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Rh or confession came, still he could not at once collect his thoughts. But at last he collected them. He went into the kitchen to give an order to Masha.

"Masha, you will please not set the table until I tell you. I am not quite well, and I must take some medicine before dinner. But don't you wait; eat your dinner, and don't hurry: you will have plenty of time before I shall want mine. I will tell when."

From the kitchen he went to see his wife. She was lying down, hiding her face in the pillows; when he entered, she shuddered:—

"You found it, you read it! bozhe moï! how crazy I am! It is not true—what I wrote! it was fever!"

"Of course, my dear; your words must not be taken seriously, because you were too much excited. These things are not so easily decided. We shall have time to talk this matter over more than once, calmly, rationally, because it is a very important matter for us. And, meanwhile, my dear, I want to tell you something about my affairs. I have succeeded in making a good many changes in them,—everything that was needed; and I am very well content. Are you listening?"

Of course she did not herself know whether she was listening or not; she could only have said, however it was, whether she heard or not, that she heard something, but she was very far from understanding what she heard; however, something she did hear, and something could be drawn from what she heard, that something was being done about something, and that it had no connection with her letter; and gradually she began to listen, because her mind was led to it. Her nerves wanted to occupy themselves with something, not with the letter; and though it was long before she could understand what he was driving at, yet she was reassured by the cool and contented tone of her husband's voice, and gradually she began to understand.

"Do listen! because it is about a very important matter for me." Her husband kept repeating each question, "Do you hear?"—"Yes, very pleasant changes for me"—and he begins to tell her the whole story in detail. She realizes three-quarters of what he is telling her,—no, she knows it all; but it is all the same to her: "Let him speak! How kind he is!" And he keeps on with his story: that he has