'Come, come; let me in!' Shubin responded by a pretended snore.

Bersenyev shrugged his shoulders and turned homewards.

The night was warm and seemed strangely still, as though everything
were listening and expectant; and Bersenyev, enfolded in the still
darkness, stopped involuntarily; and he, too, listened expectant. On
the tree-tops near there was a faint stir, like the rustle of a
woman's dress, awaking in him a feeling half-sweet, half-painful, a
feeling almost of fright. He felt a tingling in his cheeks, his eyes
were chill with momentary tears; he would have liked to move quite
noiselessly, to steal along in secret. A cross gust of wind blew
suddenly on him; he almost shuddered, and his heart stood still; a
drowsy beetle fell off a twig and dropped with a thud on the path;
Bersenyev uttered a subdued 'Ah!' and again stopped. But he began
to think of Elena, and all these passing sensations vanished at once;
there remained only the reviving sense of the night freshness, of the
walk by night; his whole soul was absorbed by the image of the young
girl. Bersenyev walked with bent head, recalling her words, her
questions. He fancied he heard the tramp of quick steps behind. He
listened: some one was running, some one was overtaking him; he
heard panting, and suddenly from a black circle of shadow cast by a
huge tree Shubin sprang out before him, quite pale in the light of the
moon, with no cap on his disordered curls.

'I am glad you came along this path,' he said with an effort. 'I
should not have slept all night, if I had not overtaken you. Give me
your hand. Are you going home?'

'Yes.'