ntion
"the captain." Mitya, running up to the gate, knocked. The lad instantly
recognized him, for Mitya had more than once tipped him. Opening the gate
at once, he let him in, and hastened to inform him with a good-humored
smile that "Agrafena Alexandrovna is not at home now, you know."

"Where is she then, Prohor?" asked Mitya, stopping short.

"She set off this evening, some two hours ago, with Timofey, to Mokroe."

"What for?" cried Mitya.

"That I can't say. To see some officer. Some one invited her and horses
were sent to fetch her."

Mitya left him, and ran like a madman to Fenya.

Chapter V. A Sudden Resolution

She was sitting in the kitchen with her grandmother; they were both just
going to bed. Relying on Nazar Ivanovitch, they had not locked themselves
in. Mitya ran in, pounced on Fenya and seized her by the throat.

"Speak at once! Where is she? With whom is she now, at Mokroe?" he roared
furiously.

Both the women squealed.

"Aie! I'll tell you. Aie! Dmitri Fyodorovitch, darling, I'll tell you
everything directly, I won't hide anything," gabbled Fenya, frightened to
death; "she's gone to Mokroe, to her officer."

"What officer?" roared Mitya.

"To her officer, the same one she used to know, the one who threw her over
five years ago," cackled Fenya, as fast as she could speak.

Mitya withdrew the hands with which he was squeezing her throat. He stood
facing her, pale as death, unable to utter a word, but his eyes showed
that he realized it all, all, from the first word, and guessed the whole
position. Poor Fenya was not in a condition at that moment to observe
whether he understood or not. She remained sitting on the trunk as she had
been when he ran into the room, trembling all over, holding her hands out
before her as though trying to defend herself. She seemed to have grown
rigid in that position. Her wide-opened, scared eyes were fixed immovably
upon him. And to make matters worse, both his hands were smeared with
blood. On the way, as he ran, he must have touched his forehead with them,
wiping off the perspiration, so that on his forehead and his right cheek
were blood-stained patches. Fenya was on the verge of hysterics. The old
cook had jumped up and was staring at him like a mad woman, almost
unconscious with terror.

Mitya stood for a moment, then mechanically sank on to a chair next to
Fenya. He sat, not reflecting but, as it were, terror-stricken, benumbed.
Yet everything w