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"That's the way out! That's the explanation," he decided,

scrutinising her with eager curiosity, with a new, strange,

almost morbid feeling. He gazed at that pale, thin, irregular,

angular little face, those soft blue eyes, which could flash with

such fire, such stern energy, that little body still shaking with

indignation and anger--and it all seemed to him more and more

strange, almost impossible. "She is a religious maniac!" he

repeated to himself.

There was a book lying on the chest of drawers. He had noticed it

every time he paced up and down the room. Now he took it up and

looked at it. It was the New Testament in the Russian

translation. It was bound in leather, old and worn.

"Where did you get that?" he called to her across the room.

She was still standing in the same place, three steps from the

table.

"It was brought me," she answered, as it were unwillingly, not

looking at him.

"Who brought it?"

"Lizaveta, I asked her for it."

"Lizaveta! strange!" he thought.