“Exactly.”

Sophia Antonovna triumphed.  Her correspondent had discovered that fact quite accidentally from the talk of the people of the house, having made friends with a workman who occupied a room there.  They described Haldin’s appearance perfectly.  He brought comforting words of hope into their misery.  He came irregularly, but he came very often, and—­her correspondent wrote—­sometimes he spent a night in the house, sleeping, they thought, in a stable which opened upon the inner yard.

“Note that, Razumov!  In a stable.”

Razumov had listened with a sort of ferocious but amused acquiescence.

“Yes.  In the straw.  It was probably the cleanest spot in the whole house.”

“No doubt,” assented the woman with that deep frown which seemed to draw closer together her black eyes in a sinister fashion.  No four-footed beast could stand the filth and wretchedness so many human beings were condemned to suffer from in Russia.  The point of this discovery was that it proved Haldin to have been familiar with that horse-owning peasant—­a reckless, independent, free-living fellow not much liked by the other inhabitants of the house.  He was believed to have been the associate of a band of housebreakers.  Some of these got captured.  Not while he was driving them, however; but still there was a suspicion against the fellow of having given a hint to the police and...

The woman revolutionist checked herself suddenly.

“And you?  Have you ever heard your friend refer to a certain Ziemianitch?”

Razumov was ready for the name.  He had been looking out for the question.  “When it comes I shall own up,” he had said to himself.  But he took his time.

“To be sure!” he began slowly.  “Ziemianitch, a peasant owning a team of horses.  Yes.  On one occasion.  Ziemianitch!  Certainly!  Ziemianitch of the horses....  How could it have slipped my memory like this?  One of the last conversations we had together.”

“That means,”—­Sophia Antonovna looked very grave,—­“that means, Razumov, it was very shortly before—­eh?”

“Before what?” shouted Razumov, advancing at the woman, who looked astonished but stood her ground.  “Before....  Oh!  Of course, it was before!  How could it have been after?  Only a few hours before.”

“And he spoke of him favourably?”

“With enthusiasm!  The horses of Ziemianitch!  The free soul of Ziemianitch!”

Razumov took a savage delight in the loud utterance of that name, which had never before crossed his lips audibly.  He fixed his blazing eyes on the woman till at last her fascinated expression recalled him to himself.

“The late Haldin,” he said, holding himself in, with downcast eyes, “was inclined to take sudden fancies to people, on—­on—­what shall I say—­insufficient grounds.”

“There!” Sophia Antonovna clapped her hands.  “That, to my mind, settles it.  The suspicions of my correspondent were aroused....”