she wished to see how he would receive what she said.
He grew pale, tried to speak, then stopped short, dropped her hand, and hung his head.
"Yes, he understands the significance of this," she said to herself, and gratefully pressed his hand.
But she was mistaken in thinking that he appreciated the significance of what she had told him, as she, a woman, did. On learning this, he felt that he was attacked with tenfold force by that strange feeling of repulsion and horror which he had already experienced. But at the same time, he realized that the crisis which he had expected was now at hand, that it was impossible longer to keep the secret from the husband; and it was important to extricate themselves as soon as possible from the unnatural situation in which they were placed. Moreover, her anguish communicated itself to him physically. He looked at her with humbly submissive eyes, kissed her hand, arose, and began to walk up and down the terrace without speaking.
At last he approached her, and said in a tone of decision: —
"Well," said he, "neither you nor I have looked on our relations as a pastime, and now our fate is decided; at last we must put an end to the false situation in which we live," — and he looked around him.
"Put an end? How put an end, Alekseï?" she asked gently.
She was calm now, and her face beamed with a tender smile.
"You must leave your husband and unite your life with mine."
"But aren't they already united?" she asked, in an almost inaudible voice.
"Yes, but not completely, not absolutely!"
"But how, Alekseï? tell me how," said she, with a melancholy irony at the hopelessness of her situation. "How is there any escape from such a position? Am I not the wife of my husband?"
"From any situation, however difficult, there is always
