He threw himself back violently.  I kept outwardly calm.

“Yes, I see you here; and I assume you are here on account of the Haldin affair?”

His manner changed.

“You call it the Haldin affair—­do you?” he observed indifferently.

“I have no right to ask you anything,” I said.  “I wouldn’t presume.  But in that case the mother and the sister of him who must be a hero in your eyes cannot be indifferent to you.  The girl is a frank and generous creature, having the noblest—­well—­illusions.  You will tell her nothing—­or you will tell her everything.  But speaking now of the object with which I’ve approached you first, we have to deal with the morbid state of the mother.  Perhaps something could be invented under your authority as a cure for a distracted and suffering soul filled with maternal affection.”

His air of weary indifference was accentuated, I could not help thinking, wilfully.

“Oh yes.  Something might,” he mumbled carelessly.

He put his hand over his mouth to conceal a yawn.  When he uncovered his lips they were smiling faintly.

“Pardon me.  This has been a long conversation, and I have not had much sleep the last two nights.”

This unexpected, somewhat insolent sort of apology had the merit of being perfectly true.  He had had no nightly rest to speak of since that day when, in the grounds of the Chateau Borel, the sister of Victor Haldin had appeared before him.  The perplexities and the complex terrors—­I may say—­of this sleeplessness are recorded in the document I was to see later—­the document which is the main source of this narrative.  At the moment he looked to me convincingly tired, gone slack all over, like a man who has passed through some sort of crisis.

“I have had a lot of urgent writing to do,” he added.

I rose from my chair at once, and he followed my example, without haste, a little heavily.

“I must apologize for detaining you so long,” I said.

“Why apologize?  One can’t very well go to bed before night.  And you did not detain me.  I could have left you at any time.”

I had not stayed with him to be offended.

“I am glad you have been sufficiently interested,” I said calmly.  “No merit of mine, though—­the commonest sort of regard for the mother of your friend was enough....  As to Miss Haldin herself, she at one time was disposed to think that her brother had been betrayed to the police in some way.”

To my great surprise Mr. Razumov sat down again suddenly.  I stared at him, and I must say that he returned my stare without winking for quite a considerable time.

“In some way,” he mumbled, as if he had not understood or could not believe his ears.

“Some unforeseen event, a sheer accident might have done that,” I went on.  “Or, as she characteristically put it to me, the folly or weakness of some unhappy fellow-revolutionist.”