tra?"

At that very moment he remembered how when he had seen Anna Sergueyevna
off that evening at the station he had said to himself that everything
was over between them, and they would never meet again. And now how far
off they were from the end!

On a narrow, dark staircase over which was written: "This Way to the
Amphitheatre," she stopped:

"How you frightened me!" she said, breathing heavily, still pale and
apparently stupefied. "Oh! how you frightened me! I am nearly dead. Why
did you come? Why?"

"Understand me, Anna," he whispered quickly. "I implore you to
understand...."

She looked at him fearfully, in entreaty, with love in her eyes, gazing
fixedly to gather up in her memory every one of his features.

"I suffer so!" she went on, not listening to him. "All the time, I
thought only of you. I lived with thoughts of you.... And I wanted to
forget, to forget, but why, why did you come?"

A little above them, on the landing, two schoolboys stood and smoked and
looked down at them, but Gomov did not care. He drew her to him and
began to kiss her cheeks, her hands.

"What are you doing? What are you doing?" she said in terror, thrusting
him away.... "We were both mad. Go away to-night. You must go away at
once.... I implore you, by everything you hold sacred, I implore you....
The people are coming-----"

Some one passed them on the stairs.

"You must go away," Anna Sergueyevna went on in a whisper. "Do you hear,
Dimitri Dimitrich? I'll come to you in Moscow. I never was happy. Now I
am unhappy and I shall never, never be happy, never! Don't make me
suffer even more! I swear, I'll come to Moscow. And now let us part. My
dear, dearest darling, let us part!"

She pressed his hand and began to go quickly down-stairs, all the while
looking back at him, and in her eyes plainly showed that she was most
unhappy. Gomov stood for a while, listened, then, when all was quiet he
found his coat and left the theatre.

IV

And Anna Sergueyevna began to come to him in Moscow. Once every two or
three months she would leave S., telling her husband that she was going
to consult a specialist in women's diseases. Her husband half believed
and half disbelieved her. At Moscow she would stay at the "Slaviansky
Bazaar" and send a message at once to Gomov. He would come to her, and
nobody in Moscow knew.

Once as he was going to her as usual one winter morning--he had not
received her message the night before--he had