In the outer room Tanaroff breathed more freely. He had no regret that all was at end between himself and the man with whom for many years his life had been spent. “Look here!” said he to the servant as if, for form’s sake, it behoved him to speak, “I am now going. If anything should happen—well … you understand …” “Very good, sir,” replied the soldier, looking scared. “So now you know…. And see that the bandage is frequently changed.” He hurried down the steps, and, after closing the garden-gate, he drew a deep breath when he saw before him the broad, silent street. It was now nearly dark, and Tanaroff was glad that no one could notice his flushed face. “I may even be mixed up in this horrid affair myself,” he thought, and his heart sank as he approached the boulevard. “After all, what have I got to do with it?” Thus he sought to pacify himself, endeavouring to forget how Ivanoff had flung him aside with such force that he almost fell down. “Deuce take it! What a nasty business! It’s all that fool of a Sarudine! Why did he ever associate with such _canaille_?” The more he brooded over the whole unpleasantness of this incident, the more his commonplace figure, as he strutted along in his tightly- fitting breeches, smart boots, and white tunic, assumed a threatening aspect. In every passer-by he was ready to detect ridicule and scorn; indeed, at the slightest provocation he would have wildly drawn his sword. However, he met but few folk that, like furtive shadows, passed swiftly along the outskirts of the darkening boulevard. On reaching home he became somewhat calmer, and then he thought again of what Ivanoff had done. “Why didn’t I hit him? I ought to have given him one in the jaw. I might have used my sword. I had my revolver, too, in my pocket. I ought to have shot him like a dog. How came I to forget the revolver? Well, after all, perhaps it’s just as well that I didn’t. Suppose I had killed him? It would have been a matter for the police. One of those other fellows might have had a revolver, too! A pretty state of things, eh? At all events, nobody knows that I had a weapon on me, and by degrees, the whole thing will blow over.” Tanaroff looked cautiously round before he drew out his revolver and placed it in the table drawer. “I shall have to go to the colonel at once, and explain to him that I had nothing whatever to do with the matter,” he thought, as he locked the drawer. Then an irresistible impulse seized him to go to the officer’s mess, and, as an eye-witness, describe exactly what took place. The officers had already heard about the affair in the public gardens, and they hurried back to the brilliantly lighted mess-rooms to give vent in heated language to their indignation. They were really rather pleased at Sarudine’s discomfiture, since often enough his smartness and elegance in dress and demeanour had served to put them in the shade.