hat?" shouted Razumov, advancing at the woman, who looked
astonished but stood her ground. "Before.... Oh! Of course, it was
before! How could it have been after? Only a few hours before."

"And he spoke of him favourably?"

"With enthusiasm! The horses of Ziemianitch! The free soul of
Ziemianitch!"

Razumov took a savage delight in the loud utterance of that name, which
had never before crossed his lips audibly. He fixed his blazing eyes
on the woman till at last her fascinated expression recalled him to
himself.

"The late Haldin," he said, holding himself in, with downcast eyes,
"was inclined to take sudden fancies to people, on--on--what shall I
say--insufficient grounds."

"There!" Sophia Antonovna clapped her hands. "That, to my mind, settles
it. The suspicions of my correspondent were aroused...."

"Aha! Your correspondent," Razumov said in an almost openly mocking
tone. "What suspicions? How aroused? By this Ziemianitch? Probably some
drunken, gabbling, plausible..."

"You talk as if you had known him."

Razumov looked up.

"No. But I knew Haldin."

Sophia Antonovna nodded gravely.

"I see. Every word you say confirms to my mind the suspicion
communicated to me in that very interesting letter. This Ziemianitch was
found one morning hanging from a hook in the stable--dead."

Razumov felt a profound trouble. It was visible, because Sophia
Antonovna was moved to observe vivaciously--

"Aha! You begin to see."

He saw it clearly enough--in the light of a lantern casting spokes of
shadow in a cellar-like stable, the body in a sheepskin coat and long
boots hanging against the wall. A pointed hood, with the ends wound
about up to the eyes, hid the face. "But that does not concern me," he
reflected. "It does not affect my position at all. He never knew who had
thrashed him. He could not have known." Razumov felt sorry for the old
lover of the bottle and women.

"Yes. Some of them end like that," he muttered. "What is your idea,
Sophia Antonovna?"

It was really the idea of her correspondent, but Sophia Antonovna had
adopted it fully. She stated it in one word--"Remorse." Razumov opened
his eyes very wide at that. Sophia Antonovna's informant, by listening
to the talk of the house, by putting this and that together, had managed
to come very near to the truth of Haldin's relation to Ziemianitch.

"It is I who can tell you what you were not certain of--that your friend
had some plan for saving himsel