"But you must leave me," she added, and in the fearfully squinting eyes with which she glanced at him Nekhludoff again saw a strained and spiteful expression.
"But why should I leave you?"
"So."
"Why so?"
She again looked at him with that spiteful glance, as it seemed to him.
"Well, then, I will tell you," she said. "You leave me—I tell you that truly. I cannot. You must drop that entirely," she said, with quivering lips, and became silent. "That is true. I would rather hang myself."
Nekhludoff felt that in this answer lurked a hatred for him, an unforgiven wrong, but also something else—something good and important. This reiteration of her refusal in a perfectly calm state destroyed in Nekhludoff's soul all his doubts, and brought him back to his former grave, solemn and benign state of mind.
"Katiousha, I repeat what I said," he said, with particular gravity. "I ask you to marry me. If, however, you do not wish to, and so long as you do not wish to, I will be wherever you will be, and follow you wherever you may be sent."