V
Six o'clock had just struck. The grey light of morning broke into the cell in which Helene walked up and down with a nervous step, casting from time to time a sad glance out of the window; she felt that to-day neither sleep nor calm would come to her. Olia, woken by the sound of her footsteps, had come several times to her door; but Helene had always sent her away, begging her not to be anxious about her.
There was nothing in her past with which she had to reproach herself. She had given all that she had. Why then did the consciousness of having acted rightly not bring her the peace for which she longed? Then, catching herself murmuring, she began to pray, but the prayer did not come from her heart. Her exhaustion caused her to feel giddy; she even rejoiced in this, seeing in it a sign of the torpor for which she craved. Passing into her inner room, she lay down on her bed, with her eyes closed, but sleep did not come. Dawn broadened into day, and the austere countenances of the icons seemed to be bent fixedly on poor Helene as she lay, deprived of strength. She made a movement and her hand touched the old newspapers in which the preserves sent by the general's wife had been wrapped. Hardly knowing what she did, she unfolded one of them, and glanced at it carelessly; the paper glided with a light rustle behind her bed; a vague desire to know what was going on in the world seized her; she took another sheet; her eye fell on the not very edifying details of a divorce case; she turned the page and found there, by a strange chance, a correspondent's letter from her native town of which she had heard nothing for so long. She saw that the date of this letter was that of the year in which she had left her country.
Scarcely had she glanced through some lines than her blood turned to ice in her veins and a chill pierced her heart. She uttered such a groan that Olia awoke with a start. As though she could not trust her eyes, poor Helene read the article a second time. Yes, they were there, those cursed lines! a thing more horrible than murder. She had not yet taken in the awfulness of it. A fit of frenzy seized her brain. She seized the newspaper and brandished it at the sacred pictures, saying, "There! There!"
What she had read was as follows:
"A tragedy has just disturbed our quiet provincial town. Two young girls of good society fell in love with the same young man; one was twenty-five, the other nineteen. There was an explanation between the two sisters: the elder did not wish to stand in the way of the happiness of the younger; she went away for good, telling her friends that she intended to enter a convent, and would never return. This is where the affair took a dramatic turn. The young man loved the girl who had gone away; he only waited for her return to declare himself. When he heard of the step she had taken, he applied to the authorities to be exchanged into another regiment, and went off without informing any one. This morning the younger of the two sisters was found dead in her room, killed by a pistol-shot. On the table was a short note:
"'Dear Sister,—
"'Where are you? Forgive me! I could not, I ought not, I dared not live any longer.
"'Nina.'"
"No! It is impossible! It is false! I am delirious!" exclaimed poor Helene, crushing the paper in her clenched hand. She went near the window in order to read again the fatal lines. They were indeed there; they did not disappear! Nothing took their place. They turned from black to red; they blazed like fire; they burned her heart!
"Dear Sister,—
"Where are you? Forgive me! I could not, I ought not, I dared not live any longer.
"Nina."