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Rh "Think it over; consider it. Wait for my letter; it will reach you to-morrow."

Here she returns home. How did she feel when she went home with Masha? How did she feel and think all the long way from the Moscow railway station to the Middle Prospekt? She herself does not know, so shocked was she by the abrupt turn in the affair. Twenty-four hours have not passed—no, in two hours it will be a full day—since he found her letter in his room, and now he is already gone. How quick! how sudden! At two o'clock she had not anticipated anything of the sort. He waited until she, wearied by the excitement of the morning, could not longer resist the power of sleep, came in, said a few words, and in these few words there was an almost incomprehensible preface to what he meant; and in what brief words he said what he meant! He said: "I have not seen my old folks for a long time. I am going to see them, and they will be glad to have me come." That was all, and he left immediately; and she hastened after him, though, when he came in, he asked her to promise not to do it. She hastened after him; but where was he? "Masha, where is he? where is he?"

Masha, who was still putting away the things after the departure of the guests, says, "Dmitri Sergéitch has gone out. He said, after he came out from your room, 'I am going to take a walk. And she had to go to bed; and how could she go to sleep? But she did not know that this was going to take place on the very morning which was now beginning to dawn. He said that they would have abundant time to talk everything over. And she had barely time to open her eyes before it was time to go to the railway station. Yes, all this had flashed by her eyes, as though nothing of the sort had happened to her, as though some one had told her of something that happened to some one else. Only now, while returning home from the railway station, she came to herself, and began to think, "What is the matter with me, and what is going to happen to me?"

Yes, she is going to Riazan. She is going; it is impossible not to go. But this letter; what will be in that letter? No; why wait for the letter before deciding? She knows what it will contain: still she must postpone her decision till the letter comes. Why postpone it? She will go; yes, she will go! She thinks about it one hour; she thinks two; she thinks three, four hours. But Masha was getting hungry,