TO
EVERY HEART IN EXILE
THIS BOOK OF HOPE
IS INSCRIBED
IN THE SURE AND CERTAIN FAITH
THAT LOVE STILL KNOWS THE WAY.

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER I

HOW HOPE SACRIFICED HERSELF FOR LOVE OF
THE PEOPLE

"You think she will be in in a few minutes, Marya?"

"Assuredly. She is past her time now," said the old woman.

"She may have called somewhere," said the young man, and glanced doubtfully at her.

"Sit down, Paul Ivanuitch," she said, in a more than simply hospitable tone, "and I will get you some tea. She cannot be many minutes now."

The old woman nodded knowingly to herself as she went down the passage. The young man sat down for a moment, and then jumped up and began to wander restlessly about the room. How could any man sit still when all his future happiness was in the balance, and when he had good reason to know that the hand that held the scales was no ordinary hand, and might let itself be swayed by no ordinary feelings?

Straight and tall, and spare of figure; deep-set, trustworthy eyes, dark like his hair; frank, thoughtful face, high in the cheek-bones and lean in the cheeks, so that at times one could follow or even anticipate his feelings by the curves and lines that came and went there, Paul Pavlof was distinctly attractive to look upon.

For his was, above all, an invitingly honest face, and one does not come across too many such. Perhaps also there was, in the eager face and strenuous figure, more than a suggestion that such of the good things of life as had come his way had been rather mental than material, had contributed more to his inner well-being than to his outer, that the lower things held but small interest for him, and that he had not greatly missed them.

It was a very plainly furnished room, and Paul Pavlof knew intimately every single thing that was in it. Table, couch, chairs, white-tiled stove, green-shaded student's lamp, all were severely simple and without individuality, but each separate article was glorified in his eyes by the high service to which it was dedicated. He felt like kneeling and kissing the chairs because Hope Arskaïa used them, the floor because she walked on it, the lamp because she read and thought by it, for all these things pertained to the higher life.

He wondered if she had ever thought of him as she sat in the chair or walked the floor.

He knew she had, and moreover that her thoughts of him had been pleasant thoughts. But all the same——

There were neither books nor papers lying about. The lack of them contributed largely to the austerity of the apartment. But books and papers are dangerous things when one never knows at what moment the steps of the gendarmes may be heard on the stair.

On the walls were three portraits. Paul eyed them with reverence, and stopped his wanderings now and again to look at them, as though they might afford him some clue to the answer Hope Ivanovna would give to the question he had come to put to her.

The bearded man with the calm, intent face and thoughtful eyes was her father. He died in the Schlusselburg casemates, martyred for an idea. High thought and fixity of purpose were the dominant features here, and Pavlof's mouth tightened somewhat as he looked at it. Hope Ivanovna took after her father.

The sweet-faced woman was her mother—the Scotchwoman. She died a few months before him, broken-hearted at the racking injustice of it all. Hope Ivanovna had her beauty and more, but her spirit was her father's.

The bright, curly-headed boy was her brother. He died before she came into Paul's life for its brightening and embittering.

He was standing before the portraits, finding likenesses in them all to Hope herself, when the door opened again, and Marya, with an apologetic look and shrug, ushered in another visitor—Serge Palma, a strapping, jovial fellow, with blue eyes and light hair, and full beard and moustache; very well dressed, and carrying an air of opulence and hearty good feeling towards himself and the rest of the world; in all respects the very antithesis of the first-comer. He stopped with a short laugh at sight of Pavlof, and Pavlof's forehead crumpled with annoyance at sight of him.

"Hola, Paul! It was not you I came to see," said Palma jovially, in spite of the infelicity of the meeting.

"Nor I you."

"No, I suppose not," said Palma, with another short laugh. "Moreover, unless I'm mistaken, it is no good our both stopping here at the same time. Is it not so?"

Paul regarded him with gloomy annoyance. He was strung to concert pitch himself, and the careless gaiety of the other jarred upon him exceedingly. At the moment he hated Serge Palma most cordially, though as a rule they were on friendly terms enough.

"I really don't think you need wait," said Pavlof quietly.

"Of course you don't. But then I do, you see, and that makes all the difference in the world."

"It will make no difference."

"Da! As to that we shall see. But it's no good our waiting together, if you've come, as I imagine you have, to put your fortune to the test."

"I suggest then the propriety of your retiring."

"Of course you do. But, again, I don't see it, my friend. Why should I leave you a clear field? First come may be first served."

"That's as it may be, and since I was first here——"

"Tell you what—let the fates decide it," said the other, with that cheerful laugh of his which made Pavlof grind his teeth. And Palma drew a coin from his pocket and spun and caught it. "Heads you stop, tails you go."

But Pavlof shook his head with an expression of disgust at such unseemly frivolity in so momentous a matter.

Palma laughed and uncovered the coin on the table. "You win," he said, "so I go. If it had been tails I would have stopped in spite of you, my boy. I shall wait till I see you leave, then I take my turn. I'd wish you luck if I had no conscience. As it is——"

He nodded and went out, just as old Marya brought in the samovar and teacups.

"Nu!" said she, with a wag of the head "That's right. I'm glad he's gone—if he does not meet her on the road."

"You don't like Serge Palma, Masha?" said the young man hopefully.

"Not in that way, no," with another thoughtful shake of the head.

"He is rich, good-looking, good-tempered——"

"No doubt, no doubt. But there are better things even than those."

Then the door opened and Hope Arskaïa came in, and, to both Masha and Pavlof, the homely casket glowed suddenly radiant with the brightness of its treasure.

"Ah, Paul, mon ami! You have come to share a cup of tea with two lonely old maids. That is good of you. Is it all ready, Matushka? I am later than usual."

