“I shall not sleep to-night,” said Krysia to herself, and she began to think about Ketling, and to suffer more and more.
Suddenly the sorrowful voice of Basia was heard in the stillness of the night, “Krysia!”
“Are you not sleeping?”
“No for I dreamed that some Turk pierced Pan Michael with an arrow. O Jesus! a deceiving dream. But a fever is just shaking me. Let us say the Litany together, that God may avert misfortune.”
The thought flew through Krysia’s head like lightning, “God grant some one to shoot him!” But she was astonished immediately at her own wickedness; therefore, though it was necessary for her to get superhuman power to pray at that particular moment for the return of Pan Michael, still she answered,—
“Very well, Basia.”
Then both rose from their beds, and kneeling on their naked knees on the floor, began to say the Litany. Their voices responded to each other, now rising and now falling; you would have said that the chamber was changed into the cell of a cloister in which two white nuns were repeating their nightly prayers.
CHAPTER XVI.
Next morning Krysia was calmer; for among intricate and tangled paths she had chosen for herself an immensely difficult, but not a false one. Entering upon it, she saw at least whither she was going. But, first of all, she determined to have an interview with Ketling and speak with him for the last time, so as to guard him from every mishap. This did not come to her easily, for Ketling did not show himself for a number of consecutive days, and did not return at night.
Krysia began to rise before daylight and walk to the neighboring church of the Dominicans, with the hope that she would meet him some morning and speak to him without witnesses. In fact, she met him a few days later at the very door. When he saw her, he removed his cap and bent his head in silence. He stood motionless; his face was wearied by sleeplessness and suffering, his eyes sunk; on his temples there were yellowish spots; the delicate color of his face had become waxlike; he looked like a flower that is withering. Krysia’s heart was rent at sight of him; and though every decisive step cost her very much, for she was not bold by nature, she was the first to extend the hand, and said,—