"Yes--you would enjoy it." He waited, then added: "I must be walking back now. I'm late!" And he turned away to the house. CHAPTER VII ONE NIGHT Marie Ivanovna herself spoke to me of Semyonov. She found me alone waiting for my morning tea. We were before the others, and could hear, in the next room, Molozov splashing water about the floor and crying to Michail, his servant, to pour "_Yestsho! Yestsho!" "Yestsho! Yestsho!_"--"Still more! Still more," over his head. She stood in the doorway looking as though she hated my presence. "The others have not arrived," I said. "It's late to-day." "I can see," she answered. "Every one is idle now." Then her voice changed. She came across to me. We talked of unimportant things for a while. Then she said: "I'm very happy, Mr. Durward.... Be kind about it. Alexei Petrovitch and I...." She hesitated. I looked at her and saw that she was again the young and helpless girl whom I had not seen since that early morning before our first battle. I said, very lamely, "If you are happy, Marie Ivanovna, I am glad." "You think it terrible of me," she said swiftly. "And why do you all talk of being happy? What does _that_ matter? But I can trust him. He's strong and afraid of nothing." I could say nothing. "Of course you think me very bad--that I have treated --John--shamefully--yes?... I will not defend myself to you. What is there to defend? John and I could never have lived together, _never_. You yourself must see that." "It does not matter what I think," I answered. "I am Trenchard's friend, and he has no knowledge of life nor human nature. He has made a bad start. You must forgive me if I think more of him than of you, Marie Ivanovna." "Yes," she said fiercely. "It is John--John--John, you all think of. But John would not have loved me if he knew me as I truly am. And now, at last, I can be myself. It does not matter to Alexei Petrovitch what I am." "But you have known him so short a time--and you have been so quick. If you had waited...." "Waited!" she caught me up. "Waited! How can one wait when one isn't allowed to wait? It must be finished here, at once, and I'm not going to finish alone. I'm frightened, Mr. Durward, but also I must see it right through. He makes me brave. He's afraid of nothing. I couldn't leave this, and yet I was frightened to go on alone. With him beside me I'm not afraid." Anna Petrovna interrupted us. "It's Goga's stomach again," she said placidly. "He's had great pain all night. It was those sweets yesterday. Just give me that glass, my dear. Weak tea's the only thing he can have." Well, I had said nothing to Marie Ivanovna. What was there I could have said?