,' can
you? Well, it doesn't matter much, for everyone must realize now that it
is impossible to be hard on you. Well, au revoir. I advise you to have
a walk, and then go to sleep again if you can. Come in as usual, if
you feel inclined; and be assured, once for all, whatever happens, and
whatever may have happened, you shall always remain the friend of the
family--mine, at all events. I can answer for myself."

In response to this challenge all the others chimed in and re-echoed
mamma's sentiments.

And so they took their departure; but in this hasty and kindly designed
visit there was hidden a fund of cruelty which Lizabetha Prokofievna
never dreamed of. In the words "as usual," and again in her added,
"mine, at all events," there seemed an ominous knell of some evil to
come.

The prince began to think of Aglaya. She had certainly given him a
wonderful smile, both at coming and again at leave-taking, but had not
said a word, not even when the others all professed their friendship for
him. She had looked very intently at him, but that was all. Her face had
been paler than usual; she looked as though she had slept badly.

The prince made up his mind that he would make a point of going there
"as usual," tonight, and looked feverishly at his watch.

Vera came in three minutes after the Epanchins had left. "Lef
Nicolaievitch," she said, "Aglaya Ivanovna has just given me a message
for you."

The prince trembled.

"Is it a note?"

"No, a verbal message; she had hardly time even for that. She begs you
earnestly not to go out of the house for a single moment all to-day,
until seven o'clock in the evening. It may have been nine; I didn't
quite hear."

"But--but, why is this? What does it mean?"

"I don't know at all; but she said I was to tell you particularly."

"Did she say that?"

"Not those very words. She only just had time to whisper as she went by;
but by the way she looked at me I knew it was important. She looked at
me in a way that made my heart stop beating."

The prince asked a few more questions, and though he learned nothing
else, he became more and more agitated.

Left alone, he lay down on the sofa, and began to think.

"Perhaps," he thought, "someone is to be with them until nine tonight
and she is afraid that I may come and make a fool of myself again, in
public." So he spent his time longing for the evening and looking at his
watch. But the clearing-up of the mystery came long before the