again to-night. I don't want you to be
arrested. So, however sorry we may be for the lost labor, let's burn
the papers."

"What?"

"Everything in the valise!"

She finally understood; and though sad, her pride in her success
brought a complacent smile to her face.

"There's nothing in it--no leaflets." With gradually increasing
animation she told how she had placed them in the hands of sympathetic
peasants after Rybin's departure. Nikolay listened, at first with an
uneasy frown, then in surprise, and finally exclaimed, interrupting her
story:

"Say, that's capital! Nilovna, do you know--" He stammered,
embarrassed, and pressing her hand, exclaimed quietly: "You touch me
so by your faith in people, by your faith in the cause of their
emancipation! You have such a good soul! I simply love you as I
didn't love my own mother!"

Embracing his neck, she burst into happy sobs, and pressed his head to
her lips.

"Maybe," he muttered, agitated and embarrassed by the newness of his
feeling, "maybe I'm speaking nonsense; but, upon my honest word, you
are a beautiful person, Nilovna--yes!"

"My darling, I love you, too; and I love you all with my whole soul,
every drop of my blood!" she said, choking with a wave of hot joy.

The two voices blended into one throbbing speech, subdued and pulsating
with the great feeling that was seizing the people.

"Such a large, soft power is in you; it draws the heart toward you
imperceptibly. How brightly you describe people! How well you see
them!"

"I see your life; I understand it, my dear!"

"One loves you. And it's such a marvelous thing to love a person--it's
so good, you know!"

"It is you, you who raise the people from the dead to life again; you!"
the mother whispered hotly, stroking his head. "My dear, I think I see
there's much work for you, much patience needed. Your power must not
be wasted. It's so necessary for life. Listen to what else happened:
there was a woman there, the wife of that man----"

Nikolay sat near her, his happy face bent aside in embarrassment, and
stroked his hair. But soon he turned around again, and looking at the
mother, listened greedily to her simple and clear story.

"A miracle! Every possibility of your getting into prison and
suddenly-- Yes, it's evident that the peasants, too, are beginning to
stir. After all, it's natural. We ought to get special people for the
villages. People! We haven't enough--nowhere. Li