"I'm going out to get married. I shall be back in the morning with a wife and then out you go. This is your last night here!"
And having said this he would go—to play billiards. From there he would sometimes return home, but more often he would go carousing in some dirty hole with Routilov and Volodin. On such nights Varvara could not sleep. That is why she suffered from headaches. It was not so bad if he returned at one or two—then she could breathe freely. But if he did not turn up till the morning then the day found Varvara quite ill.
At last Grushina had finished the letter and showed it to Varvara. They examined it for a long time and compared it with the Princess's letter of last year. Grushina assured her that the letter was so like the other that the Princess herself would not recognise the forgery. Although there was actually little resemblance, Varvara believed her. She also realised that Peredonov would not remember the Princess's unfamiliar handwriting so minutely that he would see it was a forgery.
"At last!" she said joyously. "I have waited and waited, and I'd almost lost patience. But what shall I tell him about the envelope if he asks?"
"You can't very well forge an envelope; there's the post-mark," said Grushina laughing as she looked at Varvara with her cunning unequal eyes, one of them wider open than the other.
"What shall we do?"
"Varvara Dmitrievna darling, just tell him that you threw the envelope into the fire. What's the good of an envelope?"
Varvara's hopes revived. She said:
"Once we're married, he won't keep me any longer on the run. I'll do the sitting and he can do the running for me."