“It is done,” said the girl in a low voice.  Vaninka breathed a sigh of relief, as if a mountain had been removed from her breast.  Great as was her self-control, she could no longer bear her father’s presence, and excused herself from remaining to supper with him, on the plea of the fatigues of the evening.  Vaninka was no sooner in her room, with the door once closed, than she tore the flowers from her hair, the necklace from her throat, cut with scissors the corsets which suffocated her, and then, throwing herself on her bed, she gave way to her grief.  Annouschka thanked God for this outburst; her mistress’s calmness had frightened her more than her despair.  The first crisis over, Vaninka was able to pray.  She spent an hour on her knees, then, yielding to the entreaties of her faithful attendant, went to bed.  Annouschka sat down at the foot of the bed.

Neither slept, but when day came the tears which Vaninka had shed had calmed her.

Annouschka was instructed to reward her brother.  Too large a sum given to a slave at once might have aroused suspicion, therefore Annouschka contented herself with telling Ivan that when he had need of money he had only to ask her for it.

Gregory, profiting by his liberty and wishing to make use of his thousand roubles, bought a little tavern on the outskirts of the town, where, thanks to his address and to the acquaintances he had among the servants in the great households of St. Petersburg, he began to develop an excellent business, so that in a short time the Red House (which was the name and colour of Gregory’s establishment) had a great reputation.  Another man took over his duties about the person of the general, and but for Foedor’s absence everything returned to its usual routine in the house of Count Tchermayloff.

Two months went by in this way, without anybody having the least suspicion of what had happened, when one morning before the usual breakfast-hour the general begged his daughter to come down to his room.  Vaninka trembled with fear, for since that fatal night everything terrified her.  She obeyed her father, and collecting all her strength, made her way to his chamber, The count was alone, but at the first glance Vaninka saw she had nothing to fear from this interview:  the general was waiting for her with that paternal smile which was the usual expression of his countenance when in his daughter’s presence.

She approached, therefore, with her usual calmness, and, stooping down towards the general, gave him her forehead to kiss.

He motioned to her to sit down, and gave her an open letter.  Vaninka looked at him for a moment in surprise, then turned her eyes to the letter.

It contained the news of the death of the man to whom her hand had been promised:  he had been killed in a duel.

The general watched the effect of the letter on his daughter’s face, and great as was Vaninka’s self-control, so many different thoughts, such bitter regret, such poignant remorse assailed her when she learnt that she was now free again, that she could not entirely conceal her emotion.  The general noticed it, and attributed it to the love which he had for a long time suspected his daughter felt for the young aide-de-camp.