itting at a little table on which he
rested his elbows, looking dejectedly before him. She saw him
before he saw her, and she saw that he was thinking of her.

On seeing her, he would have risen, but changed his mind, then
his face flushed hotly--a thing Anna had never seen before, and
he got up quickly and went to meet her, looking not at her eyes,
but above them at her forehead and hair. He went up to her, took
her by the hand, and asked her to sit down.

"I am very glad you have come," he said, sitting down beside her,
and obviously wishing to say something, he stuttered. Several
times he tried to begin to speak, but stopped. In spite of the
fact that, preparing herself for meeting him, she had schooled
herself to despise and reproach him, she did not know what to say
to him, and she felt sorry for him. And so the silence lasted
for some time. "Is Seryozha quite well?" he said, and not
waiting for an answer, he added: "I shan't be dining at home
today, and I have got to go out directly."

"I had thought of going to Moscow," she said.

"No, you did quite, quite right to come," he said, and was silent
again.

Seeing that he was powerless to begin the conversation, she began
herself.

"Alexey Alexandrovitch," she said, looking at him and not
dropping her eyes under his persistent gaze at her hair, "I'm a
guilty woman, I'm a bad woman, but I am the same as I was, as I
told you then, and I have come to tell you that I can change
nothing."

"I have asked you no question about that," he said, all at once,
resolutely and with hatred looking her straight in the face;
"that was as I had supposed." Under the influence of anger he
apparently regained complete possession of all his faculties.
"But as I told you then, and have written to you," he said in a
thin, shrill voice, "I repeat now, that I am not bound to know
this. I ignore it. Not all wives are so kind as you, to be in
such a hurry to communicate such agreeable news to their
husbands." He laid special emphasis on the word "agreeable." "I
shall ignore it so long as the world knows nothing of it, so long
as my name is not disgraced. And so I simply inform you that
our relations must be just as they have always been, and that
only in the event of your compromising me I shall be obliged to
take steps to secure my honor."

"But our relations cannot be the same as always," Anna began in a
timid voice, looking at him with dismay.

When she saw once mor