mething. Surely you're not afraid that I've
left off loving you?"

"I'm not troubling about you at all. I'm afraid that I may leave off
loving somebody."

She laughed contemptuously.

"I must have done him some great wrong," she added suddenly, as it were
to herself, "only I don't know what I've done wrong; that's always what
troubles me. Always, always, for the last five years. I've been afraid
day and night that I've done him some wrong. I've prayed and prayed and
always thought of the great wrong I'd done him. And now it turns out it
was true."

"What's turned out?"

"I'm only afraid whether there's something on _his_ side," she went on,
not answering his question, not hearing it in fact. "And then, again, he
couldn't get on with such horrid people. The countess would have liked
to eat me, though she did make me sit in the carriage beside her.
They're all in the plot. Surely he's not betrayed me?" (Her chin and
lips were twitching.) "Tell me, have you read about Grishka Otrepyev,
how he was cursed in seven cathedrals?"

Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch did not speak.

"But I'll turn round now and look at you." She seemed to decide
suddenly. "You turn to me, too, and look at me, but more attentively. I
want to make sure for the last time."

"I've been looking at you for a long time."

"H'm!" said Marya Timofyevna, looking at him intently. "You've grown
much fatter."

She wanted to say something more, but suddenly, for the third time,
the same terror instantly distorted her face, and again she drew back,
putting her hand up before her.

"What's the matter with you?" cried Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, almost
enraged.

But her panic lasted only one instant, her face worked with a sort of
strange smile, suspicious and unpleasant.

"I beg you, prince, get up and come in," she brought out suddenly, in a
firm, emphatic voice.

"Come in? Where am I to come in?"

"I've been fancying for five years how _he_ would come in. Get up and
go out of the door into the other room. I'll sit as though I weren't
expecting anything, and I'll take up a book, and suddenly you'll come in
after five years' travelling. I want to see what it will be like."

Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch ground his teeth, and muttered something to
himself.

"Enough," he said, striking the table with his open hand. "I beg you to
listen to me, Marya Timofyevna. Do me the favour to concentrate all your
attention if you can. You're not altogether mad, you know!"