"We grew nearer to one another with every day that passed," he went on reminiscently, losing sight, in the opened flow of his own thoughts, of the fact that one man's joy may be, and often is, his neighbour's pain. "She had won me, heart and soul, to her work in spite of myself, Paul Ivanuitch. It was for her work's sake that she married me. She told me so, and I, like a fool, believed that in time I could wean her from it and have her all to myself. But it was all the other way. Since ever we were married I have had no other thought than what would please her most. I had come to see through her eyes. I had come to love the things she loved because she loved them. And now----" and he came to earth again with angry fist. "And she, Serge Petrovitch?" asked Pavlof quietly, and if Palma had glanced at his face he would have found it white and cold. "She had come to love you also?" "Surely," said Palma, with conviction. "A man may be mistaken about any other woman's feelings but never about his wife's, Paul Ivanuitch. Yes, she had come to love me, and our love was growing day by day." And the silence that fell on them now was gloomy only on Pavlof's part, for Hope's love evoked a glow in Palma's heart even in the bare recollection. And presently it came to him that their talk had been wholly of himself and his affairs. "And you, Paul Ivanuitch, why did they take you?" he asked. "I was working quietly among the poor, as Hope Ivanovna would have had me"--he could not forbear himself that trifling share in her--"and I had no thought of ill to any man. But they carried me off one night and my place knew me no more." Palma nodded. "And never said what for or why." "Yes. They gave me credit for an intention to place myself in a position of illegality. But no such intention was in me--that is, as I interpret the laws." "And where are you for?" "The provinces--five years. Minusinsk I'm assigned to." Palma nodded. "That is not so bad. Escape from the provinces is not difficult, they say, though it's none too easy to get back home. I was talking to a man who had been through it, as we came along on the barge. He got home all right, but he could not keep out of it, and now he's going to Kara with chains on his legs." "Yes, it generally ends that way, I believe. Which is your kazarm?" "Number eight. It was crammed to suffocation, they say, before we came in, and now there are twenty more of us. The days are bearable, but the nights are simply hell." "Simply hell. If Dante had slept for a week in a Siberian kamera he'd have had something more to write about." "And when do we go on? Do you know?" "I think we were only waiting for you. I saw them selecting a convoy guard this morning." "The sooner the better." That night, in his fetid corner under the over-loaded sleeping-bench, Paul Pavlof found it more impossible to sleep even than usual.