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210 however, I saw her eyes still fixed on me, and laid down my knife.

"I can't help it," I said, "I want to know about Feodor Himkoff."

"There's no secret," she answered. "Leastways, there was one, but either God has condemned or forgiven afore now. Look at my man there; he's done all the repentin' he's likely to do."

After a few seconds' hesitation she went on— "I had a boy, you must know—oh! a straight young man—that went for a soldier, an' was killed at Inkerman by the Rooshians. Take another look at his father here; you think 'en a bundle o' frailties, I dessay. Well, when the news was brought us, this poor old worm lifts his fist up to the sun an' says, 'God do so to me an' more also,' e says, 'if ever I falls across a Rooshian!' An' 'God send me a Rooshian—just one!' he says, meanin' that Rooshians don't grow on brambles hereabouts. Now the boy was our only flesh.

"Well, sir, nigh sixteen year' went by, an' we two were sittin', one quakin' night, beside this