o fight De
Griers? Nor shall you kill the Baron." Here she burst out laughing.
"How absurd you looked when you were talking to the Burmergelms! I was
watching you all the time--watching you from where I was sitting. And
how unwilling you were to go when I sent you! Oh, how I laughed and
laughed!"

Then she kissed and embraced me again; again she pressed her face to
mine with tender passion. Yet I neither saw nor heard her, for my head
was in a whirl....

It must have been about seven o'clock in the morning when I awoke.
Daylight had come, and Polina was sitting by my side--a strange
expression on her face, as though she had seen a vision and was unable
to collect her thoughts. She too had just awoken, and was now staring
at the money on the table. My head ached; it felt heavy. I attempted to
take Polina's hand, but she pushed me from her, and leapt from the
sofa. The dawn was full of mist, for rain had fallen, yet she moved to
the window, opened it, and, leaning her elbows upon the window-sill,
thrust out her head and shoulders to take the air. In this position did
she remain for several minutes, without ever looking round at me, or
listening to what I was saying. Into my head there came the uneasy
thought: What is to happen now? How is it all to end? Suddenly Polina
rose from the window, approached the table, and, looking at me with an
expression of infinite aversion, said with lips which quivered with
anger:

"Well? Are you going to hand me over my fifty thousand francs?"

"Polina, you say that AGAIN, AGAIN?" I exclaimed.

"You have changed your mind, then? Ha, ha, ha! You are sorry you ever
promised them?"

On the table where, the previous night, I had counted the money there
still was lying the packet of twenty five thousand florins. I handed it
to her.

"The francs are mine, then, are they? They are mine?" she inquired
viciously as she balanced the money in her hands.

"Yes; they have ALWAYS been yours," I said.

"Then TAKE your fifty thousand francs!" and she hurled them full in my
face. The packet burst as she did so, and the floor became strewed with
bank-notes. The instant that the deed was done she rushed from the room.

At that moment she cannot have been in her right mind; yet, what was
the cause of her temporary aberration I cannot say. For a month past
she had been unwell. Yet what had brought about this PRESENT condition
of mind, above all things, this outburst? Had it come of wounded pride?