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 Kitty drooped her head lower and lower, not knowing how she should reply to the words that he was going to speak.

"That it depended upon you," he repeated. "I meant .... I meant .... I came for this, that .... be my wife," he murmured, not knowing what he had said; but, feeling that he had got through the worst of the difficulty, he stopped and looked at her.

She felt almost suffocated; she did not raise her head. She felt a sort of ecstasy. Her heart was full of happiness. Never could she have believed that the declaration of his love would make such a deep impression upon her. But this impression lasted only a moment. She remembered Vronsky. She raised her sincere and liquid eyes to Levin, and, seeing his agitated face, said hastily:—

"This cannot be! .... Forgive me!"

How near to him, a moment since, she had been, and how necessary to his life! and now how far away and strange she suddenly seemed to be!

"It could not have been otherwise," he said, without looking at her.

He bowed and was about to leave the room.

CHAPTER XIV

this instant the princess entered. Apprehension was pictured on her face when she saw their agitated faces and that they had been alone. Levin bowed low, and did not speak. Kitty was silent, and did not raise her eyes. "Thank God, she has refused him!" thought the mother; and her face lighted up with the smile with which she always received her Thursday guests. She sat down, and began to ask Levin questions about his life in the country. He also sat down, hoping to escape unobserved when the guests began to arrive.

Five minutes later, one of Kitty's friends, who had been married the winter before, was announced,—the