pierced the sick heart with
a fresh pang. She could not understand now how she could have
lowered herself by spending a whole day with him in his house.
She went into his room to announce her determination.

"That was Madame Sorokina and her daughter. They came and
brought me the money and the deeds from maman. I couldn't get
them yesterday. How is your head, better?" he said quietly, not
wishing to see and to understand the gloomy and solemn expression
of her face.

She looked silently, intently at him, standing in the middle of
the room. He glanced at her, frowned for a moment, and went on
reading a letter. She turned, and went deliberately out of the
room. He still might have turned her back, but she had reached
the door, he was still silent, and the only sound audible was the
rustling of the note paper as he turned it.

"Oh, by the way," he said at the very moment she was in the
doorway, "we're going tomorrow for certain, aren't we?"

"You, but not I," she said, turning round to him.

"Anna, we can't go on like this..."

"You, but not I," she repeated.

"This is getting unbearable!"

"You...you will be sorry for this," she said, and went out.

Frightened by the desperate expression with which these words
were uttered, he jumped up and would have run after her, but on
second thoughts he sat down and scowled, setting his teeth. This
vulgar--as he thought it--threat of something vague exasperated
him. "I've tried everything," he thought; "the only thing left
is not to pay attention," and he began to get ready to drive into
town, and again to his mother's to get her signature to the
deeds.

She heard the sound of his steps about the study and the dining
room. At the drawing room he stood still. But he did not turn
in to see her, he merely gave an order that the horse should be
given to Voytov if he came while he was away. Then she heard the
carriage brought round, the door opened, and he came out again.
But he went back into the porch again, and someone was running
upstairs. It was the valet running up for his gloves that had
been forgotten. She went to the window and saw him take the
gloves without looking, and touching the coachman on the back he
said something to him. Then without looking up at the window he
settled himself in his usual attitude in the carriage, with his
legs crossed, and drawing on his gloves he vanished round the
corner.

Chapter 27

"He has gone! It is over