a thousand instead of three, which is more than any
pocket can stand, while there are children to be fed at home. And if you
have anything to say to that, little husband, why just say it!"

Fischelowitz had entered the shop and the last words were addressed to
him.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," he answered, beginning to bustle cheerily about
the place, setting a box straight here, removing an empty one there,
opening the till and counting the small change, and, generally, doing all
those things which he was accustomed to do when he appeared in the
morning.

Poor Vjera looked paler and more waxen than ever in her life before, so
pale indeed was she that the total absence of colour lent a sort of
refinement to her plain features, not often found even in really beautiful
faces. She had suffered intensely and was suffering still. From the first
words that Akulina had spoken she had understood that the Count had been
in the station-house all night, and she found herself reviewing all the
hideous visions of his cruel treatment which she had conjured up since the
previous evening. Akulina of course hastened to say that Fischelowitz had
lost no time in having the poor man set at liberty, and this at least was
a relief to Vjera's great anxiety. But she wanted to hear far more than
Akulina could or would tell, she longed to know whether he had really
suffered as she fancied he had, and how he looked after spending in a
prison the night that had seemed so long to her. She would have given
anything to overwhelm the tobacconist with questions, to ask for a minute
description of the Count's appearance, to express her past terrors to some
one and to have some one tell her that they had been groundless.

But she dared not open her lips to speak of the matters which filled her
thoughts. She was so wretchedly nervous that she felt as though the tears
would break out at the sound of her own voice, and at the same time she
was disturbed by the consciousness that Johann Schmidt's eyes watched her
closely from the corner in which he was steadily wielding his swivel
knife. It had been almost natural to tell him of her love in the darkness
of the streets, in the mad anxiety for the loved one's safety, in the
weariness and the hopelessness of the night hours. But now, sitting at her
little table, at her daily work, with all the trivial objects that
belonged to it recalling her to the reality of things, she realised that
her day-dreams were no lo