Nadia was very anxious to see him. In her eyes, the man who had
undertaken such a difficult journey, to try and rescue his brother
from danger, was a chivalrous figure. She was disappointed to hear
that he had fallen sick--that too, she thought, was a sign of his
anxiety of mind respecting Felix.
The next news from the mines was that the Englishman was not merely
ill, but very ill indeed.
By this time the main features of the case, as regards the
conspiracy, had changed altogether. Cravatz was arrested, and Felix,
disguised as one of the Governor's police, had left the Castle, and
was reported safely arrived at Gretz. With Cravatz was arrested the
man who had posed as a Kirgiz, and who had sheltered him. This
disposed of all the suspected persons in the province, since Streloff
was dead. There was no longer any need to keep Mr. Vanston in
ignorance of the fact of his brother's safety.
The Governor rode over to Savlinsky, and when he saw the patient, ill
and shaken, his heart smote him for all the unnecessary strain of
mind which he imagined him to have undergone. In an impulse of
hospitality he begged him to come up with him to Nicolashof as his
guest, and allow his daughter and Miss Forester to do what they could
to counteract the ill-effects of their climate, and obliterate the
memory of the unhappy circumstances of his first coming to the
province.
The idea of going to a place where there would be an English lady was
delightful to Denzil, who was exceedingly sorry for himself. A
domestic man, and one used to a woman in the house, he had been
miserable with Vronsky, with whom he was not in sympathy; and dimly
conscious that this inferior person presumed so far as to think
anything but highly of himself.
He was so weak that he had to be carried to the carriage, and laid
down among the rugs and pillows. Thus he was driven swiftly across
the plain, into the birch-wood, and on through the pines to
Nicolashof.
In the higher air of the woodland place he awoke next morning feeling
strangely invigorated. After breakfast he arose, with the help of
the manservant detailed to wait upon him, and was helped downstairs,
out upon the terrace overlooking the lovely garden, one bower of
flowers and beauty.
There was something very familiar, even home-like, in the English
arrangement of this house. When he was seated upon a luxurious
lounge chair, there was a table at his elbow, with English books and
magazines upon it. Miss Forester had welcomed him upon his arrival
the previous evening, but they had had no talk. Nadia he had not
seen. In this place he felt as though he should soon recover. The
deadly depression, which had been largely nostalgia, though of this
he was not aware, was dispelled as if by magic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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