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 He perceived that something had happened, and that their interview would not be joyful. While with her, he could not control his will. Though he did not know what her agitation portended, yet he felt that it had taken possession of him also.

"What is it? What is the matter?" he asked, pressing her arm, and trying to read her thoughts by her face.

She went a few steps in silence, so as to get her breath; then she suddenly halted.

"I did not tell you last evening," she began, breathing fast and painfully, "that, on the way home with Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, I confessed to him everything ....I said that I could not be his wife .... that .... and I told him all."

He listened, involuntarily leaning toward her, as if he wished to lighten for her the difficulty of this confidence; but as soon as she finished speaking, he suddenly drew himself up, and his face assumed a haughty and stern expression.

"Yes! yes! that was better, a thousand times better, I understand how hard it must have been," he said.

But she did not heed his words, she read his thoughts by the expression of his face. She could not know that the expression of his face arose from the first thought that came into his mind—the thought that a duel could not now be avoided. Never had a thought of a duel entered her head, and therefore she interpreted the momentary expression of sternness in a quite different way.

Since the arrival of her husband's letter, she felt in the bottom of her heart that all would remain as before; that she should not have the strength to sacrifice her position in the world, to abandon her son and join her lover. The morning spent with the Princess Tverskaya confirmed her in this. But this interview with Vronsky seemed to her to be of vital importance. She hoped that it might change their relations and save her. If, on hearing this news, he had said decidedly, passionately, without a moment's hesitation, "Leave all, and come