"You know better, Hope Ivanovna," and he would strive to make that statement as colourless as possible. "Shall we ever hear?" she would ask. "God knows," and he thought of Barenin. They never got much further than that, and she remained there, waiting, waiting, waiting, for the news which never came--a captivity of the spirit, harder to bear in some respects than the thraldom of the mines, though here, indeed, redeeming features were not entirely lacking. But as time passed, and the absence of the promised word from Serge himself lent countenance to Barenin's news, Paul decided at last that she must be told. He was quite aware that the anxiously expected letter might even then be lying in the hands of the officials as a suspect, might have been there for months, might never be delivered. Such things were by no means uncommon. Many a perfectly innocent letter, full of homely tidings into which morbid officialism read things undreamt of by the writer, was never delivered at all, and many a heart sickened and died of starvation in consequence. He had a great fear, too, that this news of Barenin's, when she heard it, might bring about changes in their delicate relationship--changes which might not be for the better. It seemed to him, indeed, at times that matters could hardly be more trying for them than they were, and yet--there was no knowing. This word of Barenin's might be like the dropping of an acid into a delicate solution, resulting in spicules and facets, in the instant formation of frosty points and angles where, before, all was colourless quiescence and limpid clearness. For, after all, Hope Ivanovna was a woman, and, little as he knew of women and their ways, he had seen enough of late to know that they are unaccountable at times and not to be understood of men. She would regard him with different eyes. Would her glance be more kindly? Or would he find there, or imagine, new suspicions of himself and all his motives? She would understand, in part at all events, the coldness and aloofness to which he had schooled himself so rigorously. Would she ascribe it to fear on his own account or on hers? Would she after all understand that his coldness was meant in kindness--that if he had been over cold it had been through fear of being over kind? For while Serge lived--if Serge lived--he stood between them as inviolable as a law of God. But if Serge were indeed dead, then there was no law, of God or man, that could keep them apart--if both their hearts so willed it. No further news filtered through to them. Serge's promised letter never came; and at last he decided to tell her, and, having decided, still put off the telling from day to day in dread of the result. Then one night, as they sat in silence before the stove, he said abruptly, "You remember Mikhail Barenin?" "Surely," she said quickly, and gazed at him hungrily. It was a link with the past. It might mean news. "He is here--in the prison."