And incoherently he continued his laments, his protests, his rancor, at her unexplainable estrangement.
"Am I to blame for your misfortune?" he finally asked. "Am I a different man to-day than I was the last time we saw each other?"
She shook her head sadly. She could not convince Michael no matter how much she might talk; it was beyond her strength to explain her new feelings. She seemed dismayed at the obstacle which had arisen between them.
"Leave me, forget me; it is the best that you can do. No; you haven't changed, my poor boy. What harm could you have done me, you who are so kind, so generous? You have helped me to learn the horrible truth; it was through you that I discovered it; and although it is killing me, I feel that it is preferable to uncertainty. You are not to blame, you have done all that I asked you to do. But listen to me, I beg of you: do not seek me, avoid meeting me, leave me! It is the last favor I ask of you. It is only away from you that I can find a certain peace of mind."
Michael's voice lost its tones of supplication and began to quiver with a vibration of anger. How could he be an obstacle to her tranquillity? Hadn't he just said that he wanted to be a comrade in her misfortune, without desires, oblivious of love, with a sweet dispassionate affection, like that of friendship? Now that she was unhappy he felt more vehemently a desire to be by her side. What absurd caprice made her avoid him?
Alicia looked at him with tearful eyes, which reflected the hesitations of her thoughts. Finally she seemed to have made up her mind.
"You haven't changed," she said, in a subdued voice, "but I am different. Misfortune has made another woman of me. I do not recognize myself. I am dominated by a fixed idea. An absurd one it may well be; if I tell it to you, I know that you will protest with holy indignation. No; you are not to blame; but it is better for me not to see you. Your presence increases my remorse. Seeing you, I feel extraordinary shame, a desire to die, to kill myself. I have a feeling of suspicion that it was I who killed my son. I remember all that took place between us; and I recognize God's punishment."
Lubimoff's anger vanished at these inexplicable words. Automatically he took her hands with caressing gentleness, as though they were those of a poor sick patient at the height of delirious ravings. She should be calm! What was she saying? What remorse was she talking about? Her gloved hands, in passive resignation offered no resistance to his touch; but suddenly they woke to life, violently freeing themselves from those of Michael, as though they had just received a hard shock. "No! No!" And the Prince had a sort of feeling that there was a current of repulsion between them, something that he had never experienced until then: the fear of his person.
He remained so disconcerted and humiliated by this movement of withdrawal, that he did not know what to say. She took advantage of his silence to go on talking, but as though she did not see the man who was standing before her eyes.
"When I remember all that ... what a shame! My son, my poor boy, living like a slave, suffering from hunger, being whipped, he, who was so noble and so handsome ... and his mother here acting like a young girl, going into ecstasies over ideal love, taking poetic promenades through the gardens, exchanging kisses. An old woman's romantic fancies. The gambling follies might even be pardoned. I thought of him as I played; the money was for him; but love!... it seems impossible that I could have done all that while my son was a prisoner and I was getting no news from him. What diabolical spell was upon me? And God has punished me; and if not God, whoever or whatever it may be; fate, a mysterious power which makes us expiate our shortcomings, call it anything you like."