o the well. I found nobody there. The
day grew hot. White, shaggy cloudlets were flitting rapidly from the
snow-clad mountains, giving promise of a thunderstorm; the summit of
Mount Mashuk was smoking like a just extinguished torch; grey wisps of
cloud were coiling and creeping like snakes around it, arrested in
their rapid sweep and, as it were, hooked to its prickly brushwood. The
atmosphere was charged with electricity. I plunged into the avenue of
the vines leading to the grotto.

I felt low-spirited. I was thinking of the lady with the little mole on
her cheek, of whom the doctor had spoken to me... "Why is she here?" I
thought. "And is it she? And what reason have I for thinking it is? And
why am I so certain of it? Is there not many a woman with a mole on her
cheek?" Reflecting in such wise I came right up to the grotto. I looked
in and I saw that a woman, wearing a straw hat and wrapped in a black
shawl, was sitting on a stone seat in the cold shade of the arch. Her
head was sunk upon her breast, and the hat covered her face. I was just
about to turn back, in order not to disturb her meditations, when she
glanced at me.

"Vera!" I exclaimed involuntarily.

She started and turned pale.

"I knew that you were here," she said.

I sat down beside her and took her hand. A long-forgotten tremor ran
through my veins at the sound of that dear voice. She gazed into my
face with her deep, calm eyes. Mistrust and something in the nature of
reproach were expressed in her glance.

"We have not seen each other for a long time," I said.

"A long time, and we have both changed in many ways."

"Consequently you love me no longer?"...

"I am married!"... she said.

"Again? A few years ago, however, that reason also existed, but,
nevertheless"...

She plucked her hand away from mine and her cheeks flamed.

"Perhaps you love your second husband?"...

She made no answer and turned her head away.

"Or is he very jealous?"

She remained silent.

"What then? He is young, handsome and, I suppose, rich--which is the
chief thing--and you are afraid?"...

I glanced at her and was alarmed. Profound despair was depicted upon her
countenance; tears were glistening in her eyes.

"Tell me," she whispered at length, "do you find it very amusing to
torture me? I ought to hate you. Since we have known each other, you
have given me naught but suffering"...

Her voice shook; she leaned over to me, and let her head sink upon