She sat down and wrote: —
I am to blame. Come back. We must explain things. For Heaven's sake, come! I am frightened.
She sealed the note, and gave it to the servant; and, in her fear of being alone, she went to the nursery.
"Why, he is not the same as he was. Where are his blue eyes, and his pretty, timid smile?" was her first thought when she saw the plump and rosy little girl, with her dark curly hair, instead of Serozha, whom, in the confusion of her thoughts, she had expected to see.
The little girl was seated at the table, noisily tapping on it with a glass stopper. She looked unintelligently at her mother with two dark, currant-colored eyes. Answering the English nurse that she was well, and expected to go to the country the next day, Anna sat down beside the little girl, and began to spin the stopper from the carafe in front of her. The motion of the child's brows and her hearty laugh recalled Vronsky so vividly that Anna, choking down her sobs, rose suddenly, and hurried from the room.
"Is it possible that all is over? No, it cannot be," thought she. "He will return. But how can he explain that smile of his and his animation, after he spoke with her? But even if he doesn't explain it, I shall believe him; if I do not believe, there is only one thing left, and that I do not want."
She looked at her watch. Twelve minutes had gone by.
"Now he must have received my note, and must come back in ten minutes. And what if he should n't come back? No, but that's impossible. He must not find me with red eyes; I'll go and bathe my face. There, there! Have I brushed my hair yet?" She could not remember. She put her hands to her head. "Yes, I brushed my hair, but I really don't remember when it was." She actually did not believe that her hands told her truly, and she went to the pier-glass to see. Her hair was properly arranged, but she could not remember anything about it.
"Who is this?" she asked herself, as she caught sight
