonder that the man is a terror in your life! Satisfied with you! Ciel! If Alexis Vassilyitch expressed dissatisfaction with a toilet of mine, I should not speak to him for a week. No! I should get him into such difficulties with the ministry that he would come to me on his knees in three days! I tell you again, Sophie, that you must assert yourself! Tell me—"

"Stop, Kasha, stop! I am too tired for all this just now. Say what you will to-morrow. You know the thing is a great strain. Tell me only this: Are you quite sure that his Majesty will come? Do you believe it possible that at last everything is to be right—that we are to have Moscow—our old Moscow—here again?"

Having with some little self-control waved aside the unusual rebuff of Sophia's first words, Madame Dravikine listened to the last with a smile, a trifle self-conscious; and in spite of her sister's look—a stare that suggested coldness, the expression remained with her as she answered: "Yes, at last you are safe, dear. You see—I am here from Petersburg; though it has meant leaving Nathalie with her nurses, and Alexis Vassilyitch to spend every night at the yacht-club at baccarat. Besides, Moscow always bores his Majesty; and even the Czarevitch isn't with him this time, you know."

"Caroline, I wish—" Madame Gregoriev's hesitating voice trailed into silence. She knew that it was scarcely the hour for remonstrance of that kind. After a moment she began again, "Do you remember how many years it is since we were all at home together, in the Nijny Kislovsky? I should hardly be able to name over the old families now. All the leaders of our day—Madame ApÚkhtin, Princess OsÍnin, the Dowager-Countess Parakoff—they are all dead. It is the wife of the younger Smirnoff—Alexander married a dancer who cannot be received—who keeps up the name. Eugen married Olga Lodoroff. She was a child when I was married. She wouldn't remember me at all now. But we have had not one excuse. They are all to come. Kasha, I am happy to-night! Think—"

"Of course, Sophie, they are coming. One would think you a parvenue, absolutely, to hear you!" broke in Caroline, sharply, still smarting a little at her reading of that unfinished sentence.

Sophia colored at her sister's appellation, but had no time for rejoinder; for at this moment an inner door was pushed gently open and a boy entered.

Sophia rose, hastily. "Ivan! You were asleep two hours ago!"

"But I woke up. And MÁsha said you were so splendid with the diamonds all on, that I came to see." He looked up at his mother, his big, black eyes shining with interest as he inspected her unusual array. His aunt, sharper-eyed than her sister, perceived that, under his eider-down wrapper, the boy wore no night-flannel, but a more or less complete suit of day-clothes. She said nothing, however, for, though she had no love for children, Ivan was quiet enough to have won her liking.

"Eh bien, mon fils, tu m'as vu. Allez vous en! Retournez immÉdiatement au lit. Tu vas prendre un rhume! Allez! Vite!" Laughing, she kissed the boy—nor had far to stoop to reach his lips. Then, with a gentle hand, she led him back to the door. The boy moved reluctantly, and, ere he left the room, caught his mother round the neck and whispered in her ear a question which was answered by a determined shake of the head.

When he had gone, the Princess stood for an instant looking after him, all her heart in her unconscious eyes. Then, her eyes shining with a softened light, she turned again to her sister, saying, with a smile:

"Come, Katrelka, let us go down. The opera must be over by this time; and I must see the rooms before the first arrival."

"Just one moment more, then, Moussia." Madame Dravikine rose, crossed the room, and laid her hand caressingly on the other's arm. "If Michael Petrovitch should be out of temper when we meet him, do not be disturbed. Do not, for the sake of our family, Sophie, betray yourself by—by your face—to-night. Remember, if the scene should grow unbearable I can always—"

"Yes, yes, Kasha. Thank you. But let us not speak of it further—just now."

A moment's silence. Then suddenly, by a common impulse, the two women threw themselves into each other's arms and kissed fervently. When they had separated again, the eyes of the Countess were no less suspiciously wet than those of her sister, the wife of Michael Gregoriev.

It was a pity that functions of formal magnificence were affairs of such rarity in the Gregoriev palace; for no private dwelling in Russia was better adapted to the purpose. The grand entrance opened into a hall of royal dimensions, at the back of which rose a massive staircase, which, ascending to a broad marble landing, separated there into two parts, one of which wound upward to the right, the other to the left, to the upper floor. Upon this landing, facing the hall below, stood the figure of a Diana carved from Carrara marble, its exquisite Greek curves wreathed to-night in smilax and white roses, brought up from the southern estates of the Prince.

