and could before Liputin
came!"

He looked at me, made no answer and walked on in the same direction.
I did not want to be left behind. I wanted to give Varvara Petrovna my
version. I could have forgiven him if he had simply with his womanish
faint-heartedness believed Liputin, but now it was clear that he
had thought of it all himself long before, and that Liputin had only
confirmed his suspicions and poured oil on the flames. He had not
hesitated to suspect the girl from the very first day, before he had any
kind of grounds, even Liputin's words, to go upon. Varvara Petrovna's
despotic behaviour he had explained to himself as due to her haste
to cover up the aristocratic misdoings of her precious "Nicolas" by
marrying the girl to an honourable man! I longed for him to be punished
for it.

"_Oh, Dieu, qui est si grand et si bon!_ Oh, who will comfort me!" he
exclaimed, halting suddenly again, after walking a hundred paces.

"Come straight home and I'll make everything clear to you," I cried,
turning him by force towards home.

"It's he! Stepan Trofimovitch, it's you? You?" A fresh, joyous young
voice rang out like music behind us.

We had seen nothing, but a lady on horseback suddenly made her
appearance beside us--Lizaveta Nikolaevna with her invariable companion.
She pulled up her horse.

"Come here, come here quickly!" she called to us, loudly and merrily.
"It's twelve years since I've seen him, and I know him, while he.... Do
you really not know me?"

Stepan Trofimovitch clasped the hand held out to him and kissed it
reverently. He gazed at her as though he were praying and could not
utter a word.

"He knows me, and is glad! Mavriky Nikolaevitch, he's delighted to see
me! Why is it you haven't been to see us all this fortnight? Auntie
tried to persuade me you were ill and must not be disturbed; but I know
Auntie tells lies. I kept stamping and swearing at you, but I had made
up my mind, quite made up my mind, that you should come to me first,
that was why I didn't send to you. Heavens, why he hasn't changed a
bit!" She scrutinised him, bending down from the saddle. "He's absurdly
unchanged. Oh, yes, he has wrinkles, a lot of wrinkles, round his eyes
and on his cheeks some grey hair, but his eyes are just the same. And
have I changed? Have I changed? Why don't you say something?"

I remembered at that moment the story that she had been almost ill when
she was taken away to Petersburg at eleven years old,