“Before the sun rose I was already on my journey south, and the house was a pile of smouldering ruins. For weeks I, a conscience-stricken parricide, rode onward until I reached the Caspian shore. Assuming the name of Vassilii Poklévski I obtained employment as a post-driver at Durnovskaia, where I have lived ever since. The police subsequently discovered that my father had been murdered, and searched diligently for the assassin, but it never occurred to them that he had adopted the disguise of a Volga _yamstchik_. “So the years have passed. I have never visited the spot where I committed my crime until to-day, lest I should betray myself. “Poor Natiónka! Is it surprising that I am sad to-night? Is it surprising that I am a revolutionist? One memento only I possess of her—the blue heart. See! here it is. Broken! An emblem of her own tragic end.” Vassilii handed me the two halves of the malachite ornament, which he had taken from a small, well-worn bag of chamois leather. I saw how costly the locket must have been when new, for the diamonds set around the edge were large and of the first water. When, after examining the broken portions, I handed them back to him, he sighed, and carefully replaced them in his pocket. Then rising, he wished me “Good-night” in a strained, harsh voice, and sought his room. Next day we continued our journey to Onega. CHAPTER XII. FALSE ZERO. A bright July evening, a white dusty Italian road, and a fugitive from justice mounted upon a stout pony, with an outfit consisting of a well-filled canvas valise and a revolver. The police were searching for me, and in consequence I had a few weeks before escaped from England, and set out upon a wandering journey eastward across Europe. I was in Emilia, lonely, tired, and dispirited, having left Piacenza at early morning and ridden on throughout the scorching day. It had, however, grown cooler, for which I was thankful. The wind had risen, blowing softly from mountain and from sea across the plains, through the pines of Pavia, and across the oak forests at the base of the Apennines. Now and then a puff of blue wood-smoke rose through the branches from charcoal-burners’ cabins; now and then some great magnolia flower shivered its rosy needles upon me as I passed beneath the trees; far away below the _Ave Maria_ was chiming from the church towers in the plain; above, low rain clouds, fretted and edged with amber, floated near the sun; over all the day was of that wondrous hue which is like the soft violet blue of the iris, and is clear yet mystical, as children’s eyes when they wake from dreams of angels. As I road slowly up the long mountain road, I was overtaken by a horseman, who, light-hearted and happy, was singing to himself staves of contadini choruses. He rode up beside me with a genial, “_Buona sera, signore_.”