“Where is Monsieur Boris?” inquired Paulina Karpovna, addressing Tatiana Markovna.
“Probably he is paying a visit in the town. He never says where he spends his time, so that I never know where to send the carriage for him.”
Inquiries made of Yakob revealed the fact that he had been in the garden up to a late hour. Vera was not in the house when she was summoned to tea. She had left word that they were not to keep supper for her, and that she would send across for some if she were hungry. No one but Raisky had seen her go.
Tatiana Markovna sighed over their perversity, to be wandering about at such hours, in such cold weather.
“I will go into the garden,” said Paulina Karpovna. “Perhaps Monsieur Boris is not far away. He will be delighted to see me. I noticed,” she continued confidentially, “that he had something to say to me. He could not have known I was here.”
Marfinka whispered to Vikentev that he did know, and had gone out on that account.
“I will go, Marfa Vassilievna, and hide behind a bush, imitate Boris Pavlovich’s voice and make her a declaration,” suggested Vikentev.
“Stay here, Nikolai Andreevich. Paulina Karpovna might be frightened and faint. Then you would have to reckon with Grandmother.”
“I am going into the garden for a moment to fetch the fugitive,” said Paulina Karpovna.
“God be with you, Paulina Karpovna,” said Tatiana Markovna. “Don’t put your nose outside in the darkness, or at any rate take Egorka with you to carry a lantern.”
“No, I will go alone. It is not necessary for anyone to disturb us.”
“You ought not,” intervened Tiet Nikonich politely, “to go out after eight o’clock on these damp nights. I would not have ventured to detain you, but a physician from Düsseldorf on the Rhine, whose book I am now reading and can lend you if you like, and who gives excellent advice, says....”
Paulina Karpovna interrupted him by asking him if he would see her home, and then went into the garden before he could resume his remarks. He agreed to her request and shut the door after her.
Soon after Paulina Karpovna’s exit there was a rustling and crackling on the precipice, and Raisky wearing the aspect of a restless, wounded animal, appeared out of the darkness. He sat for several minutes motionless on Vera’s favourite bench, covering his eyes with his hands. Was it dream or reality, he asked himself. He must have been mistaken. Such a thing could not be. He stood up, then sat down again to listen. With his hands lying listlessly on his knees, he broke into laughter over his doubts, his questionings, his secret. Again he had an access of terrible laughter. Vera--and _he_. The cloak which he himself had sent to the “exile” lay near the arbour. The rogue had been clever enough to get two hundred and twenty roubles for the settlement of his wager, and the earlier eighty in addition. Sekleteia Burdalakov!