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.