“Perhaps it is my destiny that sends me there, there where my presence may be needed. Don’t try any longer to keep me, for I have made up my mind. My weakness is gone, and I have recovered control of myself and feel I am strong. It is not my destiny alone, but the destiny of another human being that is to be decided down there. Between me and him you are digging an abyss, and the responsibility will rest upon you. I shall never be consoled, and shall accuse you of having destroyed our happiness. Do not hold me back. You can only do it out of egoism, out of jealousy. You lied when you spoke to me of freedom.”
“I hear the voice of passion, Vera, with all its sophistry and its deviations. You are practising the arts of a Jesuit. Remember that you yourself bade me, only yesterday, not to leave you. Will you curse me for not yielding to you? On whom does the responsibility rest? Tell me who the man is?”
“If I tell you will you promise not to keep me back?” she said quickly.
“I don’t know. Perhaps.”
“Give me your word not to keep me any longer, and I give the name.”
Another shot rang out.
She sprang to one side, before he had time to take her by the hand.
“Go to Grandmother,” he commanded, adding gently, “Tell her your trouble.”
“For Christ’s sake let me go. I ask for alms like a beggar. I must be free! I take him to whom I prayed yesterday to witness that I am going for the last time. Do you hear? I will not break my oath. Wait here for me. I will return immediately, will only say farewell to the ‘Wolf,’ will hear a word from him, and perhaps he will yield!” She rushed forward, fell to the ground in her haste, and tried in vain to rise. Tom by an unutterable pity, Raisky took no heed of his own suffering, but raised her in his arms and bore her down the precipice.
“The path is so steep here that you would fall again,” he whispered. Presently he set her down on the path, and she stooped to kiss his hand.