As the sisters descended the stairs together, each critically surveying the decorations of the rooms below, Prince Michael himself appeared from the direction of the great dining-room, accompanied by his major-domo, to whom he was giving some final orders concerning the reception of his Imperial Majesty.

A remarkable man was Michael Petrovitch, Prince Gregoriev; nominally a chief of the Third Section under RyelÉff; actually head of the secret police of the whole Moscow district; confidential adviser of the royal Governor-General; and privately and intimately known to the Czar, who had long been aware that he had at least one man in his Empire who would balk at no order that should be given him.

In Prince Michael, as so seldom happens, the story of the mind was plainly written upon the body. Six feet three inches he stood in his stockings—two inches more in his regular dress; his head large in proportion, and finely shaped; eyes black, glittering, and unfaceable; mustache jet-black and upstanding, as if made of wire, from the set, ugly mouth, below which jutted a square, blue-shaven chin. And the appearance thus presented was not to be overshadowed, in any feature, by the magnificence of the uniform he wore to-night. Tunic and trousers were of heavy white cloth, the first garment so long, and so heavily embroidered in gold, that his body seemed cased in a glittering sheath down to where the edge of the coat met the top of the boots of softly wrinkling black, that cased his legs almost to the thigh. On his breast were ranged half a dozen orders; conspicuous among them that of St. George, for gallant conduct on the field of action, won years before in the streets of thrice-sacked Warsaw.

As the two women halted, Gregoriev finished his orders; and, turning from the cringing serf, stood staring at his wife and her sister. Madame Dravikine was smiling brightly; but Sophia's face was set, her cheeks flaming, her burning eyes unwontedly hard.

"So! Madame, there is a hair-pin caught in the flounce below your right ankle."

Involuntarily the Princess quivered, stooped, and extricated the fine wire pin which even Caroline had not noted. Then she straightened up hastily, sought to meet her husband's sneer with something like resolution, faltered before him, and moved slowly away towards the reception-rooms. The Countess, however, turned to her brother-in-law, and covered her sister's retreat. Certainly Prince Michael gave her his attention; and his manner with women of station was unresentable. Nevertheless, the covert amusement in his voice and in the eyes that looked after his wife, set even Caroline's experienced teeth on edge. She talked with him on the prospects of the evening; and it was a theme so interesting to both of them that neither perceived the little figure, dressed in black velvet, that stole quietly down from the second floor and concealed himself on the landing behind the floral drapery that spread, star-fashion, from the statue of the goddess. An hour or two before Ivan, filled with a vague excitement, had bribed his old nurse to dress him in his best, and, having seen his mother and his aunt in their court-dress, he had been seized with the desire for more. After waiting in his room as long as he could, the boy had stolen down the staircase to a point whence he could see the progress of that great ball which was, in some mysterious way, to change the fortunes of his father's house, and, with them, the long loneliness of his own, dreamy days.

So he crouched there through the hours, well concealed, a figure unconsciously pathetic, his great, sad eyes—eyes begotten by his mother, and with all her own woe in their liquid depths—glowing brightly in the white, wistful, childish face; the suggestion of a smile on his straight, delicately chiselled mouth. He had been in his place barely ten minutes when the great doors opened to the first guests; and, during the hour that followed, they were scarcely shut. The opera was over. Fashionable Moscow, accustomed to live at night, swathed itself in furs, and, grumbling at the unwonted distance, had spun across the city, in open sleighs, to the distant Gregoriev palace.

Prince Michael, with his wife and his sister-in-law beside him, stood at the entrance to the gold drawing-room, welcoming the men and women who were announced in rapid succession: men and women whose names set Sophia's heart beating with memory. There were few, indeed, that any major-domo in Petersburg would not have shouted in his best voice. For all of them were members of the great Russian world: ApÚkhtin and Mirski, Chipraznik, Smirnoff and the omnipresent Nikitenko—names that had been the last to fade into, the first to reappear from, the baleful night of TÁtar rule. Not one of them all but had once known Sophia Blashkov intimately: none but greeted Madame Dravikine as a familiar acquaintance of to-day. But, for the first time since his wedding-day, Michael Gregoriev felt himself slighted for that woman he had so long despised. One and all, women and men alike, they slid by him as rapidly as decency would permit, nor cared to notice him again, though, from far corners and discreet retreating-places, they bestowed on him glances that ran the gamut from curiosity to open horror. Not so did Sophia fare. There was for her at least one hour when the immediate past was blotted out, and her heart warmed and thrilled again as it had in that long-past, joyous winter of her presentation.

