Only one of them, an older man with a thick black beard, was intensely grave, and looked at Vera with beseeching eyes, as though he longed to tell her the secret of his life.

“What can I do for you?” she asked the student.

“Prosteete...  Forgive us.”  He smiled and blinked at her, then put on his cap, clicked his heels, gave a salute, and took his cap off again.  “We wish to be in no way an inconvenience to you.  We are simply obeying orders.  We have instructions that a policeman is hiding in one of these flats....  We know, of course, that he cannot possibly be here.  Nevertheless we are compelled... Prosteete....  What nice pictures you have!” he ended suddenly.  It was then that Vera discovered that they were by this time in the dining-room, crowded together near the door and gazing at Nina with interested eyes.

“There’s no one here, of course,” said Vera, very quietly.  “No one at all.”

“Tak Tochno (quite so),” said the black-bearded soldier, for no particular reason, suddenly.

“You will allow me to sit down?” said the student, very politely.  “I must, I am afraid, ask a few questions.”

“Certainly,” said Vera quietly.  “Anything you like.”

She had moved over to Nina, and they stood side by side.  But she could not think of Nina, she could not think even of the policeman in the cupboard....  She could think only of that other house on the Quay where, perhaps even now, this same scene was being enacted.  They had found Wilderling....  They had dragged him out....  Lawrence was beside him....  They were condemned together....  Oh! love had come to her at last in a wild, surging flood!  Of all the steps she had been led until at last, only half an hour before in that scene with Nina, the curtains had been flung aside and the whole view revealed to her.  She felt such a strength, such a pride, such a defiance, as she had not known belonged to human power.  She had, for many weeks, been hesitating before the gates.  Now, suddenly, she had swept through.  His death now was not the terror that it had been only an hour before.  Nina’s accusation had shown her, as a flash of lightning flings the mountains into view, that now she could never lose him, were he with her or no, and that beside that truth nothing mattered.

Something of her bravery and grandeur and beauty must have been felt by them all at that moment.  Nina realised it....  She told me that her own fear left her altogether when she saw how Vera was facing them.  She was suddenly calm and quiet and very amused.

The student officer seemed now to be quite at home.  He had taken a great many notes down in a little book, and looked very important as he did so.  His chubby face expressed great self-satisfaction.  He talked half to himself and half to Vera.  “Yes...  Yes... quite so.  Exactly.  And your husband is not yet at home, Madame Markovitch.... Nu da.... Of course these are very troublesome times, and as you say things have to move in a hurry.