"Thank you," said the Cossack. "You are not so bad as you look, Dumnoff.
Good-night." He was gone in a moment.

Dumnoff stared at the door through which he had disappeared.

"After all," he muttered, discontentedly, "he could not have taken it by
force. I wonder why I was such a fool as to give it to him!"

"I tell you," said Akulina to her husband as Schmidt passed through the
outer shop, "that he will end by costing us so much in money lent, and
squandered in charity, that the business will go to dust and feathers! I
am only a weak woman, Christian Gregorovitch, but I have four children--"

The Cossack heard no more, for he closed the street door behind him and
returned to Vjera's side. She was standing as he had left her, absorbed in
the contemplation of the financial crisis.

"Five more," said he, giving her the silver. "That is one half. Now for
the other. But are you quite sure, Vjera, that it is as bad as you think?
I know that Fischelowitz does not in the least expect the money."

"No--I daresay not. But I know this, if I had not met him just now and
promised to bring him the fifty marks, he would have been raving mad
before morning." Schmidt saw by her look that she was convinced of the
fact.

"Very well," he said. "I am not going to turn back now. The poor Count has
done me many a good turn in his time, and I will do my best, though I do
not exactly see what more I can do, at such short notice."