Suddenly a flood of tears gushed from his eyes, despite his attempting to stem it with the back of his hand. The gesture, as well as his expression and the convulsive quivering of his white lips, seemed to presage almost a fit of madness.

“I have already told you,” said Murin, with a frown, “that she is practically insane. Why so, and how? That is no affair of yours. Whatever she may be, I love her—I love her more than my life, and will give her up to no one. Now do you understand?”

A flash of light sprang to Ordynov’s eyes.

“What is it that makes me feel as though I were dead?” he cried. “What is it that makes my heart suffer so? Why was I ever fated to meet Katerina?”

“Ah, why?”

Murin smiled, but presently looked grave again.

“Why?” he went on. “How should I know? The heart of a woman is not exactly as deep as the sea. Some day you will learn that for yourself. It is true, sir, that at one time she had a mind to leave me for you. She misunderstood the old man, and thought that he had taken his fill of life. Possibly you pleased her at the outset, or possibly she wanted a change. However that may be, I cross her openly in nothing. Even if she were to cry for pigeon’s milk I should give it her. Yet, though she is proud, and wanting her freedom, she would not know what to do with it when she had got it. Consequently things are best as they are. Eh, sir! You are young, and have an over-warm heart. At this moment you look like a forsaken maiden as you stand there wiping your eyes on your sleeve. You have had no experience. You do not know that a feeble soul like her is incapable of looking after itself. Even if it be given everything, it will still return, in the end, to its owner. Even if it be given a kingdom, it will still home to your call. Never can it really act for itself. In the same way, give it its liberty, and it will forge for itself new chains. No; liberty is not for feeble souls. I tell you this because you are so young. What are you to me? Come to-day and gone to-morrow, what are you, or any other man, to me? Yet from the first I knew that this must happen—though it was no duty of mine to warn you, seeing that if one is ever to live happily with a woman one must not cross her, even by a single word. However,” went on Murin, with the air of a philosopher, “all that may be taken for granted. How, indeed, could things be otherwise? You yourself know that in a moment of rage a man may pick up a dagger. Again, a man may attack his enemy in his sleep, and bury his teeth in his throat. On the other hand, if some one puts a dagger into that man’s hand, or if that man’s enemy bares his throat of himself—well, then a man might recoil from such a deed.”