CHAPTER XXVI


Of course as the days went by the sparkle of Paul's joy subsided. An
infinite unrest took its place--a continual mad desire for further
news. Supposing she were ill, his darling one? Many times a day he read her
words; the pencil writing was certainly feeble and shaky--supposing--But he
refused to face any terrible picture. The letter had come on the 2d of
March; his son had been eleven days old then--two days and a half to
Vienna--that brought it to eight when the letter was posted--and from
whence had it come there? If he allowed two days more, say--she must have
written it only five or six days after the baby's birth.

Paul knew very little about such things, though he understood vaguely that
a woman might possibly be very ill even after then. But surely, if so, Anna
or Dmitry would have told him on their own initiative. This thought
comforted him a little, but still anxiety--like a sleuth-hound--pursued his
every moment. He would not leave home--London saw him not even for a day.
Some word might come in his absence, some message or summons to go to her,
and he would not chance being out of its reach. More than ever all their
three weeks of happiness was lived over again--every word she had said had
sunk for ever in his memory. And away in his solitary walks, or his rides
home from hunting in the dusk of the afternoon, he let them echo in his
heart.

But the desire to be near her was growing an obsession.

Some days when a wild gallop had made his blood run, triumphant thoughts
of his son would come to him. How he should love to teach him to sit a