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 with mud, and his face was as white as the paper I am writing on.

"You'll not leave me!" cried he, as I left him. "By Heaven, I'll want all the friends I can get this time to-morrow. They'll tear me in pieces—they'll hunt me like a dog"

"You should have thought of that before," said I.

"I never meant to shoot him, I swear it!" said he, staggering into the house. "It was the girl's voice that made me—the she-devil that has played with me for five years, and brought me to this at last. Oh, my God! I'm a doomed man."

He went in with this on his lips, and I turned back to meet Sir Nicolas. The bells of the horses in his carriage were already jangling in the village street; and, presently, I saw my master with his Marya, coming along at full gallop. He did not stop even when he caught sight of me, but drove on straight to the great house, where I followed him as fast as my legs would carry me. I found him doing his best to make things look well to Mme. Pouzatòv, and already taking almost a master's place in the house. But he came to me at once when I arrived; and the first name that passed his lips was the name of the count.

"’Tis a paltry murdering villain he is, and nothing else," said he, drawing me aside in the garden; "but we must stand by him, or there'll be bad talk."

"You don't mean to say that you'll keep him in the village there?" cried I.