ust now,
and nothing more! You can look every one in the face boldly and
triumphantly!"

"Your words, that laugh, have been making me feel cold with horror for
the last hour. That 'happiness' of which you speak frantically is
worth... everything to me. How can I lose you now? I swear I loved you
less yesterday. Why are you taking everything from me to-day? Do you
know what it has cost me, this new hope? I've paid for it with life."

"Your own life or another's?"

He got up quickly.

"What does that mean?" he brought out, looking at her steadily.

"Have you paid for it with your life or with mine? is what I mean. Or
have you lost all power of understanding?" cried Liza, flushing. "Why
did you start up so suddenly? Why do you stare at me with such a look?
You frighten me. What is it you are afraid of all the time? I noticed
some time ago that you were afraid and you are now, this very minute...
Good heavens, how pale you are!"

"If you know anything, Liza, I swear I don't... and I wasn't talking of
_that_ just now when I said that I had paid for it with life...."

"I don't understand you," she brought out, faltering apprehensively.

At last a slow brooding smile came on to his lips. He slowly sat down,
put his elbows on his knees, and covered his face with his hands.

"A bad dream and delirium.... We were talking of two different things."

"I don't know what you were talking about.... Do you mean to say you did
not know yesterday that I should leave you to-day, did you know or not?
Don't tell a lie, did you or not?"

"I did," he said softly.

"Well then, what would you have? You knew and yet you accepted 'that
moment' for yourself. Aren't we quits?"

"Tell me the whole truth," he cried in intense distress. "When you
opened my door yesterday, did you know yourself that it was only for one
hour?"

She looked at him with hatred.

"Really, the most sensible person can ask most amazing questions. And
why are you so uneasy? Can it be vanity that a woman should leave you
first instead of your leaving her? Do you know, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch,
since I've been with you I've discovered that you are very generous to
me, and it's just that I can't endure from you."

He got up from his seat and took a few steps about the room.

"Very well, perhaps it was bound to end so.... But how can it all have
happened?"

"That's a question to worry about! Especially as you know the answer
yourself perfectly well, and unders