self--or did you not reckon
upon obstacles? I am ashamed to speak of this--but I see it is all over
now.'

'You must be calm, Natalya Alexyevna,' Rudin was beginning; 'we must
think together what means----'

'You have so often talked of self-sacrifice,' she broke in, 'but do you
know, if you had said to me to-day at once, "I love you, but I cannot
marry you, I will not answer for the future, give me your hand and come
with me"--do you know, I would have come with you; do you know, I would
have risked everything? But there's all the difference between word and
deed, and you were afraid now, just as you were afraid the day before
yesterday at dinner of Volintsev.'

The colour rushed to Rudin's face. Natalya's unexpected energy had
astounded him; but her last words wounded his vanity.

'You are too angry now, Natalya Alexyevna,' he began; 'you cannot
realise how bitterly you wound me. I hope that in time you will do
me justice; you will understand what it has cost me to renounce the
happiness which you have said yourself would have laid upon me no
obligations. Your peace is dearer to me than anything in the world,
and I should have been the basest of men, if I could have taken
advantage----'

'Perhaps, perhaps,' interrupted Natalya, 'perhaps you are right; I don't
know what I am saying. But up to this time I believed in you, believed
in every word you said.... For the future, pray keep a watch upon your
words, do not fling them about at hazard. When I said to you, "I love
you," I knew what that word meant; I was ready for everything.... Now I
have only to thank you for a lesson--and to say good-bye.'

'Stop, for God's sake, Natalya Alexyevna, I beseech you. I do not
deserve your contempt, I swear to you. Put yourself in my position. I am
responsible for you and for myself. If I did not love you with the most
devoted love--why, good God! I should have at once proposed you should
run away with me.... Sooner or later your mother would forgive us--and
then... But before thinking of my own happiness----'

He stopped. Natalya's eyes fastened directly upon him put him to
confusion.

'You try to prove to me that you are an honourable man, Dmitri
Nikolaitch,' she said. 'I do not doubt that. You are not capable of
acting from calculation; but did I want to be convinced of that? did I
come here for that?'

'I did not expect, Natalya Alexyevna----'

'Ah! you have said it at last! Yes, you did not expect all this--you did