also setting the pieces, 'but to have you nearer me.'

I made no answer, but, without asking which should begin, moved a
pawn... Michel did not move in reply... I looked at him. His head was
stretched a little forward; pale all over, with imploring eyes he signed
towards my hand...

Whether I understood him... I don't remember, but something
instantaneously whirled into my head.... Hesitating, scarcely breathing,
I took up the knight and moved it right across the board. Michel bent
down swiftly, and catching my fingers with his lips, and pressing them
against the board, he began noiselessly and passionately kissing
them.... I had no power, I had no wish to draw them back; with my other
hand I hid my face, and tears, as I remember now, cold but blissful...
oh, what blissful tears!... dropped one by one on the table. Ah, I knew,
with my whole heart I felt at that moment, all that he was who held my
hand in his power! I knew that he was not a boy, carried away by a
momentary impulse, not a Don Juan, not a military Lovelace, but one of
the noblest, the best of men... and he loved me!

'Oh, my Susanna!' I heard Michel whisper, 'I will never make you shed
other tears than these.'

He was wrong... he did.

But what use is there in dwelling on such memories... especially,
especially now?

Michel and I swore to belong to each other. He knew that Semyon
Matveitch would never let him marry me, and he did not conceal it from