"But how was I to blame?" at length she contrived to say.
Paul Petrovitch raised himself on the sofa.
"You swear, do you, that you were not to blame?" he said. "That you were not in the slightest degree to blame? Not at all?"
"I love Nikolai Petrovitch," came the reply, delivered with sudden energy and a rising sob, "and never shall I love any other man. As for what you saw, before the Throne of Judgment I swear that I am innocent, that I have always been so, and that I would rather die than be suspected of having deceived Nikolai Petrovitch, my benefactor."
Her voice failed her. Then, behold! she felt Paul seize and press her hand! Turning her head, she looked down at him—and stood almost petrified. For his face was even paler than usual, his eyes were glistening, and—most surprising thing of all!—a great tear was trickling down his cheek!
"Thenichka," he whispered in a voice which hardly seemed his own, "I beg of you always to love, and never to cease loving, my brother. He is such a good, kind fellow as has not his equal in the world. Never desert him for another; never listen to any tales which you may hear of him, but reflect how terrible it would be for him to love and not to be loved! Yes, think well, Thenichka, before ever you forsake him."
Thenichka's amazement caused her eyes almost to start from her head, and her nervousness completely to vanish. Judge, also, of her surprise when, though he did not draw her to himself, nor kiss her, Paul Petrovitch raised her hand to his lips, and then burst into a convulsive fit of sobbing!
"God in Heaven!" she thought to herself. "What if this should make him have another fainting fit?"
Meanwhile, in that one moment Paul Petrovitch was living over again a past phase of his ruined life.
Presently hurried footsteps were heard causing the staircase to creak; and just as Paul pushed Thenichka away from him and replaced his head upon the pillow, the door opened, and Nikolai Petrovitch—fresh, ruddy, and smiling—entered with little Mitia. The latter, equally fresh and ruddy, was leaping in Nikolai's arms, and pressing his tiny, naked feet against the buttons of his father's rural smock.