red, making for the door.

"Au revoir! I shall amuse them all with this story tomorrow!"

He walked along the road towards his own house. His heart was beating,
his thoughts were confused, everything around seemed to be part of a
dream.

And suddenly, just as twice already he had awaked from sleep with the
same vision, that very apparition now seemed to rise up before him. The
woman appeared to step out from the park, and stand in the path in front
of him, as though she had been waiting for him there.

He shuddered and stopped; she seized his hand and pressed it frenziedly.

No, this was no apparition!

There she stood at last, face to face with him, for the first time since
their parting.

She said something, but he looked silently back at her. His heart ached
with anguish. Oh! never would he banish the recollection of this meeting
with her, and he never remembered it but with the same pain and agony of
mind.

She went on her knees before him--there in the open road--like a
madwoman. He retreated a step, but she caught his hand and kissed
it, and, just as in his dream, the tears were sparkling on her long,
beautiful lashes.

"Get up!" he said, in a frightened whisper, raising her. "Get up at
once!"

"Are you happy--are you happy?" she asked. "Say this one word. Are you
happy now? Today, this moment? Have you just been with her? What did she
say?"

She did not rise from her knees; she would not listen to him; she put
her questions hurriedly, as though she were pursued.

"I am going away tomorrow, as you bade me--I won't write--so that this
is the last time I shall see you, the last time! This is really the LAST
TIME!"

"Oh, be calm--be calm! Get up!" he entreated, in despair.

She gazed thirstily at him and clutched his hands.

"Good-bye!" she said at last, and rose and left him, very quickly.

The prince noticed that Rogojin had suddenly appeared at her side, and
had taken her arm and was leading her away.

"Wait a minute, prince," shouted the latter, as he went. "I shall be
back in five minutes."

He reappeared in five minutes as he had said. The prince was waiting for
him.

"I've put her in the carriage," he said; "it has been waiting round the
corner there since ten o'clock. She expected that you would be with THEM
all the evening. I told her exactly what you wrote me. She won't write
to the girl any more, she promises; and tomorrow she will be off, as you
wish. She desired to see you for t