And as she thus looked upon him, a sudden light of recognition sprang to life within his eyes. He bent forward, holding her gaze with his; studying each curve and line of that fair, beautiful countenance, noting each golden curl where the hair lay about her neck and upon her brow, reading each fleeting expression of the proud lips, and deep blue eyes. And as he thus held her spell-bound, a smile passed over his worn face, a smile so pitying and accusing that Olga shuddered and drew closer her rich wraps, as if to ward off the cruelty of its tenderness.
For full a moment they looked thus upon one another, without word or gesture of recognition. Then the order came for the march to recommence, and Vladimir, with a single upward movement of his manacled hand, bade her an immutable farewell.
As he did so the figure next to him was drawn forward by the heavy chain that linked them together, and thus turned upon her companion in exile a face so beautiful, despite the marks passion and suffering had stamped upon it, that again Olga started, and drew back instinctively.
It was the face of Adèle Lamien, the murderer of Count Stevan Lallovich.
In another moment the exiles were in full march, and Olga, straining her eyes to the utmost, could see nothing save an indistinct moving mass against the miles of far-stretching snow; which even as she watched was lost in the evening shadows that crept up with silent but resistless steps.
It was a farewell from out eternity.
Truly Ivor Tolskoi's vengeance was complete, when Patouchki's cruel sentence was carried out to the letter, and Vladimir Mellikoff, linked to Adèle Lallovich, passed onward to that desolate Gehenna—Siberian exile.
For Russia never forgets, and Russia never forgives.