But with returning health and the retuning of her jangled nerves, Hope's outlook on life became to assume its normal aspect. Matters began to settle themselves into their proper places and to take their proper proportions. She saw that no one was to blame for what had happened, that the strange mischance which had cast her into Pavlof's keeping, while her husband wandered at large between Yeniseisk and London, was the outcome of no plot, but a valiant attempt to benefit her. She recovered her trust in herself and her faith in Paul Pavlof. She saw that Pavlof was right, and that the only thing possible to her was to wait patiently till they should hear from Serge. And she set herself bravely to adapt herself to the required conditions. And so it was with a certain equanimity that she one day received Madame Roskova's announcement that Marya Verskaïa was sick and had begged her to come and stop with her, and she was going on the morrow. "Da!" said Madame, when Hope raised no objection, but simply expressed her regret at Marya's illness. "So you are reconciled to him at last and don't mind my going! That is right and as it should be, and I am glad of it." "I am very, very grateful for all your kindness, Anna. I never can forget all you have done for me. But--as you say----" "Da, child! That is all right! I am rejoiced to think that all is right again between you. I have thought you a stone, for the lack is not on his part. He loves you as much as ever. He is on fire for you, and no wonder. I can hear it in his voice when he speaks to you, and see it in his eye when he looks at you. He just worships you, my dear. So be you good to him, for he is a man beyond most." And Hope knew it all and was troubled for him. For she knew that the fire would never break forth to her undoing. It might burn and burn till it consumed him, but the flame would never scorch her nor the smoke besmirch. "You will let me bring in some of the others now and then?" asked Madame Roskova, before she went next day. "They are all hungry to see you, and they will talk and talk and it will do none of you any harm now. It has been all I could do to keep them away. But now you are all right again----" "Surely, Anna! I shall be glad to see them now. While I was lying broken there it would have driven me crazy, but now I shall be glad." So Madame Roskova squeezed into a corner of the little hut up the valley with Marya Verskaïa and Dmitri Polokof, and sorely missed the wider atmosphere of the doctor's house. For Marya had a lively tongue, and her alleged sickness did not extend to it or in any way affect it, and ceaseless chatter becomes at times a weariness to the flesh, to say nothing of the soul.