“Perhaps that’ll be better. I can get my baggage. If I do come back I shall look out for you,” I said, as I got into the carriage.
“I am going back at once to Vilna. Bon voyage, monsieur.”
“Good-bye. A pretty woman you say? Will it go hard with her, do you suppose?” I asked in a compassionate tone as the train moved.
He shook his head and smiled significantly.
“She’ll go to the mines, if what they say is true.”
That was what that infernal old Kalkov had said; and he was making his words good.
And it was from that I had to save her.
Thank God she had been shrewder than I; and that I was free to make my effort.
If I had been in Siegel’s place—and then despite the tragedy I thought of the comedy and smiled.
But the smile was very fleeting.