des. I am not your toy!"...

I got no sleep that night. By daybreak I was as yellow as an orange.

In the morning I met Princess Mary at the well.

"You are ill?" she said, looking intently at me.

"I did not sleep last night."

"Nor I either... I was accusing you... perhaps groundlessly. But explain
yourself, I can forgive you everything"...

"Everything?"...

"Everything... only speak the truth... and be quick... You see, I
have been thinking a good deal, trying to explain, to justify, your
behaviour. Perhaps you are afraid of opposition on the part of my
relations... that will not matter. When they learn"...

Her voice shook.

"I will win them over by entreaties. Or, is it your own position?...
But you know that I can sacrifice everything for the sake of the man I
love... Oh, answer quickly--have pity... You do not despise me--do you?"

She seized my hand.

Princess Ligovski was walking in front of us with Vera's husband, and
had not seen anything; but we might have been observed by some of the
invalids who were strolling about--the most inquisitive gossips of all
inquisitive folk--and I rapidly disengaged my hand from her passionate
pressure.

"I will tell you the whole truth," I answered. "I will not justify
myself, nor explain my actions: I do not love you."

Her lips grew slightly pale.

"Leave me," she said, in a scarcely audible voice.

I shrugged my shoulders, turned round, and walked away.

CHAPTER XVI. 25th June.

I SOMETIMES despise myself... Is not that the reason why I despise
others also?... I have grown incapable of noble impulses; I am afraid of
appearing ridiculous to myself. In my place, another would have offered
Princess Mary son coeur et sa fortune; but over me the word "marry" has
a kind of magical power. However passionately I love a woman, if she
only gives me to feel that I have to marry her--then farewell, love! My
heart is turned to stone, and nothing will warm it anew. I am prepared
for any other sacrifice but that; my life twenty times over, nay, my
honour I would stake on the fortune of a card... but my freedom I will
never sell. Why do I prize it so highly? What is there in it to me? For
what am I preparing myself? What do I hope for from the future?... In
truth, absolutely nothing. It is a kind of innate dread, an inexplicable
prejudice... There are people, you know, who have an unaccountable dread
of spiders, beetles, mice... Shall I confess it? When I was bu