Why with the regard, the voice, the air of Sabran had some vague intangible remembrance always come before him?'
Why, as he had gazed on the sleeping child had the vague uncertainty suddenly resolved itself into distinct revelation?
'He is Vassia Kazán! He is Vassia Kazán!' he said to himself a score of times stupidly, persistently, as one speaks in a dream. Yet he knew he must be a prey to delusion, to phantasy, to accidental resemblance. He told himself so. He resisted his own folly, and all the while a subtler inner consciousness seemed to be speaking in him, and saying to him:
'That man is Vassia Kazán. Surely he is Vassia Kazán.'
And then the loyal soul of him strengthened itself and made him think:
'Even if he be Vassia Kazán he is her husband. He is what she loves; he is the father of those children that are hers.'
He never went to his bed that night. When the music ceased at an hour before dawn, and the great house grew silent, he still sat there by the open casement, glad of the cold air that blew in from over the Szalrassee, as with daybreak a fine film of rain began to come down the mountain sides.
Once he heard the voice of Sabran, who passed the door on his way to his own apartment. Sabran was saying in German with a little laugh:
'My lady!' I am jealous of your crown prince. When I left him now in his chamber I was disposed to immortalise myself by regicide. He adores you!'
Then he heard Wanda laugh in answer, with some words that did not reach his ear as they passed on further down the corridor. Vàsàrhely shivered, and instinctively rose to his feet. He felt as if he must seek him out and cry out to him:
'Am I mad or is it true? Let me see your shoulder--have you the mark of the wound that I gave? Your little child has the face of Vassia Kazán. Are you Vassia Kazán? Are you the bastard of Zabaroff? Are you the wolf of the steppes?'
He had desired to go from Hohenszalras, where every hour was pain to him, but now he felt an irresistible fascination in the vicinity of Sabran. His mind was in that dual state which at once rejects a fact as incredible, and believes in it absolutely. His reason told him that his suspicion was a folly; his instinct told him that it was a truth.