From the sweet, full tones of her voice to the light, firm tread that bore her so rapidly and so gracefully, she was the embodiment of health and energy, and her beauty was very remarkable. But, after the first glow of satisfaction which fineness and regularity and proportion of feature never fail to produce, it was the purposeful soul shining through the eagerness of the beautiful face, and especially through the great dark-blue eyes, which gave her the mastery.

It was the knowledge—the partial knowledge—of what was in her that made Paul Pavlof's hand tremble as he took the cup of tea she handed him. For a woman animated by feelings so mighty as those which moved and restrained Hope Arskaïa was capable of anything.

The one thing that troubled him was the doubt whether she was capable of condescending to so small a thing as the love of Paul Pavlof—to him the mightiest thing on earth.

Her greeting was full of hearty fellowship, nevertheless the first quick glance she had given him had in it something of apprehension. She knew what he had come for, and she feared the result of the interview—for him—and—well, yes, for herself as well. For they had been good comrades for many years, and friendship which aspires to more does not readily content itself with less.

"Any callers, Masha?" she asked, as she drank her tea.

"Is not this one enough, Hope Ivanovna?" said the old woman diplomatically, with a friendly nod at Pavlof, and hastened out of the way of further questioning.

"Masha bullies me," said Hope, with a smile.

"She is a good old soul. You would have been very lonely without her.... Sometime she will die, and then, Hope Ivanovna, you will be more lonely still, unless—unless you have some one to take care of you. I have come to-day to ask you to let me be that one. My heart has been yours to trample on since the first time I looked into your eyes. You have known it."

Yes, she had known it, she had known it only too well. And she had looked with foreboding to this moment, for many a day, as the possible end to their friendship.

Under other skies, under other circumstances, it might have been. But as things were—the ordinary joys of wifehood, home, motherhood, were not for Hope Arskaïa. Rightly or wrongly, her heart was set on other things, and for those other things she was prepared to sacrifice all that womankind holds most dear. Compared with those other things she held herself of very small account.

That was the view he had feared she would take. Nay, he knew instantly, even as he spoke, that he had known it all along, and he knew her too well to hope to move her by any passionate pleading.

Her response would have been instant, if response had been possible. One glance from the great dark eyes would have carried his soul up into heaven.

But the eloquent eyes, which would have told him so much, remained downcast, and he saw only the shadow of the long lashes on the white cheek. He rose instantly.

"Forgive me, Hope," he said, as quietly as though his life's hopes had not in the space of a moment crumbled into a heap of burnt-out ashes.

"Paul!" she said, and raised a detaining hand, and there was that in her tone—something of pleading and of pity both for herself and for him—which made him glance quickly at her from under his pinched brows.

He stood silently in front of her and waited—so near to heaven, nearer than he knew, yet separated from it by the deep gulf of a woman's invincible determination, and that woman to other women as a volcano to a candle.

"My friend," she said at last, and her voice was full and strong again, "you know to what my life is dedicated." She did not look at him, but at the portraits on the wall. "To that end I am prepared to sacrifice myself, body and soul, and these other things are not for me. You are poor, I am poor. Poverty ties our hands. With all your help I could do little of all that cries aloud to be done. Yet I want your help. Will you work with me still for the people, Paul Ivanuitch—in spite of this—in spite of—of all?"

"I would lay down my life for you, Hope Ivanovna. You know it."

"I know it. I know it. Even though I——"

"Even though you marry Serge Palma's millions, Hope Ivanovna."

He could not keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"Ah!"

"He was here. He will be back presently. God help us all. Why does He permit these things to be?"

"If the sacrifice of one can help the many, it is right to make it, Paul. Palma's millions may help to break the fetters of a nation. What am I that I should withhold myself?"

"You are the sacrifice," he said sadly, and bent and kissed her hand, and went quietly out.

Hope sat silently gazing at the portraits on the wall—past them, at what she had put from her—past that, at what lay before her. And her eyes were sad in spite of the spirit that was in her—nay, because of it. For she knew, as well as any, where that path would probably lead her.

Old Masha came in presently, and eyed her anxiously as she announced Serge Palma.

Hope's face was grave and composed as his keen glance swept it. There was an afterglow in the great dark eyes which he took to himself, and courage therewith.

"You are welcome, Serge Petrovitch," said Hope.

"Ah!" said Palma, with a humorous twinkle. "Condolences, then, to friend Paul," to which her only answer was a slight lift of the level brows.

"You know what brings me, Hope Ivanovna," he said in reply. "I am no student and have no gift of words. Will you be my wife?"

She looked at him quietly, and then asked, "Are you sure you know what that means, Serge Petrovitch?"

"What it means? To be my wife? I know what it means to me, Hope Ivanovna."

"I must be sure of that. Listen to me. You know that I work among the people."

"Every one knows it," he nodded.

"Since ever I can remember, the thought of the people under the yoke has weighed upon me, and my heart has groaned with them. My father died in Schlusselburg, as all the world knows. His only crime was the desire to raise the people out of the slough. My mother went before he did. The same blow killed her. There they are on the wall, and night and day they cry to me to help the work on."

"It is a good work."

"And a dangerous, and heart-breaking in its slowness, for lack of workers and for lack of funds. If you are ready to join me in the work I will be your wife."

"I will join you, Hope Ivanovna, so long as you don't go to extremes. I am no believer in force as a remedy."

"Nor I; brains and money properly applied will bring the remedy in time. It may be slow, but it will come. It must come. It shall come," she said vehemently; and added, with quiet conviction, "we want to build up, not to overthrow; to plant, not to uproot."

"I am with you there with all my heart. We will work side by side in the matter."

And doubtless in the glow of his passion he meant it.

