As it was,
he felt sorry for Vjera, he hoped that the Count would be none the worse
for his adventure, and he took off his hat. Let it be counted to him for
righteousness.
As for poor Vjera herself, she was so much in earnest that she altogether
forgot where she was. For love, it has been found, is a great suggester of
prayer, if not of meditation, and when the beloved one is in danger a
little faith seems magnified to such dimensions as would certainly accept
unhesitatingly a whole mountain of dogmas. Vjera's ideas were indeed
confused, and she would have found it hard to define the result which she
so confidently expected. But if that result were to be in any proportion
to her earnestness of purpose and sincerity of heart, it could not take a
less imposing shape than a direct intervention of Providence, at the very
least; and as the poor Polish girl rose from her knees she would hardly
have been surprised to see the green-coated sentinel thrust aside by
legions of angelic beings, hastening to restore to her the only treasure
her humble life knew of, or dreamed of, or cared for.
But as the visions which her prayers had called before her faded away into
the night, she saw again the dingy walls of the hated building, the gilt
spike on the helmet of the policeman and the shining blade that caught the
light as he moved on his beat. For one moment Vjera stood quite still.
Then with a passionate gesture she stretched out both arms before her, as
though to draw out to herself, by sheer strength of longing, the man whose
life she felt to be her own--and at last, wearied and exhausted, but no
longer despairing altogether, she covered her face with her hands and
repeated again and again the two words which made up the burden of her
supplication.
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