nce (as they say) to the sound of her flageolet; how she had
counselled Marya Ivanofna to write me a letter, etc. As for me, in a few
words I told my story.

The pope and his wife crossed themselves when they heard that Pugatchef
was aware they had deceived him.

"May the power of the cross be with us!" Akoulina Pamphilovna said. "May
God turn aside this cloud. Very well, Alexey Ivanytch, we shall see! Oh!
the sly fox!"

At this moment the door opened, and Marya Ivanofna appeared, with a
smile on her pale face. She had changed her peasant dress, and was
dressed as usual, simply and suitably. I seized her hand, and could not
for a while say a single word. We were both silent, our hearts were too
full.

Our hosts felt we had other things to do than to talk to them; they left
us. We remained alone. Marya told me all that had befallen her since the
taking of the fort; painted me the horrors of her position, all the
torment the infamous Chvabrine had made her suffer. We recalled to each
other the happy past, both of us shedding tears the while.

At last I could tell her my plans. It was impossible for her to stay in
a fort which had submitted to Pugatchef, and where Chvabrine was in
command. Neither could I dream of taking refuge with her in Orenburg,
where at this juncture all the miseries of a siege were being undergone.
Marya had no longer a single relation in the world. Therefore I proposed
to her that she should go to my parents' country house.

She was very much surprised at such a proposal. The displeasure my
father had shown on her account frightened her. But I soothed her. I
knew my father would deem it a duty and an honour to shelter in his
house the daughter of a veteran who had died for his country.

"Dear Marya," I said, at last, "I look upon you as my wife. These
strange events have irrevocably united us. Nothing in the whole world
can part us any more."

Marya heard me in dignified silence, without misplaced affectation. She
felt as I did, that her destiny was irrevocably linked with mine; still,
she repeated that she would only be my wife with my parents' consent. I
had nothing to answer. We fell in each other's arms, and my project
became our mutual decision.

An hour afterwards the "_ouriadnik_" brought me my safe-conduct pass,
with the scrawl which did duty as Pugatchef's signature, and told me the
Tzar awaited me in his house.

I found him ready to start.

How express what I felt in the pres