"You are mistaken. Even if I do not die, you will not be able to deceive me again. This is my last will!" he replied convulsively.
And with trembling hand he gave the doctor a bunch of keys.
"There is the dispatch box. Please open it, and put the will in."
The doctor obeyed his wish, without looking at Olga Vseslavovna. She, on her part, did not look at him. Shrugging her shoulders at her husband's last words, she remained motionless, noticing nothing except his sufferings. His sufferings, it seemed, tortured her.
Meanwhile the dying man followed the doctor with anxious eyes, and as soon as the latter closed the large traveling dispatch box he stretched out his hand to him for the keys.
"So long as I am alive, I will keep them!" he murmured, putting the bunch of keys away in his pocket. "And when I am dead, I intrust them to you, Edouard Vicentevitch. Take care of them, as a last service to me!" And he turned his face once more to the wall.
"And now, leave me alone! The pain is less. Perhaps I shall go to sleep. Leave me!"
"My friend! Permit me to remain near you," the general's wife began, bending tenderly over her husband.
"Go!" he cried sharply. "Leave me in peace, I tell you!"
She rose, trembling. The doctor hastily offered her his arm. She left the room, leaning heavily on him, and once more covering her face with her handkerchief, in tragic style.