"I see something has happened. Do you suppose I can be at peace,

knowing you have a trouble I am not sharing? Tell me, for God's

sake," he repeated imploringly.

"Yes, I shan't be able to forgive him if he does not realize all

the gravity of it. Better not tell; why put him to the proof?"

she thought, still staring at him in the same way, and feeling

the hand that held the leaf was trembling more and more.

"For God's sake!" he repeated, taking her hand.

"Shall I tell you?"

"Yes, yes, yes . . ."

"I'm with child," she said, softly and deliberately. The leaf in

her hand shook more violently, but she did not take her eyes off

him, watching how he would take it. He turned white, would have

said something, but stopped; he dropped her hand, and his head

sank on his breast. "Yes, he realizes all the gravity of it,"

she thought, and gratefully she pressed his hand.

But she was mistaken in thinking he realized the gravity of the

fact as she, a woman, realized it. On hearing it, he felt come

upon him with tenfold intensity that strange feeling of loathing

of someone. But at the same time, he felt that the turning-point

he had been longing for had come now; that it was impossible to

go on concealing things from her husband, and it was inevitable

in one way or another that they should soon put an end to their

unnatural position. But, besides that, her emotion physically

affected him in the same way. He looked at her with a look of

submissive tenderness, kissed her hand, got up, and, in silence,

paced up and down the terrace.

"Yes," he said, going up to her resolutely. "Neither you nor I

have looked on our relations as a passing amusement, and now our

fate is sealed. It is absolutely necessary to put an end"--he

looked round as he spoke--"to the deception in which we are

living."

"Put an end? How put an end, Alexey?" she said softly.

She was calmer now, and her face lighted up with a tender smile.

"Leave your husband and make our life one."

"It is one as it is," she answered, scarcely audibly.

"Yes, but altogether; altogether."

"But how, Alexey, tell me how?" she said in melancholy mockery at

the hopelessness of her own position. "Is there any way out of

such a position? Am I not the wife of my husband?"




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