s. Nor could it arise from dread of the fate that awaited
her if she married Rogojin. These causes, indeed, as well as others,
might have played a part in it, but the true reason, Muishkin decided,
was the one he had long suspected--that the poor sick soul had come to
the end of its forces. Yet this was an explanation that did not procure
him any peace of mind. At times he seemed to be making violent efforts
to think of nothing, and one would have said that he looked on his
marriage as an unimportant formality, and on his future happiness as a
thing not worth considering. As to conversations such as the one held
with Evgenie Pavlovitch, he avoided them as far as possible, feeling
that there were certain objections to which he could make no answer.

The prince had observed that Nastasia knew well enough what Aglaya was
to him. He never spoke of it, but he had seen her face when she had
caught him starting off for the Epanchins' house on several occasions.
When the Epanchins left Pavlofsk, she had beamed with radiance and
happiness. Unsuspicious and unobservant as he was, he had feared at that
time that Nastasia might have some scheme in her mind for a scene or
scandal which would drive Aglaya out of Pavlofsk. She had encouraged
the rumours and excitement among the inhabitants of the place as to her
marriage with the prince, in order to annoy her rival; and, finding
it difficult to meet the Epanchins anywhere, she had, on one occasion,
taken him for a drive past their house. He did not observe what was
happening until they were almost passing the windows, when it was too
late to do anything. He said nothing, but for two days afterwards he was
ill.

Nastasia did not try that particular experiment again. A few days before
that fixed for the wedding, she grew grave and thoughtful. She always
ended by getting the better of her melancholy, and becoming merry and
cheerful again, but not quite so unaffectedly happy as she had been some
days earlier.

The prince redoubled his attentive study of her symptoms. It was a most
curious circumstance, in his opinion, that she never spoke of Rogojin.
But once, about five days before the wedding, when the prince was at
home, a messenger arrived begging him to come at once, as Nastasia
Philipovna was very ill.

He had found her in a condition approaching to absolute madness. She
screamed, and trembled, and cried out that Rogojin was hiding out there
in the garden--that she had seen him