third or
fourth ring a light gleamed in the windows, and there was a sound
of steps, coughing and whispering; at last the key grated in the
lock, and a stout peasant woman with a frightened red face appeared
at the door. Some distance behind her stood a thin little old woman
with short grey hair, carrying a candle in her hand. Zinaida
Fyodorovna ran into the passage and flung her arms round the old
woman's neck.

"Nina, I've been deceived," she sobbed loudly. "I've been coarsely,
foully deceived! Nina, Nina!"

I handed the basket to the peasant woman. The door was closed, but
still I heard her sobs and the cry "Nina!"

I got into the cab and told the man to drive slowly to the Nevsky
Prospect. I had to think of a night's lodging for myself.

Next day towards evening I went to see Zinaida Fyodorovna. She was
terribly changed. There were no traces of tears on her pale, terribly
sunken face, and her expression was different. I don't know whether
it was that I saw her now in different surroundings, far from
luxurious, and that our relations were by now different, or perhaps
that intense grief had already set its mark upon her; she did not
strike me as so elegant and well dressed as before. Her figure
seemed smaller; there was an abruptness and excessive nervousness
about her as though she were in a hurry, and there was not the same
softness even in her smile. I was dressed in an expensive suit which
I had bought during the day. She looked first of all at that suit
and at the hat in my hand, then turned an impatient, searching
glance upon my face as though studying it.

"Your transformation still seems to me a sort of miracle," she said.
"Forgive me for looking at you with such curiosity. You are an
extraordinary man, you know."

I told her again who I was, and why I was living at Orlov's, and I
told her at greater length and in more detail than the day before.
She listened with great attention, and said without letting me
finish:

"Everything there is over for me. You know, I could not refrain
from writing a letter. Here is the answer."

On the sheet which she gave there was written in Orlov's hand:

"I am not going to justify myself. But you must own that it was
your mistake, not mine. I wish you happiness, and beg you to make
haste and forget.

"Yours sincerely,

"G. O.

"P. S.--I am sending on your things."

The trunks and baskets despatched by Orlov were standing in the
passage, and my poor little po