"Dear Marya," I said, at last, "I look upon you as my wife. These strange events have irrevocably united us. Nothing in the whole world can part us any more."
Marya heard me in dignified silence, without misplaced affectation. She felt as I did, that her destiny was irrevocably linked with mine; still, she repeated that she would only be my wife with my parents' consent. I had nothing to answer. We fell in each other's arms, and my project became our mutual decision.
An hour afterwards the "ouriadnik" brought me my safe-conduct pass, with the scrawl which did duty as Pugatchéf's signature, and told me the Tzar awaited me in his house.
I found him ready to start.
How express what I felt in the presence of this man, awful and cruel for all, myself only excepted? And why not tell the whole truth? At this moment I felt a strong sympathy with him. I wished earnestly to draw him from the band of robbers of which he was the chief, and save his head ere it should be too late.
The presence of Chvabrine and of the crowd around us prevented me from expressing to him all the feelings which filled my heart.
We parted friends.
Pugatchéf saw in the crowd Akoulina Pamphilovna, and amicably threatened her with his finger, with a meaning wink. Then he seated himself in his "kibitka" and gave the word to return to Berd. When the horses started, he leaned out of his carriage and shouted to me—
"Farewell, your lordship; it may be we shall yet meet again!"
We did, indeed, see one another once again; but under what circumstances!