"It is the deacon!" whispered the general's wife reassuringly.
Rita had hardly strength to nod assent. All the same, the healthy
snoring of a living man comforted her. Without moving from where
she stood, the maid tremblingly drew her woolen shawl closer about
her, trying to see the sofa on which the deacon lay.

Knitting her brows, and biting her lips till they were sore, Olga
Vseslavovna went forward determinedly to the bier. She thrust both
hands under the flowers on the pillow. The frill was untouched.
The satin of the cushion was there, but where was . . . ? Her
heart, that had been beating like a hammer, suddenly stopped and
stood still. There was not a trace of the will!

"Perhaps I have forgotten. Perhaps it was on the other side,"
thought Olga Vseslavovna, and went round to the left side of the
coffin.

No! It was not there, either! Where was it? Who could have taken
it? Suddenly her heart failed her utterly, and she clutched at the
edge of the coffin to keep herself from falling. It seemed to her
that under the stiff, pallid, rigidly clasped hands of the dead
general something gleamed white through the transparent muslin of
the covering, something like a piece of paper.

"Nonsense! Self-suggestion! It is impossible! Hallucination!"
The thought flashed through her tortured brain. She forced herself
to be calm, and to look again.

Yes! She had not been mistaken. The white corner of a folded