ly a door opened upstairs and a light appeared. Shatov
did not come out himself, but simply opened his door. When Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch was standing in the doorway of the room, he saw Shatov
standing at the table in the corner, waiting expectantly.

"Will you receive me on business?" he queried from the doorway.

"Come in and sit down," answered Shatov. "Shut the door; stay, I'll shut
it."

He locked the door, returned to the table, and sat down, facing Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch. He had grown thinner during that week, and now he
seemed in a fever.

"You've been worrying me to death," he said, looking down, in a soft
half-whisper. "Why didn't you come?"

"You were so sure I should come then?"

"Yes, stay, I have been delirious... perhaps I'm delirious now.... Stay
a moment."

He got up and seized something that was lying on the uppermost of his
three bookshelves. It was a revolver.

"One night, in delirium, I fancied that you were coming to kill me, and
early next morning I spent my last farthing on buying a revolver from
that good-for-nothing fellow Lyamshin; I did not mean to let you do it.
Then I came to myself again... I've neither powder nor shot; it has been
lying there on the shelf till now; wait a minute...."

He got up and was opening the casement.

"Don't throw it away, why should you?" Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch checked
him. "It's worth something. Besides, tomorrow people will begin saying
that there are revolvers lying about under Shatov's window. Put it back,
that's right; sit down. Tell me, why do you seem to be penitent for
having thought I should come to kill you? I have not come now to be
reconciled, but to talk of something necessary. Enlighten me to begin
with. You didn't give me that blow because of my connection with your
wife?"

"You know I didn't, yourself," said Shatov, looking down again.

"And not because you believed the stupid gossip about Darya Pavlovna?"

"No, no, of course not! It's nonsense! My sister told me from the very
first..." Shatov said, harshly and impatiently, and even with a slight
stamp of his foot.

"Then I guessed right and you too guessed right," Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch went on in a tranquil voice. "You are right. Marya
Timofyevna Lebyadkin is my lawful wife, married to me four and a half
years ago in Petersburg. I suppose the blow was on her account?"

Shatov, utterly astounded, listened in silence.

"I guessed, but did not believe it," he muttered at last,