“Scared to death?”
She nodded.
“Then don't be scared; stop running. Wait for your fear to catch up with you. If you face it, it'll shrink to nothing. The feet of a pursuer are like an army. What's causing your panic? Varensky? The thought that he may not return?”
“No.”
“That he may?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“That he may go on wasting me forever.”
She waited for him to say something. When he remained silent, she bent forward staring vacantly into the hearth. “Perhaps I'm a coward and unfaithful. Perhaps if he'd been successful—— I know what he thinks of me: that I'm a fair-weather wife. But I'm not. If it would help him, I'd give my life for him. He doesn't want my life. He doesn't want my body. He wants the one thing that I can't give him—that I should believe in him. There are people who still believe in him—the Little Grandmother. There are others, like Prince Rogovich, who pretended to believe in him that he might use him as a cat's-paw. He says good-by to me for the last time and vanishes. I wait in retirement for news of his execution. At the end of two months, three months, half a year, he comes back. Then the rehearsing for his martyrdom commences all afresh. If there were anything I could do! But to be wasted for no purpose!”
She turned her head wearily, glancing at him sideways. “You called me the Joan of Russia. I was almost. There was a time when not to be loved and not to be a mother seemed a small price to pay for sainthood. It was my happiness against the happiness of millions. But now——” Her eyes filmed over.