earable
for me now!... but the thought of my daughter, my little Ada, stopped
me. She is here, she is asleep in the next room, the poor child! She is
tired--you shall see her; she at least has done you no wrong, and I am
so unhappy, so unhappy!" cried Madame Lavretsky, and she melted into
tears.

Lavretsky came to himself at last; he moved away from the wall and
turned towards the door.

"You are going?" cried his wife in a voice of despair. "Oh, this is
cruel! Without uttering one word to me, not even a reproach. This
contempt will kill me, it is terrible!"

Lavretsky stood still.

"What do you want to hear from me?" he articulated in an expressionless
voice.

"Nothing, nothing," she rejoined quickly, "I know I have no right to
expect anything; I am not mad, believe me; I do not hope, I do not dare
to hope for your forgiveness; I only venture to entreat you to command
me what I am to do, where I am to live. Like a slave I will fulfil your
commands whatever they may be."

"I have no commands to give you," replied Lavretsky in the same
colourless voice; "you know, all is over between us... and now more
than ever; you can live where you like; and if your allowance is too
little--"

"Ah, don't say such dreadful things," Varvara Pavlovna interrupted him,
"spare me, if only... if only for the sake of this angel." And as she
uttered these words, Varvara Pavlovna ran impulsively into the next
room, and returned at once with a small and very elegantly dressed
little girl in her arms.

Thick flaxen curls fell over her pretty rosy little face, and on to her
large sleepy black eyes; she smiled and blinked her eyes at the light
and laid a chubby little hand on her mother's neck.

"Ada, vois, c'est ton pere," said Varvara Pavlovna, pushing the curls
back from her eyes and kissing her vigorously, "pre le avec moi."

"C'est ca, papa?" stammered the little girl lisping.

"Oui, mon enfant, n'est-ce pas que tu l'aimes?"

But this was more than Lavretsky could stand.

"In such a melodrama must there really be a scene like this?" he
muttered, and went out of the room.

Varvara Pavlovna stood still for some time in the same place, slightly
shrugged her shoulders, carried the little girl off into the next room,
undressed her and put her to bed. Then she took up a book and sat down
near the lamp, and after staying up for an hour she went to bed herself.

"Eh bien, madame?" queried her maid, a Frenchwoman whom she had broug