She cast a look of the deepest disdain in his direction.
"Why should you cling so hard to that wretched life of yours, Sergius?" said she."It has done harm to many and good to none -- not even to yourself.However, it is not for me to cause the frail thread to be snapped before God's time.
I have enough already upon my soul since I crossed the threshold of this cursed house.But I must speak or I shall be too late.
"I have said, gentlemen, that I am this man's wife.He was fifty and I a foolish girl of twenty when we married.It was in a city of Russia, a University -- I will not name the place.""God bless you, Anna!" murmured the old man again.
"We were reformers -- revolutionists -- Nihilists, you understand.
He and I and many more.Then there came a time of trouble, a police officer was killed, many were arrested, evidence was wanted, and in order to save his own life and to earn a great reward my husband betrayed his own wife and his companions.
Yes, we were all arrested upon his confession.Some of us found our way to the gallows and some to Siberia.I was among these last, but my term was not for life.My husband came to England with his ill-gotten gains, and has lived in quiet ever since, knowing well that if the Brotherhood knew where he was not a week would pass before justice would be done."The old man reached out a trembling hand and helped himself to a cigarette."I am in your hands, Anna," said he.
"You were always good to me."
"I have not yet told you the height of his villainy," said she.
"Among our comrades of the Order there was one who was the friend of my heart.He was noble, unselfish, loving -- all that my husband was not.He hated violence.We were all guilty --if that is guilt -- but he was not.He wrote for ever dissuading us from such a course.These letters would have saved him.
So would my diary, in which from day to day I had entered both my feelings towards him and the view which each of us had taken.