Even when Sonya opened her eyes, after weeks of an almost fatal illness, and asked for news of the war, Nona was unable to tell her.
Then as the days of Sonya’s convalescence went by she would not let her talk of it. Always war is a more terrible thing to girls and women than it is to boys and men. But ever since their first acquaintance Nona had realized that the horror of it went deeper into Sonya’s consciousness than any person she had yet seen. It must be the war that had aged her so in the past year.
So the Russian woman and the American girl spoke of everything else. Sonya told of her own life and of Nona’s mother when they were little girls. They had both been allowed to go away to college. It was in school that they imbibed their revolutionary ideas. No wonder that their families never forgave them!
Sonya was dressed and sitting in her chair the day when the summons finally came for her arrest.
It was Nona Davis in her nurse’s Red Cross costume who opened the door for the two men in uniform. They were not dressed like soldiers, and as she could not understand what they said, she did not dream of their errand.
But Sonya’s peasant servants must have understood, for at the sight of the strangers they dropped on their knees and held out imploring hands.
Sonya herself finally made things clear. The men were two police officers who had been sent to bring her to Petrograd. She had been in hiding here near Grovno for several months and had hoped to escape their vigilance. Evidently Sonya had been arrested by the Russian authorities.
In spite of Nona’s insistence that her patient was not well enough to be moved, Sonya agreed to go with them at once.
And only at the moment of parting did she bestow any confidence upon the younger girl.
Then she looked deep into Nona’s golden brown eyes with her own strangely glowing blue ones, and whispered: