an order could apply to me?"
she said, astonished.

The doctor apologized, but had to admit that it was she who was
intended, and that his excellency had sent word to her excellency that
she should not give herself the trouble of visiting him.

"He is out of his mind," declared the general's wife quietly, but with
conviction, shrugging her shoulders. "Why should he hate me so--for
all my love to him, an old man, who might have been my father?"

And Olga Vseslavovna once more took refuge in her pocket handkerchief,
this time, instead of tears, giving vent to sobs of vexation. The
doctor, always shy in the presence of women, stood with hanging head
and downcast eyes, as though he were to blame.

"What is it they are saying about you burning papers all night?" Olga
Vseslavovna asked, in a weak voice.

"Oh, not nearly all night. Iuri Pavlovitch remembered that he ought to
destroy some old letters and papers. There were some to be put in
order. There, in the box, there is a packet addressed to your
excellency. I was told to write the address."

"Indeed! Could I not see it?"

"Oh no, on no account. They are all locked up in the box along with
the last will. And the general has the keys."

A bitter smile of humiliation played about the young woman's lips.

"So the new will has not been burned yet?" she asked.

And to the startled negative of the doctor, who repeated that "it was
lying on the top of the papers in the box," she added:

"Well, it will be burned yet. Do not fear. Especially if God in His
mercy prolongs my husband's life. You see, he has always had a
mysterious passion for writing new documents, powers of attorney,
deeds of gift, wills, whatever comes into his mind. He writes new
ones, and burns the old ones. But what can you do? We must submit to
each new fancy. We cannot contradict a sick man."

Olga Vseslavovna went back to her room. She only left her bedroom for
a few minutes that day, to hear the final word of the lights of the
medical profession, who had come together for a general consultation
in the afternoon; all the rest of the day she shut herself up. The
conclusions of the physicians, though they differed completely in
detail, were similar in the main, and far from comforting; the life
and continued suffering of the sick man could not last more than a few
days.

In the evening a telegram came from Anna Iurievna; she informed her
father that she would be with him on the following day, at