Her face had about it a drawn look, and under her eyes there were a pair of dark patches, and in their depths the dry glitter of a person who has spent a night of waking. True, it was a face still fresh of hue; yet beads of sweat were standing on the forehead, and her shoulders looked grey and heavy—as grey and heavy as unleavened bread which the fire has coated with a thin crust, yet failed to bake throughout.
"Please, also, open the wicket," she continued. "And, in case a lame old beggar-woman should call, come and tell me. I am the Nadezhda Ivanovna for whom she will inquire. Do you understand?"
From the well, at this point, there issued the words:
"Who is that speaking?"
"It is the mistress," I replied.
"What? Nadezhda? With her I have a bone to pick."
"What did he say?" the woman asked tensely as she raised her dark, thinly pencilled brows, and made as though to go and lean over the well. Independently of my own volition I forestalled what Gubin might next have been going to say by remarking:
"I must tell you that last night he saw you walking in the garden here."
"Indeed?" she ejaculated, and drew herself to her full height. Yet in doing so she blushed to her shoulders, and, clapping plump hands to her bosom, and opening dark eyes to their fullest, said in a hasty and confused whisper as, again paling and shrinking in stature, she subsided like a piece of pastry that is turning heavy:
"Good Lord! WHAT did he see?... If the lame woman should call, you must not admit her. No, tell her that she will not be wanted, that I cannot, that I must not—But see here. Here is a rouble for you. Oh, good Lord!"