By half an hour past midnight the rooms were crowded and there had settled over the company a hush: that peculiar stillness of expectancy that is destruction to the nerves of a host. In this special pause, however, lay something beyond the ordinary: a discomfort, a palpable uneasiness, that sheathed a subtle threat. Sophia, with her woman's instinct, was no quicker to perceive it than her husband. They, with Countess Caroline and every other woman in the rooms, put the same interpretation upon that significant lull. It spoke thus: "It is late, and he whom we were commanded to meet is not here. His Imperial Majesty's name forced us to this house. Now he has not come. Is the thing a trick? Michael Petrovitch Gregoriev, have you been capable of this? Dared you dream that such folly of deceit could really help you?"

Such was the unmistakable sentiment in the air when, at a quarter before one, the sisters met in a corner of the dining-room, and there passed between them a white-faced look. Then Madame Dravikine whispered:

"Sophie, what does it mean? Did Nicholas promise?"

The question was a mistake. Princess Gregoriev's lips went white, and she seemed to speak with difficulty. "Caroline! Then you were not assured by him? You as well as Michael have deceived me?"

Madame Dravikine flushed scarlet. "I have never discussed your affairs with his Majesty," she returned, haughtily.

Sophia made no reply. Her face, if possible, grew a little more livid, her eyes a trifle more piteous.

Caroline, in spite of her resentment, was touched with pity and with fear; so that, presently, she burst out, impulsively: "Then you are ruined, Sophie! Absolutely ruined!"

Suddenly, Princess Sophia's lips curled into a bitter smile. "I have been ruined, as you call it, for eighteen years. This—this fiasco cannot make it any worse!" And, before that expressionless tone, Madame Dravikine was still.

A moment or two after this encounter, however, there came a sudden stir. Beyond the dining-room, in the central hall, was a visible flutter of excitement, and whispers sped rapidly through the rooms.

"He has really come!"

"The Czar is here!"

"After all, his Majesty has arrived."

"Where is he, then?"

"In his dressing-room. The royal sleigh is at the gate."

"Ah! Then we must remain!"

During the first seconds of the excitement, the Prince and Princess Gregoriev came together near the door of the specially prepared antechamber where his Majesty was to have his furs removed. Sophia's cheeks were flushed, her eyes burning again; but the face of Michael Petrovitch had become once more impenetrable. There were three minutes of the strained attention. Then, from the door of the antechamber, appeared a stately man, clad in a magnificent uniform, his breast covered with medals and crosses. When they were still many feet apart, a look passed between him and Prince Michael; and, in that look, a new, undying enmity was born in Gregoriev's fierce soul. For the guest from the Kremlin was not the Czar, but the Czar's most detested envoy: the notorious Count Alderberg, Minister of the Imperial Household. And his words to the host and hostess began with the infuriating, formal: "I regret—"

Even through that moment of greeting, Princess Sophia scarcely understood the full significance of this presence. Surely, if the Czar had sent a proxy, it meant, at least, recognition. But as the Count carried his cynical smile and gorgeous personality away in the direction of the dining-room, and the poor lady turned to her husband, she was stricken dumb at sight of the blind fury in his face. It was a look that she had known before—too well. Yet never, perhaps, had such a concentrated mixture of defeat, rage, and rebellion glared from those eyes or straightened that heavy mouth. Now, indeed, she knew that they were undone.

"Alderberg! Alderberg! By God and the devil, had I dreamed—" The low-muttered words trailed off and were bitten into silence, while, by a fierce contortion of the muscles, Michael straightened his face into a semblance of calm. But the hands hanging at his sides were clinched till the nails pierced his palms, and the veins started out, knotted and purple, from his flesh.

For some moments the Princess stood irresolute, terrified lest her guests should witness some part of this outbreak. Madame Dravikine was first to emerge from the throng; and she came towards them, dismay written in her face. She sent one glance at Michael; and then, biting her lip, took her sister's hand in a gentle clasp.

"Ah! You, too, Katrelka!" whispered Sophia. "You, too, think it so bad?"

Caroline shook her head sadly. "We are helpless, Sophie. A fit of Nicholas' laziness has lost the world to you. Look!"

