But Marfa was suffering in silence more than any of them suspected. She had spent the winter indoors with her mother, who would not let her out of her sight, and this confinement had sapped her strength before she set out on this sorrowful journey. The scenes she had passed through, of which she had formed even less idea than Michael and Sergius, had given her a more severe mental shock than they had felt. Everything had revolted her. But above all, the infamous and abandoned men and women with whom she had been brought into close contact were insufferably loathsome to her. She felt herself in a hellish atmosphere, amid a band of monsters, from whom she could not escape. Her mind as well as her body was ailing. Though she was not separated from her family, an indescribable home-sickness took possession of her. She longed with a hopeless longing to see once more her old home at Knishi. Marfa kept her grief, which was gnawing at her heart, to herself. But the home-sickness grew greater as every day took her farther away from her birthplace. They had not yet passed the boundary which separates Russia from Siberia. The exiles were still in their native land. But presently they reached the frontier. A midday halt was called around a square stone pillar, about twice the height of a man, on one side of which lay Russia, and on the other Siberia. It was half-way between the last Russian étape and the first Siberian one; and the cavalcade, with its convoy-guard, its chained prisoners, its carts laden with children and invalids, and its families of free exiles, rested for a short time at this place of farewell. The midday halt was usually a time of relief and comparative enjoyment. But to-day there was a universal outburst of grief. Even the most brutal and most stupid of the criminals wept at the thought of quitting Russia—their fatherland. Scarcely one among them had ever trodden a foreign soil. Most of the women knelt down, with sobs and prayers. The Stundists stood bareheaded, looking away from the boundary posts to the western land, and taking a last submissive gaze at the dear country they were leaving for conscience' sake. Michael and Sergius, linked arm in arm, leaned sorrowfully against the pillar. Suddenly a wild shriek rang through the sobs and groans of the crowd, and looking round they saw Marfa falling forward against the foot of the pillar, close to the spot where they were standing.