However, Nadia was obliged to make a halt of a few hours.
They both required food and rest.
The young girl led her companion to the extremity of the town.
There they found an empty house, the door wide open.
An old rickety wooden bench stood in the middle of the room,
near the high stove which is to be found in all Siberian houses.
They silently seated themselves.
Nadia gazed in her companion's face as she had never before gazed.
There was more than gratitude, more than pity, in that look.
Could Michael have seen her, he would have read in that sweet
desolate gaze a world of devotion and tenderness.
The eyelids of the blind man, made red by the heated blade,
fell half over his eyes. The pupils seemed to be singularly enlarged.
The rich blue of the iris was darker than formerly. The eyelashes
and eyebrows were partly burnt, but in appearance, at least,
the old penetrating look appeared to have undergone no change.
If he could no longer see, if his blindness was complete,
it was because the sensibility of the retina and optic nerve
was radically destroyed by the fierce heat of the steel.
Then Michael stretched out his hands.
"Are you there, Nadia?" he asked.
"Yes," replied the young girl; "I am close to you, and I will not go
away from you, Michael."
At his name, pronounced by Nadia for the first time, a thrill passed
through Michael's frame. He perceived that his companion knew all,
who he was.
"Nadia," replied he, "we must separate!"
"We separate? How so, Michael?"
"I must not be an obstacle to your journey! Your father is waiting
for you at Irkutsk! You must rejoin your father!"
"My father would curse me, Michael, were I to abandon you now,
after all you have done for me!"
"Nadia, Nadia," replied Michael, "you should think only of your father!"
"Michael," replied Nadia, "you have more need of me than my father.
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