“He’ll wake every one up,” thought the priest.
He returned on tiptoe to his bedroom, threw himself on his bed, and began reflecting on all that he had read. His thoughts wandered to the last reign, to the sea of mysterious and common events, known to others as well as to him; at last he fell asleep.
The sound of the bells ringing for morning service awoke him. The pale November sun was struggling through the curtains. Father Peter locked up the manuscript in the drawer of his table, went to church to celebrate morning service, and returned home, through the back door, into the kitchen. On seeing his god-daughter going up the attic stairs with a hot iron in her hands he beckoned her.
“Tell me, Vâra,” he whispered; “he who wrote that diary—Konsov—must, it’s plain, have been her fiancé?”
Vâra moistened her finger and then touched the hot iron; it fizzed.
“He did woo her,” she answered, dangling her iron.
“Well! and what then?”
“Well! Irena Lvovna liked him. Her father would not hear of it.”
“Then the match was broken off?”