She was quite insensible when they lifted her up. As soon as the order to march forward was given, they carried her to one of the rude carts, at the bottom of which she lay on a little straw, and Tatiania obtained permission to go with her. She was not quite conscious when they reached the étape in the evening. The family kamera was overcrowded as usual, and all they could do for Marfa was to lay her on the hard, bare planks of the sleeping-platform. All night did Khariton and Tatiania watch waking by their delirious child, able to do nothing for her, and only longing for the return of daylight. Fortunately the nights were short, and a dim dawn soon shone through the dirty casements of the étape. CHAPTER XX SERGIUS FOR the first time in his life, Sergius began to realise how much his sister Marfa was to him. She had always been so quiet and reserved, so passive, that she had seemed almost a cipher in the family. Tatiania, his mother, with her lively, impulsive temperament, and Clava, with her coaxing, merry ways, had nearly engrossed his own and his father's regard. None of them had paid much attention to Marfa, either in their home in Knishi or during the long journey which already separated them from it by many hundreds of miles. But Marfa was no cipher. She was a thoughtful, pensive girl, with very limited powers of putting her inmost thoughts into speech. Her mother was so fluent that she was reduced to silence; there was no need for her to speak. At home she had often done all the housework diligently and steadily, whilst her mother visited the neighbours, or read the Bible sitting close to the warm stove. It was taken for granted that Marfa liked work better than reading. A strong sense of duty possessed her, strengthened by a constant study of the little New Testament which her father had given to her as soon as she could read, and which she always carried in her pocket. Perhaps more than any other woman or girl among the exiled Stundists, Marfa understood why they were banished from their native country. What she suffered when she bade farewell to the home of her childhood, no one knew but herself. Not a murmur had escaped her quiet lips. Through the wretched railway journey, and the still more trying voyage for many days in the crowded convict-barge, she had not uttered a word of complaint. Often she had taken little Clava from her mother's arms, when Tatiania was moaning and praying alternately, and the girl of thirteen would nurse the child of seven until her young limbs grew stiff and ached with pain. The long and bitter winter preceding their exile, followed by the great strain upon her strength during the journey, had at length broken down her silent courage and endurance. The shock of emotion caused by passing the boundary, and witnessing the uncontrollable distress of the whole band of convicts and exiles, had been the last blow on her breaking heart.