"I can't live without you, Irina," he whispered; "I am yours for ever and always. I can only breathe at your feet."
He stooped down, all in a tremble, to kiss her hand. Irina gazed at his bent head.
"Then let me say that I, too, am ready for anything; that I, too, will consider no one and nothing. As you decide, so it shall be. I, too, am for ever yours... yours."
He tore himself away with difficulty. He had turned his back on his upright, well-organised, orderly future. The thing was done, but how was he to face his judge? And if only his judge would come to meet him--an angel with a flaming sword; that would be easier for a sinning heart... instead of which, he had himself to plunge the knife in... infamous! but to turn back, to abandon that other, to take advantage of the freedom offered him, recognised as his... No, no! better to die! No, he would have none of such loathsome freedom... but would humble himself in the dust, and might those eyes look down on him with love.
Two hours later he was back again, trying to talk to the girl he determined to deceive. He felt a continual gnawing of conscience; whatever he said, it always seemed to him that he was telling lies, and Tatyana was seeing through it. The girl was paler than usual, and, replying to her aunt, she said she had a little headache.
"It's the journey," suggested Litvinov, and he positively blushed with shame.
"Yes, the journey," repeated Tatyana, letting her eyes dwell for a moment on his face.
In the night, at two o'clock, Kapitolina Markovna, who was sleeping in the same room with her niece, suddenly lifted up her head and listened.
"Tatyana," she said, "you are crying?"
Tatyana did not at once answer.