!" Anna said to herself, standing at the
window; and in answer to this statement the impression of the
darkness when the candle had flickered out, and of her fearful
dream mingling into one, filled her heart with cold terror.

"No, that cannot be!" she cried, and crossing the room she rang
the bell. She was so afraid now of being alone, that without
waiting for the servant to come in, she went out to meet him.

"Inquire where the count has gone," she said. The servant
answered that the count had gone to the stable.

"His honor left word that if you cared to drive out, the carriage
would be back immediately."

"Very good. Wait a minute. I'll write a note at once. Send
Mihail with the note to the stables. Make haste."

She sat down and wrote:

"I was wrong. Come back home; I must explain. For God's sake
come! I'm afraid."

She sealed it up and gave it to the servant.

She was afraid of being left alone now; she followed the servant
out of the room, and went to the nursery.

"Why, this isn't it, this isn't he! Where are his blue eyes, his
sweet, shy smile?" was her first thought when she saw her chubby,
rosy little girl with her black, curly hair instead of Seryozha,
whom in the tangle of her ideas she had expected to see in the
nursery. The little girl sitting at the table was obstinately
and violently battering on it with a cork, and staring aimlessly
at her mother with her pitch-black eyes. Answering the English
nurse that she was quite well, and that she was going to the
country tomorrow, Anna sat down by the little girl and began
spinning the cork to show her. But the child's loud, ringing
laugh, and the motion of her eyebrows, recalled Vronsky so
vividly that she got up hurriedly, restraining her sobs, and went
away. "Can it be all over? No, it cannot be!" she thought. "He
will come back. But how can he explain that smile, that
excitement after he had been talking to her? But even if he
doesn't explain, I will believe. If I don't believe, there's
only one thing left for me, and I can't."

She looked at her watch. Twenty minutes had passed. "By now he
has received the note and is coming back. Not long, ten minutes
more.... But what if he doesn't come? No, that cannot be. He
mustn't see me with tear-stained eyes. I'll go and wash. Yes,
yes; did I do my hair or not?" she asked herself. And she could
not remember. She felt her head with her hand. "Yes, my hair
has been done, bu