He had been prepared for some such demand. He had considered it. He was ready to accede to it sooner than lose her. Doubtless, also, somewhere in his mind there was the feeling that altruistic notions such as these were common to most women gifted with intelligence above the ordinary. And if one's heart were set upon such an one, why, you had to take the rough with the smooth, the thorn with the rose. It was a phase which time would overlay. The inducements of a safe, luxurious life would wean her from it by degrees, and there would be no harm done.

But that only showed how very little he actually knew of the woman he had asked to be his wife.

Her father was that Dr. Ivan Arskoi whose only crime was his far-sighted love for his fellows, and for the best interests of his country. To Autocracy and Bureaucracy, however, such a man represented social revolution. And so he did—but revolution by natural growth, not by fire and steel; evolution, therefore, though the results to the bureaucrats would be the same in the end. And, since those results must necessarily be extremely unpleasant, the bureaucrats promptly nipped Ivan Arskoi in the bud. He was labelled "untrustworthy." Administrative process carried him off one night to the Schlusselburg. For two years he lay there without trial, and there he died. His wife's heart broke against the bars, and Hope, a girl student of sixteen, was left alone in the world, except for an aunt who took charge of her, and old Marya Ostronaya, her nurse.

Hope continued her studies and nourished the faith and hopes of her father. When the guardian aunt died, leaving her a tiny patrimony, she eked out her living by teaching, and devoted every spare minute of her life, and every rouble that could be saved from the slender housekeeping, to that quiet propaganda among the down-trodden for which her father had already given his life.

Paul Pavlof she had long known in the schools. She had also been on terms of closest friendship with his mother, Elizabeth Pavlovna, one of those sweet, saintly souls which every land and every creed produces, and Paul, in his highmindedness and abstraction from the lower things, was very like her, as he was like her in the face and eyes. His aim in life and Hope's were identical, but he was poorer even than she. His father was a proprietor possessed of no business aptitude. When he died, what remained after the Jews were satisfied was just about sufficient to keep Paul's soul and body together during his University career, and no more.

He was a quiet, thoughtful fellow, student still, and teacher in his spare moments of those same wakening ideas which animated Hope Arskaïa.

Their common interests and common dangers—for it is dangerous in Russia to think of things as they ought to be, and still more dangerous to speak of them—these things had drawn them very close together. So close that Pavlof had even dared to dream of a closer union still.

He had told himself a hundred times that it was only a dream, and yet he would not banish it, for it was the radiance and glory of his life, the dash of colour in the grey, without which a man's life flies low on sombre wings.

Then Serge Palma came upon the scene. He was the only son of Peter Palma, of Odessa—Prince Peter, by descent from a former petty ruling family, just as Paul Pavlof, if he had chosen, could have claimed a similar title, but wisely forbore. Prince Peter, however, finding, like Pavlof's father, that his rentals were decreasing year by year, had gone into the grain business and had amassed a fortune in it. He died, and his son Serge was enjoying the fruits of his labours, scattering what he had not gathered, dispensing with free hand that which had cost him nothing to procure.

He met Hope Arskaïa first at the house of Kataya Barenina, whose brother Mikhail was one of his many friends. The girl's remarkable combination of beauty and high intelligence and intense earnestness had made a great impression on him. With wide-open eyes to possible consequences—for Peter Palma's son was no fool—he pursued the acquaintance to its ultimate issue, and now he had asked her to share his life, and she, for sake of what she held more highly than any earthly happiness, had consented—on condition that he also shared hers.

CHAPTER II

HOW ONE WENT FORTH ALONE

So, in due course, Hope Arskaïa became Hope Palma, and no littleness of mind imputes to Paul Pavlof from the fact that, when he got the offer of a small medical appointment in Moscow, he accepted it instantly, and Odessa knew him no more. He was very human, and he loved Hope Arskaïa to the very depths of his aching heart. Consideration for his own peace of mind might not have carried him to this final extremity of exile. He might, indeed, have found a gloomy satisfaction, something not very far removed from a flagellant pleasure, in watching her from afar, meeting her occasionally, and nursing in secret the thought that her heart had surely been his before she consummated her great self-sacrifice to duty by becoming Palma's wife.

But he was too big a man for that. If Hope could sacrifice herself for her life's work, so he could sacrifice himself for love of her.

It would indeed have been a sore trial to any man to watch from the outer darkness the happiness which, under equal circumstances, might have been his.

If he had seen any possibility of service to Hope he would have suffered and rejoiced. But there was no visible call for sympathy on Hope's account after her marriage with Palma. She seemed quite contented, nay, even happy, and Pavlof, pondering this strange matter in the light of a deeper understanding of her than most, imputed to her neither lightness nor forgetfulness.

He had known her better than any, and he knew that, compared with the work which she looked upon as an inheritance of sacred obligation from her father, her own well-being, prosperity, happiness, were as nothing and less than nothing.

To some it may seem that altruism so complete as this is visionary and overdrawn. The history of the evolutionary movement in Russia has given us many examples. Not that I would, for one moment, be supposed to hint that Russia monopolises, or even possesses in higher degree than other countries, this mighty force of self-sacrifice. But, in happier lands, the self-sacrificing dree their weirds below the level surface of life, obscure and unknown; whereas, in Russia, their lives and sufferings and deaths are, by force of circumstances, flashed luridly on the screen and set the startled world aghast at times.

He saw that she was contented in her new life. His presence in Odessa could afford her no pleasure, might even cause her a twinge of regret at times, for, with all the will in the world, a quiet face was all he could compass, and cheerfulness was hardly to be expected of him.

So he called upon her once after her marriage, to say farewell, and then he went away to Moscow.

