said in despair to Semyon.

"The devil must have led us astray, sir," answered the distracted servant. "It's not natural ... there's mischief at the bottom of it!"

I would have checked him but at that instant my ear caught a sound, distinct but not loud, that engrossed my whole attention. There was a faint "pop" as though someone had drawn a stiff cork from a narrow bottle-neck. The sound came from somewhere not far off. Why the sound seemed to me strange and peculiar I could not say, but at once I went towards it.

Semyon followed me. Within a few minutes something tall and broad loomed in the fog.

"The copse! here is the copse!" Semyon cried, delighted. "Yes, here ... and there is the master sitting under the birch-tree.... There he is, sitting where I left him. That's he, surely enough!"

I looked intently. A man really was sitting with his back towards us, awkwardly huddled up under the birch-tree. I hurriedly approached and recognised Tyeglev's great-coat, recognised his figure, his head bowed on his breast. "Tyeglev!" I cried ... but he did not answer.

"Tyeglev!" I repeated, and laid my hand on his shoulder. Then he suddenly lurched forward, quickly and obediently, as though he were waiting for my touch, and fell onto the grass. Semyon and I raised him at once and turned him face upwards. It was not pale, but was lifeless and motionless; his clenched teeth gleamed white--and his eyes, motionless, too, and wide open, kept their habitual, drowsy and "different" look.

"Good God!" Semyon said suddenly and showed me his hand stained crimson with blood.... The blood was coming from under Tyeglev's great-coat, from the left side of his chest.

He had shot himself from a small, single-barreled pistol which was lying beside him. The faint pop I had heard was the sound made by the fatal shot.

XVII

Tyeglev's suicide did not surprise his comrades very much. I have told you already that, according to their ideas, as a "fatal" man he was bound to do something extraordinary, though perhaps they had not expected that from him. In the letter to the colonel he asked him, in the first place, to have the name of Ilya Tyeglev removed from the list of officers, as he had died by his own act, adding that in his cash-box there would be found more than sufficient money to pay his 

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