The fire-light played on the face of the dead woman and lent it a ghostly semblance of life. The convict sat by the fire, buried in his thoughts. Perhaps he also would soon be somewhere in the forest or by the road-side like this woman. The thought was not a new one to him. How cold-bloodedly he had himself often engaged in a deadly affray with knives and turned his back on his fallen opponent without compunction. And yet he felt moved at the sight of this stranger woman, who lay there in such a pitiable way like an animal which has breathed its last. "It's a pity, a pity!" he growled to himself. [Illustration: "At the edge of the wood lay a dead woman, with a little living creature sobbing over her."] Anjuta approached the fire timidly and stared straight at him. Perhaps the rapidly increasing darkness alarmed her, for she came nearer, without his observing it; suddenly with her little hand she seized his finger and held it fast. "Well, little thing, what do you want?" he growled, involuntarily laying his free hand on her head. "What are we to do?" Anjuta raised her clear little eyes. For the first time a human being looked at him, the thief and murderer, trustfully. "It is all right, all right; don't worry!" he said half-embarrassed. And for the first time something strange came into his eyes and rolled in warm drops into his grey bristly beard. V Ivan the Runaway could not bury Anjuta's mother, for he had no spade. He contented himself with collecting twigs, pine-branches, and stones in order to cover the body of the poor tramp. The little girl at first wanted to hold his hands, but at his sharp rebuke she crept into a ditch and remained there crying bitterly, while he finished his work. "Well, why are you crying?" he asked at last to comfort her. "I am sad about mother." "Your mother is dead; she won't come back." "How can she be dead?" "Have you never seen any one die?" "Oh yes, Uncle Andron, whom God took to Himself." "Well, God has taken your mother to Himself. Perhaps He wanted her." "There was also the grey horse," said the child. "God took him too. When will He take me?" The old man looked long at the child, and something like pity stirred him. "For you it is still too early," he said gloomily. "But what shall I do without mother?" She again held his finger with her little hand. "Don't be afraid. I will stay with you. No one will touch you; I have a gun." The old man picked up two slender sticks and tied them together with a strip of birch-bark, so as to make a rude cross. "Now your mother's grave is finished. Make a prayer, Anjuta; then we will go." "I don't know how to pray; mother never taught me. I can only say, 'Give me a piece of bread for Jesus' sake.'" "Have you never been in church?" "No; mother and I--we always stood before the church door when people came out and cried, 'Good people, give us bread for Jesus' sake; we have eaten nothing for two days.'"