And she told him the plan she had devised during the night. It was this: Migoúrski was to go away one evening and leave his overcoat on the banks of the Urál, and with it a letter saying he was going to take his life. It would be supposed that he had drowned himself. He would be searched for, and then the fact would be notified. But in reality he would be hidden. She would hide him so that no one would find him. It would be possible to live like that for a month, say, and when all had blown over, they would escape.

At first Migoúrski thought her scheme impracticable; but towards evening, after her passionate and confident persuading, he began to agree with her. He was the more inclined to do so because the punishment for an unsuccessful attempt to desert⁠—such punishment as Rosolówski had described⁠—would fall on him; while success would set her free, and he knew how hard life there had become for her since the children died.