"You involuntarily turn a beast yourself in this beastly life!"
Smiling sadly, he walked up to her, and bending over her asked, pressing her hand: "Where is your valise?"
"In the kitchen."
"A spy is standing at our gate. We won't be able to get such a big mass of papers out of the way unnoticed. There's no place to hide them in and I think they'll come again to-night. I don't want you to be arrested. So, however sorry we may be for the lost labor, let's burn the papers."
"What?"
"Everything in the valise!"
She finally understood; and though sad, her pride in her success brought a complacent smile to her face.
"There's nothing in it—no leaflets." With gradually increasing animation she told how she had placed them in the hands of sympathetic peasants after Rybin's departure. Nikolay listened, at first with an uneasy frown, then in surprise, and finally exclaimed, interrupting her story:
"Say, that's capital! Nilovna, do you know—" He stammered, embarrassed, and pressing her hand, exclaimed quietly: "You touch me so by your faith in people, by your faith in the cause of their emancipation! You have such a good soul! I simply love you as I didn't love my own mother!"
Embracing his neck, she burst into happy sobs, and pressed his head to her lips.