"But you did not try to see her, Michael," replied Nadia. "Chance alone brought you into her presence."
"I had sworn, whatever might happen, not to betray myself."
"Michael, Michael! at sight of the lash raised upon Marfa, could you refrain? No! No oath could prevent a son from succoring his mother!"
"I have broken my oath, Nadia," returned Michael. "May God and the Father pardon me!"
"Michael," resumed the girl, "I have a question to ask you. Do not answer it if you think you ought not. Nothing from you would vex me!"
"Speak, Nadia."
"Why, now that the Czar's letter has been taken from you, are you so anxious to reach Irkutsk?"
Michael tightly pressed his companion's hand, but he did not answer.
"Did you know the contents of that letter before you left Moscow?"
"No, I did not know."
"Must I think, Michael, that the wish alone to place me in my father's hands draws you toward Irkutsk?"
"No, Nadia," replied Michael, gravely. "I should deceive you if I allowed you to believe that it was so. I go where duty orders me to go. As to taking you to Irkutsk, is it not you, Nadia, who are now taking me there? Do I not see with your eyes; and is it not your hand that guides me? Have you not repaid a hundred-fold the help which I was able to give you at first? I do not know if fate will cease to go against us; but the day on which you thank me for having placed you in your father's hands, I in my turn will thank you for having led me to Irkutsk."
"Poor Michael!" answered Nadia, with emotion. "Do not speak so. That does not answer me. Michael, why, now, are you in such haste to reach Irkutsk?"
"Because I must be there before Ivan Ogareff," exclaimed Michael.
"Even now?"
"Even now, and I will be there, too!"
In uttering these words, Michael did not speak solely through hatred to the traitor. Nadia understood that her companion had not told, or could not tell, her all.
