"There is a veil over yesterday--I think I must have been ill--but I know what you did for me and--and--" he hesitated as though seeking an expression.
For a few seconds again the poor girl felt the agony of suspense she knew so well.
"I do not know what right a man so poor as I has to say such a thing, Vjera," he continued.

"But I love you, dear, and if you will take me, I will love you all my life, more and more.

Will it be harder to be poor together than each for ourselves, alone ?" Vjera let her head fall upon his shoulder, happy at last.

What did his madness matter now, since the one memory she craved had survived its destroying influence?
He had forgotten his glorious hopes, his imaginary wealth, his expected friends, but he had not forgotten her, nor his love for her.
"Thank God!" she sighed, and the happy tears fell from her eyes upon the breast of his threadbare coat.
"But we must not forget to work, dear," she said, a few moments later.
"No," he answered.

"We must not forget to work." As she sat down to her table he pushed her chair back for her, and put into her hands her little glass tube, and then he went and took his own place opposite.