How much money had he? Enough to keep them for some weeks. He could communicate secretly with Vronsky, and tell him where they were, and as soon as Denzil had departed bring her back to Savlinsky. That was surely the true way to cut the knot. Let him have courage, and take what was his own. He breathed fast and with difficulty. "Rona!" he said, in a whisper. She started from her own sad, absorbed meditations. She turned her eyes to him, with a dumb appeal in them for mercy. There was something so sorrowful in the look that it acted like fire upon his senses. "I can't--I can't!" he said, under his breath. "It's too hard. I can't let you go. I shall tell him to turn the horses, and we will go away--together." She looked at him, all the blood in her body rushing to her heart. They were sitting side by side, but not close together. Now her body seemed to lean towards him; her eyes were alight, her lips parted slightly. But a look of mortal fear clouded the eagerness of her sweet face. She raised her hands with a pitiful gesture of entreaty. "Oh, hush, don't! No, Felix, no, I trust you. You can't----" She broke off with a gulping sob, snatching her handkerchief to her mouth lest the driver should hear, and turn his keen black eyes upon her weakness and misery. But the driver was gazing along the road ahead, his eyes shaded. Something had attracted his attention. Felix was too absorbed to notice. He did not speak, but he leant towards her, one clenched hand upon the seat between them, and relentlessly held her eyes with his own. His teeth were set. He knew she could not hold out for long if he set his will upon it. "You said," she voiced, almost inaudibly--"you said--that I might trust you." "Yes," he answered, in the same tone. "Will you? Trust me altogether? For always?" The driver dropped his hand, and, making a violent motion along the road, pointed, shouting something in an excited way. The movement, the unexpected shout, snapped the hypnotizing influence. Rona, startled, uttered a low cry. Felix gazed ahead as the driver bade him, and saw a mounted man approaching. Even at that distance he was able to recognize Vronsky's ungraceful form. His moment was over. He let his head drop upon his breast, defeated. Vronsky came on, feeling very shy. Two English ladies were under that hood, and he hardly knew how to meet them. He felt so severely himself towards Denzil, towards his selfish cowardice in sending for his womenkind to undertake so fatiguing a journey, that his attitude was one of abject apology. Then, as he drew nearer, he saw a handkerchief waved. The povosska drew up, and his own adored Felix leaped lightly to earth and ran forward. Vronsky leant down from his saddle, caught his boy about the neck, and showered kisses upon the top of his head, quite unashamed of the possible amusement of the spectators.