"Why now?"
"So," she answered, and stealthily glanced at him inquiringly.
Nekhludoff understood this answer and this glance as a desire on her part to know if he were still holding to his decision, or had changed it since her refusal.
"I don't know why it is all the same to you," he said, "but to me it really is all the same whether you are acquitted or not. In either case, I am ready to do what I said," he said, with determination.
She raised her head, and her black, squinting eyes fixed themselves on his face and past it, and her whole face became radiant with joy. But her words were in an entirely different strain.
"Oh, you needn't talk that way," she said.
"I say it that you may know."
"Everything has been already said, and there is no use talking any more," she said, with difficulty repressing a smile.
There was some noise in the ward. A child was heard crying.
"I think I am called," she said, looking around with anxiety.