He might have denied himself even this visit, and he debated the matter within himself for some time before deciding on it. Then it seemed to him that Hope might reasonably feel hurt by such avoidance, and by such a lapse from the ordinary rules of courtesy, and he went.

Old Masha had followed her mistress into the new life. She received him with all the old friendly favour which would have put him in Palma's place if the turning of the wheel had rested with her.

"I will tell her you are here, Paul Ivanuitch," said Masha, scanning his face, woman-like, for sign of his feeling, but lingering still.

"I am going away to Moscow, Marya. I have come to say goodbye."

"Ach!" said old Masha knowingly, and stood looking at him.

"Tell me, Marya. Is she happy?"

"Yes, she is happy, Paul Ivanuitch," and added quickly, "but you know she is not like others. It is not of herself she thinks. It is a terrible great change," she said, waving her simple old hands at the sumptuous appointments of the room. "I am almost afraid to speak aloud at times, it is all so fine. But it doesn't trouble her one bit, and it is not that she cares for. It seems to me sometimes that we have half the poor people of the city on our hands, and there are fresh ones every day."

"And Palma is good to—to you, Marya?" he asked, with an almost imperceptible quiver of the lip, which old Marya did not fail to catch, though her eyes were not as strong as they were once. She knew so well all that lay behind it.

"He is very good, Paul Ivanuitch. He is a bigger man than I thought. He is very generous. My God! how the money goes! I am afraid in the night sometimes that it will come to an end, but there is always plenty next day. I did not know any one had so much money."

"I will send you my address in Moscow, Marya. If ever I can do anything for—for you—or for her, will you promise to let me know?"

"Surely. It is good to know one has a friend to turn to. Now sit down and I will tell her you are here."

He did not sit down, but stood looking at the big oil paintings on the wall—Prince Peter, and Serge's mother, and Serge himself when he was a small boy. And the rich hangings to the windows and doors, and the carved table and buffet and chairs, stole in upon his senses without his knowingly looking at them, though he remembered them all afterwards, because they were the things she lived among. And then the door opened, and he was face to face with Hope herself.

She was looking very well, very bright and cheerful, more richly dressed than he had ever seen her, more beautiful than ever.

His face was thinner even than it used to be, and his deep eyes deeper, and keener, and more ardent, she thought, but just the same straight, honest eyes that always met your own frankly and squarely, and held no equivocations. Perhaps there was something of a shadow in them now, but it might be only that they looked deeper in their settings than before. In truth there was in them the shadow of a slight reserve to which she had not been accustomed. For in spite of himself he felt a touch of resentment at her cheerfulness, and a touch of anger with himself for so feeling.

"You are going away, Paul Ivanuitch?" said Hope, when she had greeted him.

"I am going to Moscow, Hope Ivanovna. I have got an appointment there. It is not much, but it may lead to more."

"You will be missed here. Will you still be able to carry on the work there?"

"Oh, surely. I hope to have still larger opportunities. My work will lie among the very poor, and there is never any lack of them."

"It would grieve me to think of you dropping it."

"I will carry it on as you would have it, Hope Ivanovna, as long as I am able. When you have set it in one's heart it would be as hard to drop it as it would be to forget yourself."

"There is so much to be done and so few to do it," she said earnestly.

"You are always busy?"

"Always busy."

"And quite happy?"

"Quite happy. I have no time for anything else."

"I am glad," he said quietly. "If ever I can serve you in any smallest thing, I beg of you to let me know."

"There is no one I would sooner turn to for help, Paul, if that time should ever come. I wish——"

She looked wistfully at him, and he knew that she was wishing it was in her power to do something to brighten his own path in life. But the only thing she could have done she had not seen well to do, and nothing else was possible.

"God be with you, Hope Ivanovna, and give you every good." He stooped and kissed her hand, and she bent and kissed his forehead.

"Would you not stop and see Serge——"

"No, I thank you, Hope Ivanovna. I leave to-night, and I still have some calls to make," and he was gone.

She told Palma of his visit, when he came in, and he, in his hearty way, regretted that she had not kept him to dinner.

"It's ages since we met, and we used to be good friends at one time. Let me see—" and his eyes rested thoughtfully on Hope's face, as he cast back in his mind—"yes—I don't think Pavlof and I have met since our marriage. I suppose that was it. I don't believe Paul Ivanuitch has ever quite forgiven me for carrying off the prize. But really, you know, I was not to blame. Was I now?"

"No, you were not to blame, Serge, and I'm quite sure Paul Ivanuitch bears no malice. He will be very lonely in Moscow. I cannot help feeling sorry for him."

"Oh, he'll soon make heaps of friends."

But Hope knew better, and her own great happiness set his lonely way in deeper shadow in her thoughts.

For she was happy. In marrying Serge Palma she had given but small consideration to her own feelings. And Palma, perfectly aware of that, had set himself diligently to win her to himself.

He had tried at first, in the quietest and most unobtrusive manner possible, to introduce into her life new elements of interest, which might, he hoped, in time wean her from those labours among the poor and downtrodden which she looked upon as her great work in life.

His manner of life had been, in almost every respect, the very opposite of hers. He had always had more money than he could use. He had always flung it about generously. He had never had to scrimp and save in his life, and self-denial was as absolutely unknown to him as the absence of the necessity for it was unknown to his wife. Whereby no doubt he had missed much, and had been to that extent docked of his full stature.

He treated Hope with the greatest generosity, gave her everything he thought she could possibly want, which included very much which she did not want at all, and in every possible way showed her that the one desire of his heart was to win her completely, and so round their union into a perfect circle of happiness.

