ity of earning an honest living, and I have to
thank you very heartily for the forbearance you have shown me. It is not
your fault if your consideration for me has sometimes taken a passive
rather than an active form. It was not your business to fight my battles.
Give me your hand, Herr Fischelowitz. We part, as we have lived, good
friends. I wish you all possible success."

The tobacconist bowed low as he respectfully shook hands.

"Too much honour," he said.

"Frau Fischelowitz," continued the Count, "you have acted according to
your lights and your beliefs. I bear you no ill-will. I only hope that if
any other poor gentleman should ever take my place you will not make his
position harder than it would naturally be, and I trust that all may be
well with you."

"I never meant it, Herr Graf," said Akulina, awkwardly, as she took his
proffered hand.

He turned to the Cossack.

"Good-bye, Johann Schmidt, good-bye. I shall see you again, before long.
We have always helped each other, my friend. I have much to thank you
for."

"You have helped me, you mean," said the Cossack, in a rather shaky voice.

"No, no--each other, and we will continue to do so, I hope, in a different
way. Good-bye, Dumnoff. You have a better heart than people think."

"Are you not going to take me to Russia, after all?" asked the mujik,
almost humbly.

"Did I say I would? Then you shall go. But not as coachman, Dumnoff. Not
as coachman, I think. Good-bye, Anna Nicolaevna," he said, turning to the
insignificant girl, who was at last too much awed to giggle.

Then he came to Vjera's place. The girl was leaning forward, hiding her
face in her hands, and resting her small, pointed elbows on the table.

"Vjera, dear," he said, bending down to her, "will you come with me, now?"

She looked up, suddenly, and her face was very white and drawn, and wet
with tears.

"Oh no, no!" she said in a low voice. "How can I ever be worthy of you,
since it is really true?"

But the Count put his arm round the poor little shell-maker's waist, and
made her stand beside him in the midst of them all.

"Gentlemen," he said, in his calmly dignified manner, "let me present to
you the Countess Skariatine. She will bear that name to-morrow. I owe you
a confession before leaving you, in her honour and to my humiliation. I
had contracted a debt of honour, and I had nothing wherewith to pay it.
There was but an hour left--an hour, and then my life and my honour w