In the summer they moved to their house in Finland and I went to stay with them.

But it was not until her return to Petrograd in September that I told her that I loved her.

Upon one of the first autumn days, upon an evening, when the little green tree outside their door was gold and there was a slip of an apricot moon, when the first fires were lighted (Andrey Vassilievitch had English fireplaces), sitting alone together in her little faded old-fashioned room, I told her that I loved her.

She listened very quietly as I talked, her eyes on my face, grave, sad perhaps, and yet humorous, secure in her own settled life but sharing also in the life of others.

She watched me rather as a mother watches her child....