In order to win her to his own ways, he found it advisable at times to go hand in hand with her along her chosen paths. And, bit by bit, for very love of her, he found himself going further than ever he had dreamed of going. For very love of her he found himself first tolerating, then enjoying, this new way of life because it was her way. Hers was the finer spirit, and by degrees he came to look through her eyes at matters which had lain under his nose all his life, but which he had never seen until his love for her quickened his understanding.

She was a whole new world to him, a sweet apocalypse, and, by degrees, those things which had sufficed him before came to be as nothing and less than nothing to him.

The change was very gradual, but it could not fail in time to attract the attention of those who sorely missed the jovial dispenser of largesse in Palma's former circles. His old friends chaffed him and laughed at him. He invited them to dinner and they fell under the spell of Madame Palma's beauty, to the extent, at all events, of swearing in marvellous language that Serge Palma was a mighty fortunate man. And if they still chaffed him at times, for his dereliction from their primrosy paths, his quiet smile turned all their shafts aside and even lodged them in their own bosoms. Not a man of them but would have done any mortal thing Madame Palma might have asked of him, however contrary to his natural inclination. But Hope had very soon taken their shallow measures, and not one of them did she find worth using in her great work.

For that work, while patently and undeniably of the most harmless description, and with no end or aim beyond the uplifting of the helpless and downtrodden, was still work at which the authorities looked doubtfully, if not actually askance, and it needed for its furtherance large souls who could be at once energetic and cautious and discriminating.

Even in such simple work as this there ran a vein of danger, in the fact that the downtrodden, when they awake to a sense of their condition, and of the causes of it, are liable to fits of fierce resentment; and at times fiery spirits will out and kindle conflagrations the stifling of which entails far-reaching consequences and suffering. And at such times the innocent are as like to suffer as the guilty—more like, perhaps, since the latter, with their foreknowledge of coming events, can also provide ways of escape.

Palma was redeeming to the full the promise he had made to Hope when he asked her to marry him. In her simple schemes of amelioration he was with her to the extent of her will. Against anything beyond he set his face like a flint, as indeed she did herself.

The people were nominally free, but they were not educated up to freedom. It was her aim, as it had been her father's, to lift them out of the sloughs, so that in due time they should be able to put their unknown powers to noblest uses. But as to any violent and precipitant exhibition of these as yet immatured powers, they never ceased to warn their poor folk with all the strength that was in them; and their poor folk met their warnings with vehement denial of any remotest thought of any such intentions, and talked among themselves afterwards in ways that would have given Serge Palma nightmares in powder magazines if he had dreamt of them.

He regarded some of her agents with considerable doubt, though she had chosen them with the utmost care and discrimination, and had tried them well before she leaned to any extent upon them.

"Now that fellow Petrof, Hope? Do you feel quite safe with him?" he asked her one day, when Dmitri of that name had come creeping up to beg Hope Ivanovna's assistance for Katerina, wife of Nicholas Korba. Katerina was expecting to be laid up, and her husband had managed to get into the hands of the police.

"I've known him a very long time now, Serge, and I have never found him take a kopeck for himself of what I have given him for other people."

"I wish he'd make more noise when he walks," said Palma, smiling himself at the meagreness of his grounds for disliking Dmitri. "He goes along like a snake, and it's all I can do to keep from putting my foot on him."

"He is very quiet. But, you see, they learnt to be that in the old times, and some of them can't get out of it."

"Well, we can only trust in Providence that they put the money you give them to the uses you intend."

"Where I give money they are mostly in such want that they would grudge it being used for anything else. But you are quite right, Serge. There is a risk, and I don't see how we can eliminate it more than we are doing by exercising every possible care and watchfulness. You assumed a great responsibility when you took over me and my work."

"I have never regretted it, my dear, and never shall, whatever comes or goes. You have opened the eyes of my understanding. In time I do believe you will make a fairly good man of me."

"You are very good to me, and to give up so much for me, Serge. You are a bigger man than I thought."

"With such a teacher who could fail to grow? I have only one regret in life, and that is that I cannot make you Tzarina and give you a free hand to work your fullest will."

"I wish you could. But the one without the other would be very little use. It is not the Tzar or Tzarina who obstruct, but those below them. And how they will ever be brought round I do not know."

"Well, all I want is that we should so carry on the work that it may not bring us into collision with the powers that be, for in that case the work would suffer check. We also, perhaps."

"Our intentions are good, at all events," she said thoughtfully, "and for the rest, as you say, we can only trust in Providence."

"Ah, my dear, good intentions they say, pave the road to—Siberia," he said, with a smile. "But we'll do our best to keep on the right side of that line, at all events."

CHAPTER III

HOW ONE WENT TO THE COUNTRY AND ONE
WENT OUT OF IT

Time came when, in spite of all her zeal for others, Hope Palma found it necessary, or at all events was prevailed upon, to think first of herself. And yet, again, perhaps it was rather a possible other than herself that she considered, when she allowed herself to be persuaded to renounce her work for a time and go away into the country with old Marya to look after her.

She had contracted a touch of the low fever that prevailed in the poorer parts of the town, and found a difficulty in throwing it off. For, so long as she was in town there was neither rest nor respite for her. There was always so much to be done, and no appeal ever reached her without meeting full and prompt response.

So Palma, who had an equal, nay, surely, a double, stake in the matter, put down his foot gently but firmly, and carried them both away from the strenuous life of the town to the restful quiet of a small estate he had close to Akerman, where the Dniester flows wide and free into the Black Sea. He saw them comfortably settled in the house of his steward, stayed a few days with them, and thenceforward divided his time between Akerman and Odessa.

One day, when he came, he brought with him news which it was useless attempting to withhold from Hope, since the matter was being talked of everywhere and had made itself felt throughout the empire.

Scherbatzky, chief of police at Odessa, had been shot one night as he was driving home from his office, and was dead before they could get him into his house.

