Piotr recalled the evening that he met Trirodov on the river-bank. His sad but determined eyes suddenly flared up in Piotr’s memory--and the poison of his spite grew weaker. He seemed affected as by a strange bewitchment, as if some one persistently yet quietly urged him to believe that the ways of Trirodov were fair and clean. Piotr closed his eyes--and the radiant vision appeared before him of the semi-nude girls of the wood, who filed past him, and sanctified him by the serenity and the peace of their chaste eyes. Piotr sighed and said quietly, as if fatigued: “I have no cause to say these malicious words. Perhaps you are right. But it is so hard for me!” Nevertheless this conversation did much to soothe Piotr. Thoughts about Elena returned to him oftener and oftener, and became more and more tender. It so happened that, acting upon some unspoken yet understood agreement, every one tried to direct Piotr’s attention to Elena. Piotr submitted to this general influence, and was affectionate and gentle with Elena. Elena expectantly waited for his love; and at night, turning her blazing face and loosened locks in the direction of the nymph’s laughter, she would whisper: “I love you, I love you, I love you!” And when left alone with Piotr, she would look at him with love-frightened eyes, all rosy like the spring, and pulsating with expectancy; and with every sigh of her tender breast, and with all the life of her passionate body she would repeat the same unspoken words: “I love you, I love you, I love you.” And Piotr began to understand that he had met his fate in Elena, and that whether he willed it or not he would grow to love her. This presentiment of a new love was like a sweet gnawing in a heart wounded by treacherous love. CHAPTER XXVIII The local police department was not very skilful in tracking down thieves and murderers. And it did not occupy itself much with this ungrateful business. It had other things to think of in those turbulent days. Instead, it turned its ill-disposed attention to Trirodov’s educational colony--thanks to the efforts of Ostrov and his friends and patrons. The neighbourhood of Trirodov’s estate began to teem with detectives. They assumed various guises, and though they employed all their cunning to escape observation they did not succeed in fooling any one. Of limited intelligence, they fulfilled their duties without inspiration, tediously, greyly, and dully. Soon the children learned to recognize the detectives. Even at a distance they would say at the sight of a suspicious character: “There goes a detective!” Upon seeing him again they would say: “There goes our detective!” Of the uniformed police the first to make inquiries at Trirodov’s colony was a sergeant. He was fairly drunk It happened on the same day that Egorka returned home to his mother.