He continued to stare at me.  I don’t think he was aware that the story of the midnight arrest had been ferreted out by an English journalist and given to the world.  When I explained this to him he muttered contemptuously, “It may have been altogether a lie.”

“I should think you are the best judge of that,” I retorted, a little disconcerted.  “I must confess that to me it looks to be true in the main.”

“How can you tell truth from lies?” he queried in his new, immovable manner.

“I don’t know how you do it in Russia,” I began, rather nettled by his attitude.  He interrupted me.

“In Russia, and in general everywhere—­in a newspaper, for instance.  The colour of the ink and the shapes of the letters are the same.”

“Well, there are other trifles one can go by.  The character of the publication, the general verisimilitude of the news, the consideration of the motive, and so on.  I don’t trust blindly the accuracy of special correspondents—­but why should this one have gone to the trouble of concocting a circumstantial falsehood on a matter of no importance to the world?”

“That’s what it is,” he grumbled.  “What’s going on with us is of no importance—­a mere sensational story to amuse the readers of the papers—­the superior contemptuous Europe.  It is hateful to think of.  But let them wait a bit!”

He broke off on this sort of threat addressed to the western world.  Disregarding the anger in his stare, I pointed out that whether the journalist was well- or ill-informed, the concern of the friends of these ladies was with the effect the few lines of print in question had produced—­the effect alone.  And surely he must be counted as one of the friends—­if only for the sake of his late comrade and intimate fellow-revolutionist.  At that point I thought he was going to speak vehemently; but he only astounded me by the convulsive start of his whole body.  He restrained himself, folded his loosened arms tighter across his chest, and sat back with a smile in which there was a twitch of scorn and malice.

“Yes, a comrade and an intimate....  Very well,” he said.

“I ventured to speak to you on that assumption.  And I cannot be mistaken.  I was present when Peter Ivanovitch announced your arrival here to Miss Haldin, and I saw her relief and thankfulness when your name was mentioned.  Afterwards she showed me her brother’s letter, and read out the few words in which he alludes to you.  What else but a friend could you have been?”

“Obviously.  That’s perfectly well known.  A friend.  Quite correct....  Go on.  You were talking of some effect.”

I said to myself:  “He puts on the callousness of a stern revolutionist, the insensibility to common emotions of a man devoted to a destructive idea.  He is young, and his sincerity assumes a pose before a stranger, a foreigner, an old man.  Youth must assert itself....”  As concisely as possible I exposed to him the state of mind poor Mrs. Haldin had been thrown into by the news of her son’s untimely end.