d at last.

He roused himself with a start.

"I beg your pardon; I had almost forgotten you were there," he said
apologetically. "Die here? No; better, far better for her if she had!
Still, she was not happy here. The old people did not like her; did not
try to like her; though I don't know how they could have held out
against her, for she did her best to conciliate them, to conform to
their narrow ways,--except to the extent of coming to church with them.
She was a devout Roman Catholic, and she explained to me once how the
tenacity with which the Polish gentry held to their religious views was
one more cause of offence against them in the eyes of the Russian
bureaucracy and episcopacy. I don't think Mrs. Pendennis--Anthony's
mother--ever forgave me for the view I took of this matter; she
threatened to write to the bishop. She was a masterful old lady--and I
believe she would have done it, too, if Anthony and his wife had
remained in the neighborhood. But the friction became unbearable, and
he took her away. I never saw her again; never again!

"They went to London for a time; and from there they both wrote to me.
We corresponded frequently, and they invited me to go and stay with
them, but I never went. Then--it was in the autumn of '83--they returned
to Russia, and the letters were less frequent. They were nearly always
from Anna; Anthony was never a good correspondent! I do not know even
now whether he wrote to his parents, or they to him.

"I had had no news from Russia for some months, when Mr. Pendennis died
suddenly; he had been ailing for a long time, but the end came quite
unexpectedly. Anthony was telegraphed for and came as quickly as
possible. I saw very little of him during his stay, a few days only,
during which he had to get through a great amount of business; but I
learned that his wife was in a delicate state of health, and he was
desperately anxious about her. I fear he got very little sympathy from
his mother, whose aversion for her daughter-in-law had increased, if
that were possible, during their separation. Poor woman! Her rancour
brought its own punishment! She and her son parted in anger, never to
meet again. She only heard from him once,--about a month after he left,
to return to Russia; and then he wrote briefly, brutally in a way,
though I know he was half mad at the time.

"'My wife is dead, though not in childbirth. If I had been with her, I
could have saved her,' he wrote. 'You wished