Evelyn was not the only person who had felt disturbed this evening. At the turn of the path, where the settle had been placed, the young girl heard the agitated voices of Maxim and his sister.
“Yes, I thought of her in this connection no less than I did of him,” the old man was saying; and his tone was harsh. “I cannot believe that you wish to take advantage of the ignorance of a mere child.”
Tears were in the voice of Anna Michàilovna as she replied, “But Max, what if—if she—What will become of my boy?”
Maxim had no time to reply. The young girl who had paused instinctively at the turning, now quickly advanced, and with proudly erect head walked past the speakers. Maxim involuntarily drew up his crutch that it might not be in her way, and Anna Michàilovna looked at her with an expression of love, mingled with adoration almost amounting to awe. The mother seemed conscious that this fair proud girl, who had just passed by with a look so angry and defiant, held in her hands the happiness or unhappiness of her son.
VI.
A ruined and abandoned mill stood in the garden. The wheels had ceased to turn, the cylinders were overgrown with moss, and the water trickled through the old locks in slender, never-ceasing streams. This was the blind youth’s favorite resort. Here he would spend hours on the parapet of the dam, listening to the sound of the trickling water, which he later reproduced to perfection on the piano. But now he was thinking of other things. Rapidly he trod the path, his heart filled with bitterness, and his face distorted by suffering. He paused when he heard the young girl’s light step; accustomed as he was to confide all his feelings to her, he felt no embarrassment in her presence.
Evelyn rested her hand on his shoulder as she asked,—“What is it? Why are you so sad?”
He did not reply at first, but turning, began once more to pace up and down the path. The young girl walked beside him.
Thus a few minutes went by in silence. It seemed as if the presence of Evelyn had a tranquillizing influence upon Peter’s mood; the keen pain diminished, his face grew more peaceful; the flood of sadness that had overwhelmed his soul began to subside, and a new sense of mingled pleasure and expectancy had taken possession of him. This feeling, to whose healing influence he had often yielded, he had never yet made an attempt to analyze. And now again his mood grew tender, although a shade of sadness still remained.