When she reached the end of the avenue, by the ditch which divided the garden from the park, she stopped a moment to get her breath. Then she crossed the park, hurried through the bushes, past her favourite bench, and reached the precipice. She picked up her skirts for the descent, when suddenly, as if he had risen out of the ground, Raisky stood between her and her goal.
“Go back,” he said, offering his hand, but she tried to push past him. “Vera, where are you going?”
“It is for the last time.” she said in a pleading, shamed whisper. “I must say good-bye. Make way for me, Cousin! I will return in a moment. Wait for me here, on this bench.”
Without replying, he took her firmly by the hand, and she struggled in vain to free herself.
But he did not give way, and the struggle proceeded.
“You will not hold me by force,” she cried, and with unnatural strength freed herself, and sought to dash past him.
But he put his arm round her waist, took her to the bench, and sat down beside her.
“I cannot hold you back by force, Vera. I may be saving you from ruin.”
“It is against your will; yet you go to your ruin.”
“There is no question of ruin. We must see one another again in order to separate.”
“It is not necessary to see one another in order to separate.”
“I must, and will. An hour or a day later, it is all the same. You may call the servants, the whole town, a file of soldiers, but no power will keep me back.”
She pulled herself up, but was pressed down on the bench with the weight of Raisky’s hands. She shook her head wildly in powerless rage.
“What reward do you hope from me for this virtuous deed?” she hissed.
He said nothing, but kept a watchful eye on her movements. After a time she besought him gently: “Let me go, Cousin,” but he refused.
“Cousin,” she said, laying her hand gently on his shoulder. “Imagine that you sat upon hot coals, and were dying every minute of terror, and of wild impatience, that happiness rose before you, stretching out enticing arms, only to vanish, that your whole being rose to meet it; imagine that you saw before you a last hope, a last glimmer. That is how it is with me at this moment. The moment will be lost, and with it everything else.”
“Think, Vera, if in the hot thirst of fever you ask for ice, it is denied you. In your soberer moments yesterday you pointed out to me the practical means of rescue, you said I was not to let you go, and I will not.”