“But how will you live there?  Why, you have nothing.”

“I will do translation, or . . . or I will open a library . . . .”

“Don’t let your fancy run away with you, my dear.  You must have money for a library.  Well, I will leave you now, and you calm yourself and think things over, and to-morrow come and see me, bright and happy.  That will be enchanting!  Well, good-bye, my angel.  Let me kiss you.”

Marya Konstantinovna kissed Nadyezhda Fyodorovna on the forehead, made the sign of the cross over her, and softly withdrew.  It was getting dark, and Olga lighted up in the kitchen.  Still crying, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed.  She began to be very feverish.  She undressed without getting up, crumpled up her clothes at her feet, and curled herself up under the bedclothes.  She was thirsty, and there was no one to give her something to drink.

“I’ll pay it back!” she said to herself, and it seemed to her in delirium that she was sitting beside some sick woman, and recognised her as herself.  “I’ll pay it back.  It would be stupid to imagine that it was for money I . . .  I will go away and send him the money from Petersburg.  At first a hundred . . . then another hundred . . . and then the third hundred. . . .”

It was late at night when Laevsky came in.

“At first a hundred . . .”  Nadyezhda Fyodorovna said to him, “then another hundred . . .”

“You ought to take some quinine,” he said, and thought, “To-morrow is Wednesday; the steamer goes and I am not going in it.  So I shall have to go on living here till Saturday.”

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna knelt up in bed.

“I didn’t say anything just now, did I?” she asked, smiling and screwing up her eyes at the light.

“No, nothing.  We shall have to send for the doctor to-morrow morning.  Go to sleep.”

He took his pillow and went to the door.  Ever since he had finally made up his mind to go away and leave Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, she had begun to raise in him pity and a sense of guilt; he felt a little ashamed in her presence, as though in the presence of a sick or old horse whom one has decided to kill.  He stopped in the doorway and looked round at her.

“I was out of humour at the picnic and said something rude to you.  Forgive me, for God’s sake!”

Saying this, he went off to his study, lay down, and for a long while could not get to sleep.

Next morning when Samoylenko, attired, as it was a holiday, in full-dress uniform with epaulettes on his shoulders and decorations on his breast, came out of the bedroom after feeling Nadyezhda Fyodorovna’s pulse and looking at her tongue, Laevsky, who was standing in the doorway, asked him anxiously:  “Well?  Well?”

There was an expression of terror, of extreme uneasiness, and of hope on his face.

“Don’t worry yourself; there’s nothing dangerous,” said Samoylenko; “it’s the usual fever.”