"But I am not lying, Paul Petrovitch. Did I not love Nikolai Petrovitch, I should not want to live."
"And you would exchange him for no one else?"
"Whom should I exchange him for?"
"I do not know. Surely not for the gentlemen who has just left us?"
Thenichka rose to her feet.
"Why should you torment me in this way?" she cried. "What have I done that you should speak to me so?"
"Thenichka," came the mournful reply, "I speak to you in this manner for the reason that I saw——"
"You saw what?"
"I saw you—in the lilac arbour."
She blushed to her ears, to the very roots of her hair.