was not wandering, there was a meaning in her words — but no sort of connection. Just upon midnight, she suddenly, with a convulsive movement raised herself in bed — I was sitting beside her — and in the same hurried voice, continually taking sips of water, from a glass beside her, feebly gesticulating with her hands, and never once looking at me, she began to tell her story. . . . She would stop, make an effort to control herself and go on again. . . . It was all so strange, just as though she were doing it all in a dream, as though she herself were absent, and some one else were speaking by her lips, or forcing her to speak.
IX
'Listen to what I am going to tell you,' she began. 'You are not a little boy now; you ought to know all. I had a friend, a girl . . . She married a man she loved with all her heart, and she was very happy with her husband. During the first year of their married life they went together to the capital to spend a few weeks there and enjoy themselves. They stayed at a good hotel, and went out a great deal to theatres and parties. My friend was
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