The usual sweeping arrests followed, but, wide as the net was cast, the actual perpetrator of the crime remained undiscovered. Whence—rigorous enactments and much undeserved suffering.

When Serge came down with the news, Hope's anxiety on account of her poor folk was painfully excited, and he could do but little to allay it. Some of them were undoubtedly in the net. Whether they would creep through the meshes remained to be seen.

Vehement in her belief in the integrity of her people, Hope was for starting at once for the city, and it was all he could do to stop her. Old Marya sided with him energetically, however, and between them they prevailed upon her to remain quietly where she was, though greatly exercised in her mind, and vicariously suffering much.

Serge brought and sent her all the news that was going. Most of their poor folks were, one by one, in due course, and with extreme reluctance, released, as the police found it impossible, in spite of all their efforts, to bring the matter home to them. A new man reigned in Scherbatzky's place and took his own measures to avoid following in his steps, and matters seemed to quieten down again.

So things went on for a time. Serge came regularly to Akerman, Hope's health was decidedly improving, and her work in the city was not neglected, though Serge had deemed it wise, in the shadow of recent occurrences and present enactments, to confine it strictly to the relief of the needy, of whom, in consequence of the general upsetting, there was no lack.

Then the end came swift and sudden; the end of Hope's quiet resting-time; the end of her peace of mind for many a day; well nigh, and but for the mercy of God, an end of Hope herself.

For one day, when they were expecting him, Serge never came, nor any word from him.

All Hope's dormant fears crept out of their hiding-places and flapped about her, a tormenting crew, obscuring all her heaven. As the hours passed and still brought no word from Serge, they finally settled down upon her hopes like a crowd of carrion crows.

It was all old Marya could do from hour to hour to keep her from setting out for the city.

She was still in a somewhat tremulous state of health, and looking forward with no little foreboding to that which lay before her. It was inevitable that her fears should carry her thoughts to the extremest possibilities of ill.

"He is dead, Masha," she said, with tragic finality.

"Nay, dearie, we should surely have heard if that was so," said old Marya. "Maybe some business has kept him just as he was starting."

"He would have sent us word. He is dead, or he would certainly have sent us some word."

"Maybe he's had an accident. Things do happen to folks in the city. One's never safe there. Maybe they've taken him to the hospital," said Job's comforter, who hailed from the provinces.

"I must go and see. We will go at once."

"Nay, not to-day, dearie, or we might pass him on the road. He's maybe coming yet."

"No, he is dead," said Hope gloomily, but old Marya's argument had weight with her, in spite of her own convictions, and she drearily allowed herself to be prevailed upon to wait till morning.

Morning brought no relief to their anxieties and they started at once for Odessa—and beyond: started at one black day's notice on a quest that led beyond their wildest imaginings.

When Hope and old Marya, pale and heavy-eyed from their night of sleepless anxiety, reached their home on the cliff overlooking Quarantine Harbour, they found it in possession of the police. As to the why and wherefore of so summary a proceeding, or the whereabouts of the master, no information whatever was vouchsafed them, nor could their utmost endeavours procure any.

Palma had been arrested. That was all they learnt, but it was more than enough.

Hope, forlorn and desolate, but driven to desperate daring by her fears, sought the new chief of police in his office. He flatly refused her any information whatever, and set his face like a flint against the pitiful appeal of hers. She sought light in her sudden overwhelming darkness among her husband's friends and acquaintances. But arrest under administrative process falls on the ordinary ties of friendship as sharp frost on flowers.

Where even the suspicion of untrustworthiness is sufficient to land a man in Siberia, mere friendship affords but small salvage for the unfortunate who falls beneath the ban. It needs closer ties to stand the strain, and at times even these also fail him, and to all intents and purposes he is dead, yet lacking the rest and relief that death confers.

While strength lasted her, Hope strove blindly with the powers of darkness. She wrote in desperate urgency to Paul Pavlof at Moscow, and got no reply. Then she failed suddenly, and old Marya carried her away, broken in spirit and feeble in body, to her own native village in Old Khersonese, and none too soon.

There the old woman and her kin wrestled nobly with death for her, and by God's grace won the fight, she not caring one whit, and as fain to die as to live.

But when the soft head of her baby boy lay at last against her feebly-beating heart, new strength and the desire for life ran through her, and she woke again to all the sadness of living.

CHAPTER IV

HOW ONE FOUND HIMSELF IN HADES

This brief record deals with human emotions rather than with a too realistic detail of all the facts which excited them. Yet, since every deliberate act in life is fruit or flower of seedling thought, the planting and growth of these is worthy of observance. It is the sum of the small that makes the large, and a single word may plant the seed which, in its time, blossoms into fragrant action, and alters the courses of lives, and rounds life itself at last into its fullest beauty.

We exercise our privilege, then—more fortunately than those chiefly concerned—and skip twelve dreary months, and pick up the threads once more inside one of the Imperial sheepfolds—the great stockade of the Tomsk convict-forwarding prison, three thousand miles from St. Petersburg, on the banks of muddy Tom.

And if you had happened to be sitting on the ground with your back against one of the wooden houses inside the great stockade that day, this is what you would have seen, just as Paul Pavlof saw it.

Up above, a blue, rain-washed sky, with a clear sun struggling blessedly to warmth; all round, whichever way you looked, the sharp teeth of the high wooden stockade, set in a savage snarl at the world in general, and biting viciously into the soft blue of the sky; many long, rough log houses with grated windows and heavily padlocked doors; a wooden church with pointed spire; black and white sentry boxes every here and there, each with its Imperial watch-dog in the person of a green-coated Cossack, who leaned stolidly on his bayoneted rifle, and in his dull, uninterested regard of his charges, showed plainly that he considered them of a lower breed even than himself.

