I felt sincere sorrow for the grief and consternation I had so evidently and so naturally excited, and I greatly feared that the hostility of the elder lady, Madame Tolstoff, might yet work me some mischief; though I knew not in what relation she could stand to Volhonski, who, at Hamburg, had distinctly said that his sister Valerie was the only one he had in the world. While I sat silently listening, and not without an emotion of guiltiness in my heart, to their sobs and exclamations of woe, uttered singly and together, the rapid clatter of hoofs, partially muffled by the snow, was heard without; bells sounded and doors were banged; and then Ivan Yourivitch, his old wrinkled face full of excitement and importance, entered the room unsummoned. My heart for a moment stood still. "What fresh evil tidings," thought I, "does this old Muscovite bring us now?" CHAPTER XLVI.--DELILAH. Even while Ivan Yourivitch was conferring with his startled mistress, I saw a tall figure in Russian uniform--the eternal long gray greatcoat--appear at the room door, and I was instinctively glancing round for some weapon wherewith to defend me, when to my astonishment Volhonski entered, somewhat splashed with mud, certainly, and powdered with snow, but whole and well, without a wound, and with a cry of joy Valerie threw herself into his arms. Wholly occupied by his beautiful sister, to whom he was tenderly attached, fully a minute elapsed before he turned to address Madame Tolstoff and then me. Was it selfishness, was it humanity, was it friendship, or what was the sentiment that inspired me, and caused so much of genuine joy to see Volhonski appear safe and untouched?--I, who from the trenches had been daily wont to watch with grim satisfaction the murderous "potting" of the Ruskies from the rifle-pits, and literal showers of legs, arms, and other fragments of poor humanity, by their appearance in the air, respond to the explosion of a well-directed shell! He now turned to me with astonishment on recognising my face in that place, and with the uniform of the Rifle Militia. "By what strange caprice or whirligig of fortune do I find you here?" he exclaimed, as he took my hand, but certainly with a somewhat dubious expression of eye; "you have not come over to us, I hope, as some of our Poles have lately gone to you?" "No," I replied, almost laughing at the idea. "Don't mistake me; I came here as a fugitive, glad to escape you and your confounded Cossacks; but I thank God, Volhonski, that you eluded my pistol on the cliffs yonder." "Then it was _you_, Captain Hardinge, whom I followed so fast and so far from that khan on the Kokoz road? By St. George, my friend, but you were well mounted! In our skirmish one of your balls cut my left shoulder-strap, as you may see; the other shred away my horse's ear on the off side, making him swerve round so madly that he threw me--that was all. You, however, fell into the sea--"