So urgent had been the affair that during that hour they had forgotten the Revolution, Russia, the war.  Moreover, always in the past, they had assumed that public life was no affair of theirs.  The Russo-Japanese War, even the spasmodic revolt in 1905, had not touched them except as a wind of ideas which blew so swiftly through their private lives that they were scarcely affected by it.

Now in the person of that trembling, shaking figure at their table, the Revolution had come to them, and not only the Revolution, but the strange new secret city that Petrograd was... the whole ground was quaking beneath them.

And in the eyes of the fugitive they saw what terror of death really was.  It was no tale read in a story-book, no recounting of an adventure by some romantic traveller, it was here with them in the flat and at any moment....

It was then that Vera realised that there was no time to lose—­something must be done at once.

“Who’s pursuing you?” she asked, quickly.  “Where are they?”

He got up and was moving about the room as though he was looking for a hiding-place.

“All the people....  Everybody!” He turned round upon them, suddenly striking, what seemed to them, a ludicrously grand attitude.  “Abominable!  That’s what it is.  I heard them shouting that I had a machine-gun on the roof and was killing people.  I had no machine-gun.  Of course not.  I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I had one.  But there they were.  That’s what they were shouting!  And I’ve always done my duty.  What’s one to do?  Obey one’s superior officer?  Of course, what he says one does.  What’s life for?... and then naturally one expects a reward.  Things were going well with me, very well indeed—­and then this comes.  It’s a degrading thing for a man to hide for a day and a night in a cupboard.”  His teeth began to chatter then so that he could scarcely speak.  He seemed to be shaking with ague.

He caught Vera’s hand.  “Save me—­save me!” he said.  “Put me somewhere....  I’ve done nothing disgraceful.  They’ll shoot me like a dog—­”

The sisters consulted.

“What are we to do?” asked Nina.  “We can’t let him go out to be killed.”

“No.  But if we keep him here and they come in and find him, we shall all be involved....  It isn’t fair to Nicholas or Uncle Ivan....”

“We can’t let him go out.”

“No, we can’t,” Vera replied.  She saw at once how impossible that was.  Were he caught outside and shot they would feel that they had his death for ever on their souls.

“There’s the linen cupboard,” she said.

She turned round to Nina.  “I’m afraid,” she said, “if you hide here, you’ll have to go into another cupboard.  And it can only be for an hour or two.  We couldn’t keep you here all night.”

He said nothing except “Quick.  Take me.”  Vera led him into her bedroom and showed him the place.  Without another word he pressed in amongst the clothes.  It was a deep cupboard, and, although he was a fat man, the door closed quite evenly.