looking
strangely at Stavrogin.

"And you struck me?"

Shatov flushed and muttered almost incoherently:

"Because of your fall... your lie. I didn't go up to you to punish
you... I didn't know when I went up to you that I should strike you... I
did it because you meant so much to me in my life... I..."

"I understand, I understand, spare your words. I am sorry you are
feverish. I've come about a most urgent matter."

"I have been expecting you too long." Shatov seemed to be quivering all
over, and he got up from his seat. "Say what you have to say... I'll
speak too... later."

He sat down.

"What I have come about is nothing of that kind," began Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch, scrutinising him with curiosity. "Owing to certain
circumstances I was forced this very day to choose such an hour to come
and tell you that they may murder you."

Shatov looked wildly at him.

"I know that I may be in some danger," he said in measured tones, "but
how can you have come to know of it?"

"Because I belong to them as you do, and am a member of their society,
just as you are."

"You... you are a member of the society?"

"I see from your eyes that you were prepared for anything from me rather
than that," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, with a faint smile. "But,
excuse me, you knew then that there would be an attempt on your life?"

"Nothing of the sort. And I don't think so now, in spite of your words,
though... though there's no being sure of anything with these fools!"
he cried suddenly in a fury, striking the table with his fist. "I'm not
afraid of them! I've broken with them. That fellow's run here four times
to tell me it was possible... but"--he looked at Stavrogin--"what do
you know about it, exactly?"

"Don't be uneasy; I am not deceiving you," Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch went
on, rather coldly, with the air of a man who is only fulfilling a duty.
"You question me as to what I know. I know that you entered that society
abroad, two years ago, at the time of the old organisation, just before
you went to America, and I believe, just after our last conversation,
about which you wrote so much to me in your letter from America. By
the way, I must apologise for not having answered you by letter, but
confined myself to..."

"To sending the money; wait a bit," Shatov interrupted, hurriedly
pulling out a drawer in the table and taking from under some papers a
rainbow-coloured note. "Here, take it, the hundred roubles you sent me;