The individual's name who wrote the letter is to be
represented by the letter A.--"

"What? Impossible! To Nastasia Philipovna? Nonsense!" cried the prince.

"It was, I assure you, and if not to her then to Rogojin, which is
the same thing. Mr. Hippolyte has had letters, too, and all from the
individual whose name begins with an A.," smirked Lebedeff, with a
hideous grin.

As he kept jumping from subject to subject, and forgetting what he had
begun to talk about, the prince said nothing, but waited, to give him
time.

It was all very vague. Who had taken the letters, if letters there were?
Probably Vera--and how could Lebedeff have got them? In all probability,
he had managed to steal the present letter from Vera, and had himself
gone over to Lizabetha Prokofievna with some idea in his head. So the
prince concluded at last.

"You are mad!" he cried, indignantly.

"Not quite, esteemed prince," replied Lebedeff, with some acerbity. "I
confess I thought of doing you the service of handing the letter over to
yourself, but I decided that it would pay me better to deliver it up to
the noble lady aforesaid, as I had informed her of everything hitherto
by anonymous letters; so when I sent her up a note from myself, with
the letter, you know, in order to fix a meeting for eight o'clock this
morning, I signed it 'your secret correspondent.' They let me in at
once--very quickly--by the back door, and the noble lady received me."

"Well? Go on."

"Oh, well, when I saw her she almost punched my head, as I say; in fact
so nearly that one might almost say she did punch my head. She threw
the letter in my face; she seemed to reflect first, as if she would
have liked to keep it, but thought better of it and threw it in my face
instead. 'If anybody can have been such a fool as to trust a man like
you to deliver the letter,' says she,' take it and deliver it! 'Hey! she
was grandly indignant. A fierce, fiery lady that, sir!"

"Where's the letter now?"

"Oh, I've still got it, here!"

And he handed the prince the very letter from Aglaya to Gania, which the
latter showed with so much triumph to his Sister at a later hour.

"This letter cannot be allowed to remain in your hands."

"It's for you--for you! I've brought it you on purpose!" cried Lebedeff,
excitedly. "Why, I'm yours again now, heart and hand, your slave; there
was but a momentary pause in the flow of my love and esteem for you. Mea
culpa, mea culpa! as the Pope o