"Why, you remember before you went away?... Well, she says you are to forget all that....

She says: 'I shall love him always, but let him be free.

' Isn't that lovely and noble! Yes, very noble? Isn't it?" asked Natasha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that what she was now saying she had talked of before, with tears.

Rostov became thoughtful.

"I never go back on my word," he said.