There was no time for response; for, at this moment, the Prince and Princess Mirski came up with chill good-nights that were passively accepted. They were immediately followed by the OsÍnin, who barely looked towards Michael, but had the grace to murmur some excuse to his wife. On their heels hastened the ApÚkhtin, who played the few seconds of farce with angry hauteur. Then, injury to insult, Alderberg himself approached, having been in the rooms a bare five minutes. And, as he disappeared into the royal alcove, the throng in the rooms began to fly the house as from a spot plague-smitten.

At the instant of Alderberg's appearance in the hall, word of the defection of the Czar had swept like wildfire through the rooms. The Minister of the Imperial Household was nearly as unpopular among the court circle of Moscow as he was among the peasant class; and nothing could have been more unfortunate than the choice of him as the proxy of his Majesty. Within five minutes, whispers were everywhere. The drawing, dining, and dressing rooms were full of the rippling hiss of talk which in every case preceded either frowns or angry laughter. Ivan, from his hiding-place on the stairway, caught many phrases the significance of which he could not fathom; but which filled him with prescience of evil. His troubled eyes sought the face of his mother in the hall below; and he found there what he had feared. From his vantage-point he had a clear view of the quickening rush of departure. Crowds were pouring up-stairs to re-don their furs; though many of these people had not yet recovered from the chill of their long drive from the Grand Theatre. Soon the great staircase was so crowded that many who were still below made no effort to ascend, deputing the bringing of their wraps to friends who had forced an upward passage. For so bitter was the night that few had pursued the usual custom of leaving their sables outside, on the arms of patient footmen.

Ivan watched the good-nights to his father and mother; and noted also the lack of them. He beheld the drooping, weary figure of the Princess, in her blaze of gems, forcing piteous smiles of farewell. And he was glad that there were so many who, under cover of the throng, evaded the ordeal of the good-night, and slipped away from the brilliant rooms as from a dwelling haunted with evil.

There was but one consolation for this misery—it was very brief. The crowd that had taken a long hour to assemble, dispersed and melted away into the darkness of the city within the space of fifteen minutes. There had, indeed, been some who had arrived after his Excellency the Count. These, perceiving the crowd out-streaming, divined calamity, and, without so much as descending from their sleighs, turned about and departed as they had come.

By half-past one o'clock three figures stood alone in the great hall; while on the staircase, beside the motionless Diana, crouched a lonely, frightened child, who still stared, as if with enchanted eyes, at his mother's white, despairing face. Princess Sophia stood motionless, her head bent, her hands clasped tightly before her, persistently avoiding her husband's eyes. Caroline, with a half-protective air, was between her sister and her brother-in-law. Michael, his face as colorless as that of the statue, his eyes alight with the fire in his brain, stared straight before him, into some bitter world of his own. About them was the unbearable silence which Madame Dravikine, who alone was unaccustomed to it, finally broke in desperation:

"Come, Sophie! Come to bed. You are too tired to stay down here. You'll be ill."

But, at the moment, Sophia had, in her heart, the thought of another than herself. At sight of some unwonted suggestion in his face of a pain with which she had been long familiar, there had entered into her heart a sudden pity for the man she so feared. Imbued with a momentary courage, she advanced to her husband and took his hand. "Michael," she murmured, "I—am sorry."

The man started in amazement, and then drew away from her, at the same time turning upon her his burning eyes. "Sorry! Good God! Then get to your ikons and pray. For me—there's no sorrow for me. Nicholas has played his game. Now mine begins. Sorrow for him, if you like. For, by the help of Satan, he and Moscow shall know me yet!"

The low-spoken words ended with a snarl of inarticulate anger. And the moment they were uttered, he turned brusquely, and, without another word or look, disappeared in the direction of his offices, where, as his wife knew, he would probably work till far into the next day.

The two women watched him go. Then, after a pause, they found themselves clinging to each other, and in this fashion began the ascent of the stairs. Both of them were weeping: not loudly; rather as the reaction from the strain of the past hour. As they reached the landing, they were joined by another. Ivan came openly from his hiding-place, and barred their path, guilt-laden. But there was to be no rebuke to-night for his disobedience. On the contrary, his mother took him into her arms and clasped him close, as if his presence brought comfort for much immediate pain. And the boy, feeling the hot tears from her eyes fall upon his face, laid his arms about her neck, and yielded himself to a grief and a terror that he understood vaguely, but could not as yet define.