one
will bring money in a black leathern case--I know just how it will
look--and another will have with him a box full of documents--all lawfully
mine--and a third will bring my orders, that I once wore, and with them
the order of Saint Alexander Nevsky and a letter on broad heavy paper,
signed Alexander Alexandrovitch, signed by the Tsar himself, Vjera. And I
shall go with them to be received in audience by the Prince Regent here,
before I leave for Petersburg. And then, after dinner, in the evening, I
will get into my special carriage in the express train and my servants
will make me comfortable and then away, away, a night, and a day and
another night and perhaps a few hours more and I shall be at home at last,
in my own great, beautiful home, far out in the glorious country among the
woods and the streams and the birds; and I shall be driven in an open
carriage with four horses up from the village through the great avenue of
poplars to the grand old house. But before I go in I will go to the
tomb--yes, I will go to the tomb among the trees, and I will say a prayer
for my father and--"

"Your father?" Vjera started slightly. She had listened to the long
catalogue of the poor man's anticipations with a sad, unchanging face, as
though she had heard it all before. But at the mention of his father's
death she seemed surprised.

"Yes. He is dead at last, and my brother died on the same day. I have had
letters. There was a disease abroad in the village. They caught it and
they died. And now everything is mine, everything, the lands and the
houses and the money, all, all mine. But I will say a prayer for them, now
that they are dead and I shall never see them again. God knows, they
treated me ill when they were alive, but death has them at last."

The Count's eyes grew suddenly cold and hard, so that Vjera shuddered as
she caught the look of hatred in them.

"Death, death, death!" he cried. "Death the judge, the gaoler, the
executioner! He has done justice on them for me, and they will not break
loose from the house he has made for them to lie in and to sleep in for
ever. And now, friend Death, I am master in their stead, and you must give
me time to enjoy the mastership before you serve me likewise. Oh Vjera,
the joy, the delight, the ecstasy, the glory of it all!"

He struck the palms of his lean hands together with the gesture of a boy,
and laughed aloud in the sheer overflowing of his heart. But Vjera sat
still, si