Paul Pavlof she had long known in the schools. She had also been on terms of closest friendship with his mother, Elizabeth Pavlovna, one of those sweet, saintly souls which every land and every creed produces, and Paul, in his highmindedness and abstraction from the lower things, was very like her, as he was like her in the face and eyes. His aim in life and Hope's were identical, but he was poorer even than she. His father was a proprietor possessed of no business aptitude. When he died, what remained after the Jews were satisfied was just about sufficient to keep Paul's soul and body together during his University career, and no more. He was a quiet, thoughtful fellow, student still, and teacher in his spare moments of those same wakening ideas which animated Hope Arskaïa. Their common interests and common dangers--for it is dangerous in Russia to think of things as they ought to be, and still more dangerous to speak of them--these things had drawn them very close together. So close that Pavlof had even dared to dream of a closer union still. He had told himself a hundred times that it was only a dream, and yet he would not banish it, for it was the radiance and glory of his life, the dash of colour in the grey, without which a man's life flies low on sombre wings. Then Serge Palma came upon the scene. He was the only son of Peter Palma, of Odessa--Prince Peter, by descent from a former petty ruling family, just as Paul Pavlof, if he had chosen, could have claimed a similar title, but wisely forbore. Prince Peter, however, finding, like Pavlof's father, that his rentals were decreasing year by year, had gone into the grain business and had amassed a fortune in it. He died, and his son Serge was enjoying the fruits of his labours, scattering what he had not gathered, dispensing with free hand that which had cost him nothing to procure. He met Hope Arskaïa first at the house of Kataya Barenina, whose brother Mikhail was one of his many friends. The girl's remarkable combination of beauty and high intelligence and intense earnestness had made a great impression on him. With wide-open eyes to possible consequences--for Peter Palma's son was no fool--he pursued the acquaintance to its ultimate issue, and now he had asked her to share his life, and she, for sake of what she held more highly than any earthly happiness, had consented--on condition that he also shared hers. CHAPTER II HOW ONE WENT FORTH ALONE