her daughter. Now he
wished to restore to his elder children the rights which he had
deprived them of, and especially to his eldest daughter, Anna Iurievna
Borissova, who was not even mentioned in the first will. In the new
will, with the exception of the seventh part, the widow's share, he
divided the whole of his land and capital between his children
equally; and he further appointed a strict guardianship over the
property of his little daughter, Olga Iurievna.

The will was duly arranged, drawn up and witnessed, and after the
three witnesses had signed it, it was left, by the general's wish, in
his own keeping.

"I will send it to you to take care of," he said to the lawyer. "It
will be safer in your hands than here, in my temporary quarters. But
first I wish to read it to my wife, and ... to my eldest daughter ...
if she arrives in time."

The lawyer and the priest, who was one of the witnesses, were already
preparing to take leave of the general, when voices and steps were
heard in the corridor; a footman's head appeared through the door,
calling the doctor hurriedly forth. It appeared that the general's
lady had arrived suddenly, without letting anyone know by telegram
that she was coming.

The doctor hastily slipped out of the room; he feared the result of
emotion on the sick man, and wished to warn the general's wife of his
grave danger, but the sick man noticed the move, and it was impossible
to guard him against disturbance.

"What is going on there?" he asked. "What are you mumbling about,
Edouard Vicentevitch? Tell me what is the matter? Is it my daughter?"

"Your excellency, I beg of you to take care of yourself!" the doctor
was beginning, evidently quite familiar with the general's family
affairs, and therefore dreading the meeting of husband and wife. "It
is not Anna Iurievna...."

"Aha!" the sick man interrupted him; "she has come? Very well. Let her
come in. Only the little one ... I don't wish her to come ... to-day."

Suffering was visible in his eyes, this time not bodily suffering.

The door opened, with the rustling of a silk dress. A tall,
well-developed, and decidedly handsome woman appeared on the
threshold. She glanced at the pain-stricken face, which smiled
contemptuously toward her. In a moment she was beside the general,
kneeling beside him on the carpet, bending close to him, and pressing
his hand, as she repeated in a despairing whisper:

"Oh, Georges! Georges! Is it really yo