On the day after his visit to Maslennikoff, he again went to the prison to see her.

The inspector allowed him to speak to her, only not in the advocate’s room nor in the office, but in the women’s visiting-room.  In spite of his kindness, the inspector was more reserved with Nekhludoff than hitherto.

An order for greater caution had apparently been sent, as a result of his conversation with Meslennikoff.

“You may see her,” the inspector said; “but please remember what I said as regards money.  And as to her removal to the hospital, that his excellency wrote to me about, it can be done; the doctor would agree.  Only she herself does not wish it.  She says, ’Much need have I to carry out the slops for the scurvy beggars.’  You don’t know what these people are, Prince,” he added.

Nekhludoff did not reply, but asked to have the interview.  The inspector called a jailer, whom Nekhludoff followed into the women’s visiting-room, where there was no one but Maslova waiting.  She came from behind the grating, quiet and timid, close up to him, and said, without looking at him: 

“Forgive me, Dmitri Ivanovitch, I spoke hastily the day before yesterday.”

“It is not for me to forgive you,” Nekhludoff began.

“But all the same, you must leave me,” she interrupted, and in the terribly squinting eyes with which she looked at him Nekhludoff read the former strained, angry expression.

“Why should I leave you?”

“So.”

“But why so?”

She again looked up, as it seemed to him, with the same angry look.

“Well, then, thus it is,” she said.  “You must leave me.  It is true what I am saying.  I cannot.  You just give it up altogether.”  Her lips trembled and she was silent for a moment.  “It is true.  I’d rather hang myself.”

Nekhludoff felt that in this refusal there was hatred and unforgiving resentment, but there was also something besides, something good.  This confirmation of the refusal in cold blood at once quenched all the doubts in Nekhludoff’s bosom, and brought back the serious, triumphant emotion he had felt in relation to Katusha.

“Katusha, what I have said I will again repeat,” he uttered, very seriously.  “I ask you to marry me.  If you do not wish it, and for as long as you do not wish it, I shall only continue to follow you, and shall go where you are taken.”

“That is your business.  I shall not say anything more,” she answered, and her lips began to tremble again.

He, too, was silent, feeling unable to speak.

“I shall now go to the country, and then to Petersburg,” he said, when he was quieter again.  “I shall do my utmost to get your—–­ our case, I mean, reconsidered, and by the help of God the sentence may be revoked.”

“And if it is not revoked, never mind.  I have deserved it, if not in this case, in other ways,” she said, and he saw how difficult it was for her to keep down her tears.