“No, merely exiled from the empire. I suppose this will make a good deal of difference to you?”
“If God means His work to go on, He will supply the labourers,” said the Princess.
“But will it make no change in your plans?”
“I think not. Why should it?” The Princess was on good terms with her brother-in-law, although they differed in their religious views. Some years before, when her own family, fearing that she would bestow the whole of her property in charity, had applied that it should be placed under legal guardianship, he had been appointed her trustee, and had dealt out her money to her ever since faithfully, if with a good deal of mockery. Hence she was grateful to him for continuing to supply her with an unfailing store of cash for distribution to those in need, whereas if left to her own guardianship she would have deprived herself in a single year of all power to give.
“Oh, there is no reason whatever,” he answered lightly. “I am afraid that this will not be the last of the banishments, that is all. But we all know that ladies will have their way, though empires fall. I only wish you good people could manage to keep out of the clutches of the Holy Synod. You ought to know by this time that we are determined to drive out all our most industrious subjects because they are Jews, and exile all our best because they are heretics. We mean to be orthodox if we can’t be either prosperous or pious. Adieu, my sister.”
He was gone, and the three ladies gathered round the table again to discuss the situation.
“We shall be obliged to make new arrangements for some of the work to-morrow,” said the Princess. “I fear that we cannot carry on all Count and Countess Wratisloff’s classes to-day, but we will not let them drop if we can help it. I will do my best to prepare an address for the Count’s navvy Bible-class this evening. The police will have prevented him from finding any one to take his place. Then there is the Countess’s Bible-reading at the house of blind Dmitri Nicolaievitch. We must think of some one for that.”
“I will try, if you like, Marraine,” said Nadia, timidly. “If I find that I am too nervous, blind Dmitri will read, I know, and at any rate I can tell the people what has happened to Anton Gregorievitch.”
“Very well, my child. The carriage shall take you on after leaving me at the Mission-room, and I will call for you afterwards.”
In pursuance of this arrangement, Nadia found herself that evening a member of the little gathering of poor people who met in the blind man’s room to hear the Bible read and explained by Countess Wratisloff, and of whom the host was the only one that could read. None of them had heard of the fate which had befallen the Count and Countess, and several burst into loud lamentations when Nadia told her story. But above the tumult the voice of blind Dmitri was heard.