one would suspect." 

 "Really, my dear Madame!" 

 Velasco yawned behind his palm.  "What you say is simply absurd. I tell you I have no wife." 

 She stretched out her hands to him: "You are a Pole, a Pole!"  Her voice rose passionately.  "Surely you have suffered; you hate Russia, this cruel, wicked, tyrannous government. Your sympathy is with us, the people, the Liberals, who are trying—oh, I tell you—I must go, at once! After tomorrow it is death, don't you understand,—death? What is it to you, the matter of another passport? You are Velasco?—Every one knows that name, every one. Your wife goes with you to Germany. Oh, take me—take me—I beseech you." 

 The Violinist stared down at the hooded face. Her voice was tense and vibrating like the tones of an instrument. It moved him strangely. He felt a curious numbness in his throat and a wave passed over him like a chill. She went on, her hands wrung together under the cloak: 

 "It isn't much I ask. The journey together—at the frontier we part—part forever. The marriage, oh listen—that is nothing, a ceremony, a farce, just a certificate to show the police—the police—" 

 Her voice died away in a whisper, broken, panting. She fell back against the door, bracing herself against it, gazing up into his eyes. 

 Velasco stood motionless for a moment; then he turned on his heel and strode over to the fire-place, staring down into the coals. The sight of that bent and shrinking figure, a woman, old and feeble, trembling like a creature hunted, unmanned him. 

 "I can't do it," he said slowly, "Don't ask me. I am a musician. I have no interest in politics. There is too much risk. I can't, Madame, I can't." 

 He felt her coming towards him. The flutter of her cloak, it touched him, and her step was light, like a bird limping. 

 "You read it?" she whispered, "I saw you at the Mariínski; and there—there are the violets on the table, by the violin. Have you forgotten?" 

 Velasco started: "Who are you?" he exclaimed.  "Not Kaya!"  He wheeled around and faced her savagely: "You Kaya, never! Was it you who threw the violets—you?" 

 His dark eyes measured the shrinking form, bent and crippled, shrouded; and he cried out in his disappointment like a peevish boy: "I 

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