Zeneida, taking Bethsaba under her protecting wings, went off with her to Kreskowsky Island. In the gondola the young wife was very silent, and Zeneida purposely abstained from asking her how she had enjoyed herself. Even after the two women had divested themselves of their ball-dresses Bethsaba remained dreamy and melancholy. The chill of the river made hot tea a necessity before going to bed--in the paradise reclaimed from the marshes lurked ague. When they were alone together, wrapped in warm dressing-gowns and drinking their steaming tea, Bethsaba broke her melancholy meditations with: "But tell me then, is this, too, a part of religion?" "What?" "That a Christian wife, should another man choose to say to her, 'I am wretched, dying for love of you, I will shoot myself if you remain cruel to me,' be bound to turn her love from her husband, and give it to that other, that he may not be unhappy--may not be forced to misery and suicide." "And they have told you that such is a woman's duty?" "Yes. And if religion requires that woman's love should resemble that of St. Martin, who, when he met a shivering beggar, tore off half his mantle to give it him, I will return to my heathen belief, in which I am not required to distress myself about the welfare of any one but of my husband." "And all this was new to you?" "I could have cried outright when I heard it. I thought my eyes would be burned out of my head; I felt contaminated at listening to such words. The mere separation from Alexander had already made my heart as heavy as if I were mourning my dead; the very touch of another man's hand in the dance had pained me as if, in taking it, I were killing a dove; when I laughed my heart accused me as if I were committing a theft; and with the laugh came the thought, 'And he has nothing now to cheer him. He is sighing for me, he is lonely, while I am merry!' And all the time an evil curiosity was urging me on to hear more, to sound to the very depths the quagmire from which I was shrinking; and so I feigned to listen willingly." "In that you did well." "It would not have been good manners to run away, would it?" "You would simply have been lost. A woman should never let it be seen that a man's seductive arts terrify her; a demonstrative repulse makes her at once his prey. I was watching you--you behaved admirably. Your expression was that of a woman who does not understand what is being said to her, who takes it all as a joke; and by so doing you led him on to speak still more explicitly." "That is just what he did. Only think, impertinent fellow! He actually had the audacity to tell me that for love of me he had bought an estate but half a day's distance from Pleskow, where he means to be spending the winter and to be visiting us constantly. I was inclined to say, 'Oh, please, do not come!'" "You did well not to say it; rather you should have replied, 'Alexander Sergievitch will always be glad to see you.'"