The ground was churned into mud with the restless tramping to and fro of droves of shaggy, unkempt prisoners in long grey overcoats and flat grey caps. They walked for the most part in silence—a silence that was fretted with the discordant jingling of leg fetters. The sound of chains in connection with one's fellows produces a natural repulsion in most minds, but Pavlof had grown used to it.

He sat on the dryest spot he had been able to find, with his back against the rough logs of the house, and watched his companions with interest, almost with enjoyment. To a starving dog even a sour crust is treasure-trove. When one has been hermetically sealed in a stone cell for many months, the generous freedom of the prison enclosure, its wonderful height from mud to sky, the great stretch that lay between its rows of grinning teeth—why, it was resurrection. And contact with humanity and freedom of intercourse are things to be grateful for. For humanity, even in the dregs, debased, dirty, disgusting in its details at times, is still preferable to the automatic machinery in human form which attends to one's more pressing outward needs, but is deaf and blind and dumb to all else, in the sepulchral silence of the stone bags of Schlusselburg.

A year of close confinement had wrought some changes in Pavlof, though not so great as might have been apparent in a softer-bred man. He was always lean and eager of face, and spare and tall. He looked taller and thinner, and perhaps a trifle leaner of face and more cavernous about the deep-set eyes, and the careless sprawl of his limbs as he sat betokened a certain listlessness even in his novel enjoyment of observation.

He lay watching all that went on around him with the quiet alertness of one deeply interested in his fellows and rejoicing once more in the exercise of faculties long barred. There was a thoughtful keenness in his scrutiny, as though he were endeavouring to weigh each man in his mind and to classify him according to his past. His aspect was that of the student come suddenly into possession of a library bearing specially on his own chosen study.

Not far from him a group of his fellow prisoners was intently wasting its meagre substance by means of a couple of dice, which, for want of a box, they shook in their balled hands. One of them had chains on his wrists as well as on his feet. When his turn came the rhythmic jingle of his fetters was like a ghostly chorus to his play. Their stakes were scraps of food and morsels of brick tea.

A cheerful-looking little man pushing a barrow came along and stood near Pavlof to watch the gaming. He was past middle age and very uncouth and shaggy, but his face was the most cheerful Pavlof had yet seen. When he took off his flat cap Pavlof saw that his head was shaved bare on one side, by which he knew that he was a penal colonist, and the odd little fellow took off his cap and ran his hand over his head every few minutes as though he had not yet got used to that style of hair-cutting. Whenever he moved the barrow, to which he was attached with an iron chain, the wheel squeaked monotonously.

"Ey, ey!" he said, with a knowing shake of the head at Pavlof. "It passes the time, but it's foolishness all the same, for if you lose you starve."

"Yes," nodded Pavlof. "The stakes are bigger than they look. Can't you stop that wheel of yours from squeaking so?"

"No, barin, I can't," said the odd little fellow, with an evident desire to be obliging if he could. "I've given it all the fat I can spare, but it squeaks all the same. The dust and the mud have got into its throat, I expect. So now I eat the fat and let it squeak. You get used to it in time. It's rather a pleasant squeak, don't you think?"

"I've not got used to it yet. How far have you brought it?"

"Over fifteen hundred miles, barin. From down Orenburg way," and the little old man sat down on his barrow quite ready for a chat.

"You must be pretty tired of it by this time."

"Yes, and no, barin. You can get used to any thing in time, and I do believe I'd miss it now if they took it away. It's a bit in the way at nights sometimes, when I forget it's there, but I talk to it as we go along and it always says 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' to everything I say, and that's a change for the better anyway."

"How's that?" asked Pavlof, amused at the old fellow's simple chatter and manner.

"Well, you see, barin, my wife, she used to say 'No! No! No!' to everything I said, and she didn't always stop at that either. No, bless my soul, that she didn't! Now the little barrow never says 'No! No! No!' to me, and it never ups and knocks me down and sits on me."

Here a small girl hugging a little slate-blue cat came up, and leaned on the barrow, and looked up at the little old man and lisped, "Won't you give us a ride, little father?"

"Ey ey! a ride, little Dushenka? Well, well, get in and I'll give you a ride. How's pussy to-day?"

"She doesn't like the mud, little father," and she climbed in, and the old fellow trudged away to an accompaniment of cheery squeaks from the barrow, jingling fetters, and jerky prattle from the little maid.

Presently he was back, panting and more cheerful than ever, and the small girl climbed down, still hugging her cat, and said, "Thank you, little father!" and ran off to a gloomy-faced man who stood waiting for her.

"Ey, ey!" said the little old man, as he and Pavlof watched her grip the gloomy one's hand and go off with him. "His wife died two days ago, and that's all he's got left. Best off here those who have no wives."

"But you are married yourself, from what you were saying," said Pavlof.

"I was, barin. The little barrow is my wife now," and he patted the barrow with genuine affection.

"And why did you marry the barrow?"

"Well, it was this way. My wife—my other wife, you understand—she carried on with another man, and one day I hit him—and so I wear the barrow."

"That seems pretty hard lines—just for hitting a man."

"Oh, well, I don't know—you see, he died, barin."

"And your wife?—your other wife, I mean?"

"She is at rest, barin, God be thanked!—and so am I," and he crossed himself devoutly. "We did not get on very well together, you see, because she always would have her own way, and she was bigger than me. Still, she was my wife, and I could not let another man have her. And so—well, she died too. And on the whole I get on better with the barrow than I did with her. It does what I please and says 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' to all I say, and my wife she used to say 'No! No! No!' and do as she pleased. And besides, I can sit on the barrow. It used to be the other way with my wife."

"And how much farther have you got to take her?"

