"Yalta!"
"On the shore of the Black Sea," she added, smiling brightly at my surprise.
"Then I am more than thirty miles in rear of the Russian posts in the valley of Inkermann!"
"Yes; and as a soldier, must know that you are in great danger of the darkest suspicions if you are taken."
"I am aware of that," said I, faintly, as a giddiness came over me, and I leaned against the open sash of the window; "but I care not what happens."
The elder lady, who had a son with the army in Sebastopol, now said something energetically, and in my favour apparently, and the other added, softly and kindly, "Enter, sir, and we shall succour you."
The closed sashes excluded the icy air, I felt myself within the warm influence of the peitchka, and then the three smarting lance-wounds began to bleed afresh.
"Madame Tolstoff," said the younger lady, in French, "we must act warily here, if we would prevent this poor fellow becoming a prisoner of war, or worse. Bring here old Ivan Yourivitch the dvornik."
This was the butler, but it also signifies "servant."
"Can you trust him in this matter?"