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Rh any thieving intention, and covered her eyes with it: "How kind! how kind!" she exclaimed.

"I do not entirely share your opinion, and why, we shall see later on. This is not the fulfilment of his commission, but only the expression of my opinion, which I expressed also to him when we met last. His commission consisted in my showing you this note and then burning it up. Have you seen it as long as you want?"

"I want to see it more, more!"

Again she folded her hands; again he put down the note, and with patience as before he again stood a good quarter of an hour. Again she hid her face in her hands, and kept uttering, "Oh, how kind! how kind!"

"So far as you could learn this note by heart, you have done so. If you were in a calm state of mind you would not only have known it by heart, but the form of every letter would forever be engraved in your memory, so long and attentively you have been looking at it; but by such excitement as you are in, the laws of remembrance are violated, and your memory may fail you. Foreseeing this emergency, I made a copy of this note; whenever you want you can always see this copy, which I shall retain. Sometime I may even see the possibility of giving it to you. But now, I suppose, the original can be burned up, and then my errand will be ended."

"Show it to me again!"

Once more he laid the note down. This time Viéra Pavlovna kept continually lifting her eyes from the paper: it was evident that she was learning herself to see if she knew it perfectly. In a few minutes she sighed and ceased to lift her eyes from the note.

"Now, I see you have already seen it long enough. It is already twelve o'clock, and I want to give you the benefit of my thoughts about this affair, because I consider it useful for you to learn my opinion about it. Are you willing?"

"Yes."

At that very moment the note was burning in the flame of the candle.

"Akh!" cried Viéra Pavlovna; "I did not mean that! why did you?"

"Yes, you only said that you were willing to listen to me. But it does not make any difference now. It was necessary