"Another two thousand miles, barin—all the way to Kara."

"And then? Why, you'll be quite sorry to part with her."

"Oh, we don't part, barin. I keep her as long as I live, they say. I hope she won't get laid up or crippled in any way. I'd never get to like another one as I do this one. Bless my soul! I never thought of that before. Whatever should I do?" and his cheerful little face grew overcast at the bare thought of it.

"You're a very plucky fellow to bear your troubles so lightly," said Pavlof, distinctly cheered by contact with so brave a little soul in so odd a little body and circumstances.

"Oh, I don't know, barin. It's no good grumbling when you can't alter things. Besides, she's useful at times—like this, to sit on. And she carries my pack, and sometimes one of the children, and now and again my neighbour's little dog. Now my other wife would never have done that, you know. She didn't like dogs or children either."

"What's that about my little dog, Gregory Stepanovitch?" asked a tall, lean man, who had strolled up and stood leaning against the house, watching the players and listening to the old fellow's chatter.

"I'm telling the barin he likes to ride in my barrow at times, Mr. Zubof."

"That he does, and to sleep in it too. I only wish it was big enough to hold us all. I slept on the floor last night because we were so crowded, and it was all wet mud and it got into my bones."

"Ah!" said old Gregory with a chuckle, "I sat on my wife all night, alongside your little dog, Mr. Zubof, and my bones are all right. But all the same you don't rest your legs properly when you can't stretch them out."

"And where are you bound for?" asked Pavlof of the newcomer.

"Only to the provinces, barin."

"And why do you take the dog with you? Is he exiled too?"

"He belonged to my little girl," said the lean man gloomily, as he fondled the dog. "She and her mother would come with me, and they took the fever and died. It was just as well, perhaps, for the road is very terrible for women and children. And I couldn't leave him behind, you see. Besides——" and he nodded his long melancholy face knowingly.

"Besides what?"

Zubof glanced round to see if the green-coated watch-dog was within hearing, and then said cautiously, "I shall walk away from wherever they send me, one fine day, and Fifi will be company for me in the woods. He's as sharp as a needle, and it's good to have some one sensible to talk to when you're lonely."

"You hope to escape, then?" said Pavlof with interest, since he too was bound for the provinces.

"Of course. Any one can escape from the provinces. It's just as easy as walking. But that doesn't say it's easy to get back home, you understand. That's quite another thing altogether. But I've no one left at home to go back to. When I get away into the woods I shall just stop there."

"And supposing they catch you?" said Pavlof.

"Why, then, of course, we go to Kara with chains on our legs."

"All the same," said old Gregory, who had been listening open-mouthed to all that passed, "you'll starve in the woods when the snow comes on."

"Oh no, I won't. I've thought of all that."

"Ah well, one doesn't get out of Kara as easily as that, especially with a squeaky little wife tied to your legs," and he patted the barrow consolingly, as though to intimate that no slight was intended and no umbrage must be taken at what was so evidently a fact.

"Out of Kara? I believe you! That's no easy job, though I've done it more than once," said another, who had stopped alongside to see what was going on.

He was a great burly fellow with leg-irons on. His skin, where it was visible, was brown as parchment. His face was covered with a matted growth. He looked as strong as a carthorse.

"And let me tell you," he added, "There are some worse places than Kara. Yakutsk, for instance. Gr-r—r-r!"

"And what is Yakutsk like? Been there?" asked Pavlof.

"Yes, barin. I've been there and nearly stopped there. They call Kara hell, but Yakutsk is a hundred times worse."

"That must be pretty bad," said Pavlof, to draw him on.

"Bad! Well, you see, they're human at Kara, if they are a bit difficult and hard on you. But at Yakutsk they're just simple barbarians—eat raw and sleep cold. Beasts—just beasts, and not fit to live among. I'm rough and strong, and I can stand a good deal, but I can't stand the Yakuts."

"And why did they send you to Yakutsk?"

"Well, it was this way, barin. It was my first time and I was going to the provinces, and there was a barin in our company, just as it might be yourself, and he was bound for Kara. And—well, he was very keen to get back home again, and he got me to change names with him, so that he went to the provinces and I went to Kara. It turned out that he was a red-hot bad lot. He got back home all right enough, but then he was fool enough to get caught again, and then it all came out, and they found they had two of his name on their hands, so they sent us both to Yakutsk to make sure. We got away all right, though it's not easy, for the devils watch you like cats, and—well, it was bad on the road and he died. No, if ever I'm sent back to Yakutsk, I'll die there sooner than try getting out."

"And why did they send you here, Mr. Zubof?" asked Pavlof, of the lean man with the dog.

"I was a schoolmaster," he said bitterly, "and I taught people how to live and grow, and so they plucked me up by the roots and cast me on to the dunghill, and here I am. I never wronged any man, as far as I know. But they have killed my wife and child, and now I have nothing left but Fifi here. And we're going to live in the woods and care for nobody.... I used to believe in God, but I can't fit Him in with these doings."

"These are man's doings," said Pavlof quietly.

"Devil's, barin," said the man who was like a carthorse, very emphatically. "The men are underneath and the devils are all on top. As soon as a man gets an office he becomes a devil."

"We're all just rats in a trap," said the schoolmaster, looking slowly round the great stockade, "and sometimes I wish the trap would snap and chew us all up with its big, black teeth."

"It's swallowed many a thousand," said the man who was like a carthorse, "but it always spits them out again—to Kara, and Nerchinsk, and Yakutsk. And it'll go on swallowing as long as there are any left to swallow. Think not, barin?" at a sign of dissent from Pavlof.

"No, I think not. Sometime the end will come."

"Ah God! That is too good to hope for," said the man who was like a carthorse.