an't stay a moment longer. You ought to come soon to see mother. You
know she calls you '_L'ami._' It is an excellent name, and she really
means it. And now _au revoir_; I must run."

She glanced vaguely down the broad walk--the hand she put out to me
eluded my grasp by an unexpected upward movement, and rested upon my
shoulder. Her red lips were slightly parted, not in a smile, however,
but expressing a sort of startled pleasure. She gazed towards the gates
and said quickly, with a gasp--

"There! I knew it. Here he comes!"

I understood that she must mean Mr. Razumov. A young man was walking up
the alley, without haste. His clothes were some dull shade of brown, and
he carried a stick. When my eyes first fell on him, his head was hanging
on his breast as if in deep thought. While I was looking at him he
raised it sharply, and at once stopped. I am certain he did, but that
pause was nothing more perceptible than a faltering check in his gait,
instantaneously overcome. Then he continued his approach, looking at us
steadily. Miss Haldin signed to me to remain, and advanced a step or two
to meet him.

I turned my head away from that meeting, and did not look at them
again till I heard Miss Haldin's voice uttering his name in the way
of introduction. Mr. Razumov was informed, in a warm, low tone, that,
besides being a wonderful teacher, I was a great support "in our sorrow
and distress."

Of course I was described also as an Englishman. Miss Haldin spoke
rapidly, faster than I have ever heard her speak, and that by contrast
made the quietness of her eyes more expressive.

"I have given him my confidence," she added, looking all the time at Mr.
Razumov. That young man did, indeed, rest his gaze on Miss Haldin,
but certainly did not look into her eyes which were so ready for him.
Afterwards he glanced backwards and forwards at us both, while the faint
commencement of a forced smile, followed by the suspicion of a frown,
vanished one after another; I detected them, though neither could have
been noticed by a person less intensely bent upon divining him than
myself. I don't know what Nathalie Haldin had observed, but my attention
seized the very shades of these movements. The attempted smile was given
up, the incipient frown was checked, and smoothed so that there should
be no sign; but I imagined him exclaiming inwardly--

"Her confidence! To this elderly person--this foreigner!"

I imagined this because he looked fo