e in St. Petersburg to arrange for the sale of all the property
which has been mortgaged to myself. At the same time, knowing that, in
addition, your frivolous stepfather has squandered money which is
exclusively yours, I have decided to absolve him from a certain moiety
of the mortgages on his property, in order that you may be in a
position to recover of him what you have lost, by suing him in legal
fashion. I trust, therefore, that, as matters now stand, this action of
mine may bring you some advantage. I trust also that this same action
leaves me in the position of having fulfilled every obligation which is
incumbent upon a man of honour and refinement. Rest assured that your
memory will for ever remain graven in my heart."

"All this is clear enough," I commented. "Surely you did not expect
aught else from him?" Somehow I was feeling annoyed.

"I expected nothing at all from him," she replied--quietly enough, to
all outward seeming, yet with a note of irritation in her tone. "Long
ago I made up my mind on the subject, for I could read his thoughts,
and knew what he was thinking. He thought that possibly I should sue
him--that one day I might become a nuisance." Here Polina halted for a
moment, and stood biting her lips. "So of set purpose I redoubled my
contemptuous treatment of him, and waited to see what he would do. If a
telegram to say that we had become legatees had arrived from, St.
Petersburg, I should have flung at him a quittance for my foolish
stepfather's debts, and then dismissed him. For a long time I have
hated him. Even in earlier days he was not a man; and now!--Oh, how
gladly I could throw those fifty thousand roubles in his face, and spit
in it, and then rub the spittle in!"

"But the document returning the fifty-thousand rouble mortgage--has the
General got it? If so, possess yourself of it, and send it to De
Griers."

"No, no; the General has not got it."

"Just as I expected! Well, what is the General going to do?" Then an
idea suddenly occurred to me. "What about the Grandmother?" I asked.

Polina looked at me with impatience and bewilderment.

"What makes you speak of HER?" was her irritable inquiry. "I cannot go
and live with her. Nor," she added hotly, "will I go down upon my knees
to ANY ONE."

"Why should you?" I cried. "Yet to think that you should have loved De
Griers! The villain, the villain! But I will kill him in a duel. Where
is he now?"

"In Frankfort, where he will be