"You are very good, but I have an engagement. Do you recollect the Englishman—I have his card here—George Tweed? That is it. He was in Cumberland when——"
"I remember him perfectly."
"Well, we met this evening in London. He extracted from me a promise to take supper with him to-morrow night. He wants me to meet a great friend of his, and a countryman of ours, whose conversation he vowed would interest me."
"Indeed? Did he mention the name?"
"Yes. It was—it was—no, it has slipped my memory. It scarcely matters."
A servant came at a touch of the bell. The visitor descended the stairs and left the cottage. Impelled by a sudden impulse Gabrielle ran to the window and pulled up the blind. He would see her standing there. What of that? The crunch of his heavy footfall sounded upon the gravel, and his voice came clearly—"Good-night!" She replied and felt glad.
Gabrielle drew down the blind again and retreated into the well-lighted room. She paused by the table and put to herself, aloud, a direct question: "Why did I tell him that—that he was my brother?" And she replied, in as direct a fashion: "I imagined that he—cared for me a little. If he had known the truth should I have been able so to command him? I cannot think so."
The recollection of the time when she had met Ivan Vassilitch brought to her certain details of the occasion; and suddenly she remembered that conversation in which famous echoes that appear to gather sound and reverberate had been likened to actions that will not leave a life. She had compared that cruel wrong which had destroyed her peace with one of these deeds that come back to break in thunder. She recalled the reminiscence with a sense of uneasiness.
IV.
There were half-a-dozen men in the coffee-room at the club.