CHAPTER IV.
Velchaninoff slept soundly until half-past nine, at which hour he started up, sat down on the side of his bed, and began to think.
His thoughts quickly fixed themselves upon the death of “that woman.”
The agitating impression wrought upon his mind by yesterday's news as to her death had left a painful feeling of mental perturbation.
This morning the whole of the events of nine years back stood out before his mind's eye with extraordinary distinctness.
He had loved this woman, Natalia Vasilievna—Trusotsky's wife,—he had loved her, and had acted the part of her lover during the time which he had spent in their provincial town (while engaged in business connected with a legacy); he had lived there a whole year, though his business did not require by any means so long a visit; in fact, the tie above mentioned had detained him in the place.
He had been so completely under the influence of this passion, that Natalia Vasilievna had held him in a species of slavery. He would have obeyed the slightest whim or the wildest caprice of the woman, at that time. He had never, before or since, experienced anything approaching to the infatuation she had caused.
When the time came for departing, Velchaninoff had been in a state of such absolute despair, though the parting was to have been but a short one, that he had begged Natalia Vasilievna to leave all and fly across the frontier with him; and it was only by laughing him out of the idea (though she had at first encouraged it herself, probably for a joke), and by unmercifully chaffing him, that the lady eventually persuaded Velchaninoff to depart alone.