Vjera and her companion stopped on the other side of the street.

The sentinel paid no attention to them.
"You are quite sure it is there ?" asked the girl, under her breath.
Schmidt nodded instead of answering.
"Then I will pray that all may be well this night," she said.
She dropped the Cossack's arm and slipped away from him; then pausing at a little distance, in the deep shadow of an archway opposite the station, she knelt down upon the pavement, and taking some small object, which was indistinguishable in the darkness, from the bosom of her frock she clasped her hands together and looked upwards through the gloom at the black walls of the great building.

The Cossack looked at her in a sort of half-stupid, half-awed surprise, scarcely understanding what she was doing at first, and feeling his heart singularly touched when he realised that she was praying out here in the street, kneeling on the common pavement of the city, as though upon the marble floor of a church, and actually saying prayers--he could hear low sounds of earnest tone escaping from her lips--prayers for the man she loved, because he was shut up for the night in the police-station like an ordinary disturber of the peace.

He was touched, for the action, in its simplicity of faith, set in vibration the chords of a nature accustomed originally to simple things, simple hopes, simple beliefs.

Instinctively, as he watched her, Johann Schmidt raised his hat from his round head for a moment, and if he had possessed any nearer acquaintance with praying in general or with any prayer in particular it is almost certain that his lips would have moved.