XVII
THE letter ran thus:
"My Faithful Lyubu!
"I have fought for the Tzar. I have shed my blood more than once, and have therefore been made an officer and gained honourable rank. Now I have come on leave to recover from my wounds, and am staying in the inn of the Pushkarsky suburb, with the innkeeper. To-morrow I shall put on my decorations and crosses and appear before the Count, with all the money I was given to continue my cure: five hundred roubles, and I shall ask to be allowed to ransom you for myself, in the hope of being married at the altar of the Most High Creator."
"And then," continued Lyubov Onisimovna, with suppressed emotion, "he wrote: 'Whatever misery you have gone through, and whatever you may have had to submit to, I will look upon as your affliction, and not as sin, nor do I consider it as weakness, but leave it to God, and I have only feelings of respect for you.' It was signed Arkadie Il'ich."
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