l, well! Fool that I am!" muttered Feodor. "Was he not all his
life a miserable cur? After all, it is not to be wondered at. But what
can he know of Krazinski?"

"This much--that Krazinski, in leaving, forgot to take with him a
certain leather writing-case, and that it contained many dangerous
papers."

"But I myself delivered that case to my wife, in order that she might
take charge of it until Krazinski should demand it. She was to give it
up to no one else."

"And yet, she has given it up to your brother. And because of that you
have been outlawed."

"My wife!" exclaimed Captain Feodor, turning pale.

"She only was your wife. Now she is your brother's. Whoever is
banished for life to the Ural mines is at the same time separated for
ever from his wife, and she can at once marry again. That is how it
happened. You were too long gone, and love in absence, they say, is
difficult."

"But she had her son!" cried the Captain in a tone of agony. "Was not
he enough to love? And such a son, too! Tell me, what have they done
with my son?"

"You know well the custom, surely? When the father is banished the
child is outlawed also. Son must follow father, and in order that he
may never return, he is branded with a red-hot iron on the shoulder."

The Captain seemed about to reply, but the words died away upon his
lips.

Suddenly he seized the girl's shoulders in his powerful grasp, and
began to stare intently into her eyes. For it is a common belief in
Volhynia that there are many unhappy mortals possessed by the Evil One
in such a way that he takes up his abode in their eyeballs. Then, by
means of all manner of phantoms and illusions, he causes them to "see
the things that are not." About such sights the victims talk as if
they were perfectly real. But it is believed that if a truly brave and
upright man who fears not the Evil One seizes the possessed person
firmly by the shoulders, gazes unflinchingly into the bewitched eyes
until he perceives the demon lurking within, and then quickly and
unexpectedly spits into them--then the Evil Spirit is confounded and
flies in confusion from the possessed one's eyes. Thus did Captain
Feodor.

"Ah, yes! It may be--it may, indeed, be so," said the girl resignedly,
as she wiped her eyes with the hem of her apron. "Often have I asked
myself whether all I have seen and heard is not merely falsehood and
deceit. It may be all the devil's work. Oh, would to God it were so! I
would bl