Razumov! The wonderful Razumov! He shall never be any use
as a spy on any one. He won't talk, because he will never hear anything
in his life--not a thing! I have burst the drums of his ears for him.
Oh, you may trust me. I know the trick. Ha! Ha! Ha! I know the trick."
V
It was nearly a fortnight after her mother's funeral that I saw Natalia
Haldin for the last time.
In those silent, sombre days the doors of the _appartement_ on the
Boulevard des Philosophes were closed to every one but myself. I believe
I was of some use, if only in this, that I alone was aware of the
incredible part of the situation. Miss Haldin nursed her mother alone
to the last moment. If Razumov's visit had anything to do with
Mrs. Haldin's end (and I cannot help thinking that it hastened it
considerably), it is because the man, trusted impulsively by the
ill-fated Victor Haldin, had failed to gain the confidence of Victor
Haldin's mother. What tale, precisely, he told her cannot be known--at
any rate, I do not know it--but to me she seemed to die from the shock
of an ultimate disappointment borne in silence. She had not believed
him. Perhaps she could not longer believe any one, and consequently had
nothing to say to any one--not even to her daughter. I suspect that Miss
Haldin lived the heaviest hours of her life by that silent death-bed.
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