CHAPTER XXIV

HOW THEY PREPARED TO GO WITH HIM

Hope had been busy during his absence. Marya Verskaïa had come in, and between them they had packed Hope's belongings into bundles, and spread out all Paul's for his decision as to what he would take and what leave behind.

The kind-hearted little chatterbox was loud in her lamentations over their sudden departure, and her ceaseless flow of talk was to Paul like the continuous dropping of small shot on a bared membrane of the brain.

He hastily selected the most necessary things, constantly forgetting that it was not to Yakutsk that he was going, but to freedom, where all things were obtainable, or to death, where nothing would be needed.

The philosophical paucity of his requirements astonished Marya Verskaïa not a little.

"But Serge Petrovitch," she would urge, time after time. "You will certainly need this at Yakutsk. There is nothing there, you know--absolutely nothing. You cannot possibly replace it."

"No, no. I shall not need it. I will do without it, Marya Stepanovna."

And--"His brain has given way," Marya would plaintively murmur.

"You will give that to Polokof, and this to Hugo Svendt, and this to Alexei Etelsky. I shall not require them, I assure you," as she held up remonstrative hands again. "Anna Roskova will do as she thinks fit with all the rest. Now I will see you home, or the police will think you have run away," for he knew that Hope's nerves must be as tremulous as his own, and that Marya's chatter must be jangling them in similar fashion.

Hope was still busy about the house on quite unnecessary work when he got back. She could not sit still for a moment. Her great eyes glowed luminously in their dark circles, in spite of their drooping lids.

She turned them on him full of anxious questioning as he came in.

He shook his head despondently. "I had no chance of speaking to him. Sokolof never left us for a moment."

But he said nothing of that fateful telegram. The load she carried was heavy enough already. Her strained, white face wrung his heart. If the sacrifice of his own life could have smoothed her way he would have given it, willingly and instantly. But he knew that it could not. It was to him that she looked now, and he must live for her, to defend her against the whole world, as he had pledged himself when he married her.

"Marya was driving me crazy with her babble," Hope said wearily. "But I could not get her to go. You are quite sure it is Serge, Paul?"

"Quite sure, Hope."

"Has he suffered much?"

"He looks gay and gallant, though I have no doubt he is as anxious as we are."

"It is surely a very dangerous thing he is doing."

"He is risking life and liberty. But he is a brave man. We must do nothing to add to his risk."

"I will be very careful."

"Will you not try to sleep for an hour or two, Hope? There will be no rest when once we start."

"Sleep! I could as soon think of dying as of sleeping. Which way do we go!"

"Up into the Yablonois. Then as Serge may have decided. He has thought out his plans without doubt."

"I will get ready the breakfast," she said, starting up again.

"It is only twelve o'clock yet," he said, with a wan smile.

"Well, some tea, then. One must do something. Will you not try to sleep? You look worn out."

"I could not sleep either. We will have some tea."

So they sat sipping their tea and making pretence to eat, and Hope jumped up every second minute to do some little job which did not need doing, and Pavlof's teeth ground silently at times, as he thought of that telegram speeding over the steppes, and the possible reply speeding back for their destruction. But he said no word of it to Hope, and when he had got his pipe fairly under way, and the soothing of the tea began to make itself felt, his wits settled down somewhat, and matters began to look more hopeful, as they sometimes have a way of doing when they have touched bottom.

He reproached himself as an ingrate for the feelings that would come uppermost in his heart. He tried his very hardest to feel grateful to Serge for his gallant remembrance of him. But he was painfully conscious of a dull sense of regret, of injury almost, at his having come back to life, and in so lively a fashion.

Far better if he had left them alone. But then he could not know that. He had gallantly done his best, and in return they were going to break his heart.

How would he take it? Hardly, hardly. How could it be otherwise? If only he could have had it all out with Serge before he and Hope met in the morning! But that had been impossible.

And it would be hard for Hope too. The sight of Serge's misery would be dreadful to her. The thought of it would darken her life.

But there was no escape from the coil. Explanations were impossible. Go they must, for Serge's life was at stake. But the thought of the explanations which must be made on the morrow hung upon him like a great black cloud.

Liberty was good, but the love and companionship of Hope Ivanovna were more to him than anything liberty could give him. With her he would have been content to spend the rest of his life at Kara. Content? Ay, happy beyond anything all the rest of the world could possibly hold for him. And now--their happy content must suffer shock and be strained through bitterness. It would survive the shock, if they themselves survived the dangers of the road they were about to travel, but it would always bear the imprint of it.

And, not without bitterness, he recognised all the irony of the position. How Serge was repaying him in kind, and most exactly, for the service he had once rendered him. For Hope Ivanovna's sake he had undertaken Palma's burden, and so, all unconsciously, had been the means of separating her and Serge. And now Palma had come, at risk of his life, to set him free, and, all unconsciously, was threatening the new happiness which had come to Hope and himself. It was a strange turn of the wheel, and there was no escape from it. He strove to be grateful, but found it well nigh impossible.