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RUDIN ‘No, but it’s time.’

‘Repeat, then, at least once more.’

‘You say you are happy?’ asked Natalya.

‘I? No man in the world is happier than I am! Can you doubt it?’

Natalya lifted up her head. Very beautiful was her pale, noble, young face, transformed by passion, in the mysterious shadows of the arbour, in the faint light reflected from the evening sky.

‘I tell you then,’ she said, ‘I will be yours.’

‘Oh, my God!’ cried Rudin.

But Natalya made her escape, and was gone.

Rudin stood still a little while, then walked slowly out of the arbour. The moon threw a light on his face; there was a smile on his lips.

‘I am happy,’ he uttered in a half whisper. ‘Yes, I am happy,’ he repeated, as though he wanted to convince himself.

He straightened his tall figure, shook back his locks, and walked quickly into the garden, with a happy gesture of his hands.

Meanwhile the bushes of the lilac arbour 147