The general's wife bowed her head.
"What hurts me most," she whispered, with a bitter smile, bending close to the young doctor, and leaning heavily on his arm, "what hurts me most, is not the money. I am not avaricious. But why should he take my child away from me? Why should he pass over her own mother, and intrust her to her half-sister? A woman whom I do not know, who has not distinguished herself by any services or good actions, so far as I know. I shall not submit. I shall contest the will. The law must support the right of the mother. What do you think, doctor?"
The doctor hastily assented, though, to tell the truth, he was not thinking of anything at the moment, except the strange manner in which the general's wife, while talking, pressed close to her companion.
At that moment a bell rang, and the general's loud voice was heard:
"Doctor! Edouard Vicentevitch!"
"Coming!" answered the doctor.
And leaving Olga Vseslavovna at the threshold of her room, he ran quickly to the sick man.
"A vigorous voice—for a dying man! He shouts as he used to at the manoeuvers!" thought the general's wife.
And her handsome face at once grew dark with the hate which stole over it. This was only a passing expression, however; it rapidly gave place to sorrow, when she saw the manservant coming from the sick man.
"What is the matter with your master, Yakov? Is he worse?"