He caught her hands violently and began to shake them. “Prophesy further, speak to the end! If that Andrei will return and efface his faults, will Olenka keep faith with him? Speak, answer, for I shall not go away without that!”
“What is your trouble?”
“Will Olenka keep faith with him?” repeated Kmita.
Tears came suddenly into the eyes of the maiden: “To the last breath, to the hour of death!” said she, with sobbing.
She had not finished speaking when Kmita fell his whole length at her feet. She wanted to flee; he would not let her, and kissing her feet, he said,—
“I too am a sinful Andrei, who wants to return. I too have my loved one, Olenka. May yours return, and may mine keep faith. May your words be prophetic. You have poured balsam and hope into my suffering soul,—God reward you, God reward you!”
Then he sprang up, sat on his horse, and rode away.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The words of the young daughter of the starosta of Sohachev filled Kmita with great consolation, and for three days they did not leave his head. In the daytime on horseback, in the night on the bed, he was thinking of what had happened to him, and he came always to the conclusion that this could not be simple chance, but an indication from God, and a presage that if he would hold out, if he would not leave the good road, that same road which Olenka had shown him, she would keep faith and give him her former affection.
“If the starosta’s daughter,” thought Kmita, “keeps faith with her Andrei, who has not begun to grow better, there is still hope for me, with my honest intention of serving virtue, the country, and the king.”