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 Alekseï Aleksandrovitch held out his hand to him, without trying to keep back the tears.

"Thank the Lord! thank the Lord!" said she; "now everything is right. I will stretch out my feet a little, like that; that is better. How ugly those flowers are! they do not look like violets," she said, pointing to the hangings in her room. "Bozhe moï! Bozhe moï! when will this be over? Give me some morphine, doctor; some morphine. Bozhe moï! Bozhe moï!"

And she tossed about on the bed. The doctors said that this was puerperal fever and that there was not one chance in a hundred of her living. All that day there was fever, with alleviations of delirium and unconsciousness. Toward midnight she lay unconscious and her heart had almost ceased to beat.

The end was expected every moment.

Vronsky went home, but he came back the next morning to learn how she was. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch came to meet him in the reception-room, and said to him, "Stay; perhaps she will ask for you." Then he himself took him to his wife's boudoir. In the morning the restlessness, the rapidity of thought and speech, returned; but soon unconsciousness intervened again. The third day was much the same, and the doctors began to hope. On this day Alekseï Aleksandrovitch went into the boudoir where Vronsky was, closed the door, and sat down in front of him.

"Alekseï Aleksandrovitch," said Vronsky, feeling that an explanation was at hand, "I cannot speak, I cannot think. Have pity on me! Hard as it may be for you, believe me, it is still more terrible for me."

He was going to rise; but Alekseï Aleksandrovitch prevented him, and said:—

"Pray listen to me; it is unavoidable. I am forced to explain to you the feelings that guide me, and will continue to guide me, that you may avoid making any mistake in regard to me. You know that I had decided on a divorce, and that I had taken the preliminary steps