"Krylov has been again," I said. "He told Nikitin that we ought to go to-night. Nikitin asked him whether the Division had plenty of wagons and Krylov admitted that there weren't nearly enough. He agreed that it would make a lot of difference if we could keep this place going until to-morrow night—all the same he advised us to leave."
"We'll stay until some one orders us to go," said Semyonov. "It will make a difference to a hundred men or more probably. If they do start firing on to this place we can get the men off in the wagons in time."
"And what if the wagons have left for Mittövo?"
"We'll have to wait until they come back," he answered.
We sat there listening to the cannon. Then Semyonov said very quietly and not at all ironically, "I wish to ask you—I have wished before—tell me. You blame me for her death?"
I thought for a moment, then I replied:
"I did so at first. Now I do not think that it had anything to do with you or with me or with any one—except herself."
"Except herself?" he said. "What do you mean?"
"She wished it, I think."
His irony returned. "You believe in the power of others, Mr., too much. You should believe more in your own."