“He is alive.”
“It is well! I thank you.”
And with step still tottering she moved toward the door. Volodyovski stood for a while moving his mustaches violently and shaking his head; then he muttered to himself, “Does she thank me because Kmita is wounded, or because he is alive?”
He followed Olenka, and found her in the adjoining bed room standing in the middle of it as if turned to stone. Four nobles were bearing in at that moment Pan Kmita; the first two advancing sidewise appeared in the door, and between them hung toward the floor the pale head of Pan Andrei, with closed eyes, and clots of black blood in his hair.
“Slowly,” said Krysh Domashevich, walking behind, “slowly across the threshold. Let some one hold his head. Slowly!”
“With what can we hold it when our hands are full?” answered those in front.
At that moment Panna Aleksandra approached them, pale as was Kmita himself, and placed both hands under his lifeless head.
“This is the lady,” said Krysh Domashevich.
“It is I. Be careful!” answered she, in a low voice.
Volodyovski looked on, and his mustaches quivered fearfully.