been there, sir. She stayed a little while, and went off again."

"What? Went away?" cried Mitya. "When did she go?"

"Why, as soon as she came. She only stayed a minute. She only told Kuzma
Kuzmitch a tale that made him laugh, and then she ran away."

"You're lying, damn you!" roared Mitya.

"Aie! Aie!" shrieked the old woman, but Mitya had vanished.

He ran with all his might to the house where Grushenka lived. At the
moment he reached it, Grushenka was on her way to Mokroe. It was not more
than a quarter of an hour after her departure.

Fenya was sitting with her grandmother, the old cook, Matryona, in the
kitchen when "the captain" ran in. Fenya uttered a piercing shriek on
seeing him.

"You scream?" roared Mitya, "where is she?"

But without giving the terror-stricken Fenya time to utter a word, he fell
all of a heap at her feet.

"Fenya, for Christ's sake, tell me, where is she?"

"I don't know. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, my dear, I don't know. You may kill me
but I can't tell you." Fenya swore and protested. "You went out with her
yourself not long ago--"

"She came back!"

"Indeed she didn't. By God I swear she didn't come back."

"You're lying!" shouted Mitya. "From your terror I know where she is."

He rushed away. Fenya in her fright was glad she had got off so easily.
But she knew very well that it was only that he was in such haste, or she
might not have fared so well. But as he ran, he surprised both Fenya and
old Matryona by an unexpected action. On the table stood a brass mortar,
with a pestle in it, a small brass pestle, not much more than six inches
long. Mitya already had opened the door with one hand when, with the
other, he snatched up the pestle, and thrust it in his side-pocket.

"Oh, Lord! He's going to murder some one!" cried Fenya, flinging up her
hands.

Chapter IV. In The Dark

Where was he running? "Where could she be except at Fyodor Pavlovitch's?
She must have run straight to him from Samsonov's, that was clear now. The
whole intrigue, the whole deceit was evident." ... It all rushed whirling
through his mind. He did not run to Marya Kondratyevna's. "There was no
need to go there ... not the slightest need ... he must raise no alarm ...
they would run and tell directly.... Marya Kondratyevna was clearly in the
plot, Smerdyakov too, he too, all had been bought over!"

He formed another plan of action: he ran a long way round Fyodor
Pavlovitch's house, crossing the lane