Getting back was worse. Twice they both went under. Twice the rope held, and the caretaker's son hung onto it with his heels dug into the mud, and Anna threw herself onto the rope behind him, and pulled until her hands burned. And then they were in the shallows. She was in the water up to her waist with hold of Stepan's collar, while the Duke pushed him from behind.
All three of them came up onto the grass together and fell there in a heap, gasping, soaked, alive. Stepan lay on his back, looking at the sky, and laughed and wept at the same time. The Duke knelt beside him with the water running out of his hair, and put her hand on the old soldier's chest, and kept it there, as though to make sure the heart went on beating. Anna knelt down on the other side of him. Her teeth were chattering so hard she could barely speak, but she made herself say it clearly out loud, looking straight at her husband.
I could not have reached him, she said. I tried and I could not. No one else in the world would have walked into that water for him. You did. You brought him out.
Her voice broke. Lawrence, you brought him out. The Duke looked at her across the old man's body. Then he reached out and touched her face very gently with a hand that was shaking with cold. And Stepan, lying between them on the wet grass, reached up and put a hand over each of theirs.
He said something in Russian that Anna did not translate and never would because it was not for anybody else. Stepan kept to his bed for three days and the Duke for two. The caretaker's wife went up and down the stairs between them with hot bricks, mustard baths, and a great deal of scolding. On the fourth evening, when the house was quiet, the Duke asked Anna to come to the library. She found him standing by the long window, with the sea going dark behind him.
She saw at once from the way he held himself that he had come to some decision in the night and did not like it. I have been thinking about our bargain. He said, "You married me to save your name and to carry Stepan's words to me. Your name is safe." The prince is forgotten and the words have been carried.
He did not look at her. You have done everything you promised and a great deal more. I will not hold you to a cold arrangement for the rest of your life. You may have a house of your own wherever you choose. Or if you wish, you may sail with Stepan in the summer.
You could see St. Petersburg again. You could find your nurse's grave. I would see to everything. You would owe me nothing. Anna heard him out from the middle of the carpet.