V.

After Niaz had been tried and condemned for robbery and murder, and sent

with the usual Russian clemency to the mines of Oukboul, Olga Davidoff

could not bear any longer to live at Tobolsk. It was partly terror,

partly shame, partly pride; but Tobolsk or even St. Petersburg she felt

to be henceforth utterly impossible for her.

So she determined to go back to her kinsfolk in that dear old quiet

England, where there are no Nihilists, and no Tartars, and no exiles,

and where everybody lived so placidly and demurely. She looked back now

upon The Laurels, Clapham, as the ideal home of repose and happiness.

It was not at Clapham, however, that Madame Niaz (as she still called

herself) settled down, but in a quiet little Kentish village, where the

London branch of the Davids family had retired to spend their Russian

money.

Frank Davids, the son of the house, was Olga's second cousin; and when

Olga had taken the pretty little rose-covered cottage at the end of the

village, Frank Davids found few things more pleasant in life than to

drop in of an afternoon and have a chat with his Russian kinswoman. Olga

lived there alone with her companion, and in spite of the terrible

scenes she had so lately gone through, she was still a girl, very young,

very attractive, and very pretty.

What a wonderfully different life, the lawn-tennis with Frank and the

curate and the Davids girls up at the big house, from the terror and

isolation of the Buriat stronghold! Under the soothing influence of

that placid existence, Olga Davidoff began at last almost to outlive the

lasting effects of that one great horror. Stamped as it was into the

very fabric of her being, she felt it now less poignantly than of old,

and sometimes for an hour or two she even ventured to be careless and

happy.

Yet all the time the awful spectre of that robber and murderer Niaz, who

was nevertheless still her wedded husband, rose up before her, day and

night, to prevent her happiness from being ever more than momentary.

And Frank, too, was such a nice, good fellow! Frank had heard from

Madame Davidoff all her story (for madame had come over to see Olga

fairly settled), and he pitied her for her sad romance in such a kind,

brotherly fashion.

Once, and once only, Frank said a word to her that was not exactly

brotherly. They were walking together down the footpath by the mill, and

Olga had been talking to him about that great terror, when Frank asked

her, in a quiet voice, "Olga, why don't you try to get a divorce from

that horrible Niaz?"

Olga looked at him in blank astonishment, and asked in return, "Why,

Frank, what would be the use of that? It would never blot out the memory

of the past, or make that wretch any the less my wedded husband."

"But, Olga, you need a protector sorely. You need somebody to soothe and

remove your lasting terror. And I think I know some one, Olga,--I know

some one who would give his whole life to save you, dearest, from a

single day's fear or unhappiness."

Olga looked up at him like a startled child. "Frank," she cried, "dear,

dear Frank, you good cousin, never say again another word like that, or

you will make me afraid to walk with you or talk with you any longer.

You are the one friend I have whom I can trust and confide in: don't

drive me away by talking to me of what is so impossible. I hate the

man: I loathe and abhor him with all my heart; but I can never forget

that he is still my husband. I have made my choice, and I must abide by

it. Frank, Frank, promise me,--promise me, that you will never again

speak upon the subject."

Frank's face grew saddened in a moment with a terrible sadness; but he

said in a firm voice, "I promise," and he never broke his word from that

day onward.