Such a jolt had the mind of Felix Vanston received that day. The brusque irruption of Streloff into the sleeping-room of Vronsky at the moment when the fatal papers were being dealt with was like the flash of the bull's-eye of a dark lantern. Cravatz was on the watch. It was not so much the presence of the spy in the place which disturbed him. It was practically certain that Cravatz must be keeping him under observation. But Streloff's action of that day seemed to suggest the fact that Vronsky's own movements against Cravatz were known to the enemy. And this was serious. Ever since the deadly message first came to Felix, Vronsky had been at work. Acting upon secret information which had come to him, he had been busily, privately, with the aid of the first detectives in Gretz, in Petropavlosk, in St. Petersburg, tracking down Cravatz to his just end. And now the threads of the case were all in his hands. In Felix's pocket lay the complete indictment. Acting upon the Governor's order, Cravatz could be at once arrested. The young man had a moment of triumph in thinking that for the time he had outwitted the enemy. Streloff the spy was shut up in Vronsky's room, in charge of the vast and formidable Hutin; and Felix, the papers safely in his coat, was entering the cool, dim hall at Nicolashof, where the abundant flowers, the Persian rugs, the elegant furniture, showed traces of the English influence of Miss Forester. "The ladies are in the garden," said the old man-servant who opened the door. "Thank you, Petro Petrovitch," said Felix. "But first, please ask the Governor to give me ten minutes in his library." He was shown into the big comfortable room, which overlooked a beautiful garden. Its walls were decorated with the antlers and wolf-skins and wild-boar tusks which Stepan Stepanovitch had secured as the spoils of his rifle. On the writing-table, where the father's eye could always rest upon it, stood a panel portrait of a beautiful young girl--Nadia Stepanovna, as she appeared when she made her first bow to the Czar at Court. Felix stood where he could see the photograph, and gazed upon it while he waited. It was a vivid face, truly Russian in its intensity. The great eyes seemed to hold almost too much expression: a woman who would both love and hate with passionate fervor, to whom the sober tenor of existence which comes natural to English girls would be a thing impossible. This was the second summer in which she and Felix had seen one another constantly. But there was an image upon the young man's heart which Nadia's had by no means availed to shake. Though his feeling rested upon so small a basis of actuality--though the hours he had spent in the society of Rona were hardly more than the years of his life in number--he yet was hers, body and soul. You cannot pour wine, however fine the vintage, into a vessel already full.