d.

"I ventured to speak to you on that assumption. And I cannot be
mistaken. I was present when Peter Ivanovitch announced your arrival
here to Miss Haldin, and I saw her relief and thankfulness when your
name was mentioned. Afterwards she showed me her brother's letter,
and read out the few words in which he alludes to you. What else but a
friend could you have been?"

"Obviously. That's perfectly well known. A friend. Quite correct....
Go on. You were talking of some effect."

I said to myself: "He puts on the callousness of a stern revolutionist,
the insensibility to common emotions of a man devoted to a destructive
idea. He is young, and his sincerity assumes a pose before a stranger,
a foreigner, an old man. Youth must assert itself...." As concisely
as possible I exposed to him the state of mind poor Mrs. Haldin had been
thrown into by the news of her son's untimely end.

He listened--I felt it--with profound attention. His level stare
deflected gradually downwards, left my face, and rested at last on the
ground at his feet.

"You can enter into the sister's feelings. As you said, I have only read
a little English poetry with her, and I won't make myself ridiculous in
your eyes by trying to speak of her. But you have seen her. She is one
of these rare human beings that do not want explaining. At least I think
so. They had only that son, that brother, for a link with the wider
world, with the future. The very groundwork of active existence for
Nathalie Haldin is gone with him. Can you wonder then that she turns
with eagerness to the only man her brother mentions in his letters. Your
name is a sort of legacy."

"What could he have written of me?" he cried, in a low, exasperated
tone.

"Only a few words. It is not for me to repeat them to you, Mr. Razumov;
but you may believe my assertion that these words are forcible enough to
make both his mother and his sister believe implicitly in the worth of
your judgment and in the truth of anything you may have to say to them.
It's impossible for you now to pass them by like strangers."

I paused, and for a moment sat listening to the footsteps of the few
people passing up and down the broad central walk. While I was speaking
his head had sunk upon his breast above his folded arms. He raised it
sharply.

"Must I go then and lie to that old woman!"

It was not anger; it was something else, something more poignant, and
not so simple. I was aware of it sympathetica