Ever since he had realized how simple and affectionate a soul the Russian was, he had been approaching nearer and nearer to the conviction that it would be best to confide in him. The appearance of the detective made him desperate. He literally must have somebody with whom to discuss the engrossing and difficult subject. To his relief, Vronsky, with the remark that a breath of air was what he wanted, willingly took down his hat from the peg, and together they sauntered through the quiet town, which already, though it was not much past nine o'clock, showed signs of going to bed. As they walked, Felix told him his whole story, from beginning to end. He told him his real name, and how, by a curious coincidence, the girl Rona was being befriended by his own people. He gave him the chronicle of his gradual drawing in to the toils of the Brotherhood--of his despair and attempted suicide; and of the fateful precipitation of Rona into the horizon of his landscape. Vronsky listened with a deep and absorbed interest. His mind was itself of so simple and romantic a turn, that he believed instinctively and without difficulty everything that Felix said, and thus went right where a much cleverer man might have blundered. He comprehended the temperament which would be likely to err as Felix had erred--he sympathized with it and understood it, as not one Englishman in a thousand could have done. With all his simplicity, he was a citizen of the world; and the jail stigma was nothing to him, the revolutionary tendencies less than nothing. Thus, in his experience, were most young, ardent, generous souls at such an age as that of Felix. As the recital went on his heart went out more and more towards the boy who had never been understood. He loved his eager voice, his quick sensitive moods, the candor with which he avowed that his worst fault was the cowardly attempt to turn his back upon his difficulties. But, the story told, there came the further question, What were the runaway boy and girl to do? Having heard the circumstances, Vronsky was as convinced as Felix that to cast Rona to the wolves was a thing not to be considered for a moment. But, the uncle was Rona's guardian. The only witness to his cruel intentions was a youth whose ticket-of-leave had just expired, and who was believed by the police to have made away with himself. Thus it was vital that young Vanston should leave England--should get clear away before the police left off assuming his death: and Rona could be saved only by a secret flight. Vronsky was wise enough to see that his own nationality was a complication of the difficulty.