that evil pain which he had felt before.

One day Bersenyev came to the Stahovs, not at the customary time, but at
eleven o'clock in the morning. Elena came down to him in the parlour.

'Fancy,' he began with a constrained smile, 'our Insarov has
disappeared.'

'Disappeared?' said Elena.

'He has disappeared. The day before yesterday he went off somewhere and
nothing has been seen of him since.'

'He did not tell you where he was going?'

'No.'

Elena sank into a chair.

'He has most likely gone to Moscow,' she commented, trying to seem
indifferent and at the same time wondering that she should try to seem
indifferent.

'I don't think so,' rejoined Bersenyev. 'He did not go alone.'

'With whom then?'

'Two people of some sort--his countrymen they must have been--came to
him the day before yesterday, before dinner.'

'Bulgarians! what makes you think so?'

'Why as far as I could hear, they talked to him in some language I did
not know, but Slavonic... You are always saying, Elena Nikolaevna, that
there's so little mystery about Insarov; what could be more mysterious
than this visit? Imagine, they came to him--and then there was shouting
and quarrelling, and such savage, angry disputing.... And he shouted
too.'

'He shouted too?'

'Yes. He shouted at them. They seemed to be accusing each other. And
if you could have had a peep at these visitors. They had swarthy, heavy
faces with high cheek bones and hook noses, both about forty years old,
shabbily dressed, hot and dusty, looking like workmen--not workmen, and
not gentlemen--goodness knows what sort of people they were.'

'And he went away with them?'

'Yes. He gave them something to eat and went off with them. The woman of
the house told me they ate a whole huge pot of porridge between the
two of them. They outdid one another, she said, and gobbled it up like
wolves.'

Elena gave a faint smile.

'You will see,' she said, 'all this will be explained into something
very prosaic.'

'I hope it may! But you need not use that word. There is nothing prosaic
about Insarov, though Shubin does maintain----'

'Shubin!' Elena broke in, shrugging her shoulders. 'But you must confess
these two good men gobbling up porridge----'

'Even Themistocles had his supper on the eve of Salamis,' observed
Bersenyev with a smile.

'Yes; but then there was a battle next day. Any way you will let me know
when he comes back,' said Elena, and she tried to change the su