I glanced at him apprehensively; I tried to greet him, but he made no return to my timid salute. He was smiling with a crooked mouth, his arms crossed before him on the table. He was mocking at Kamarowsky and at me, and my terror seemed greatly to amuse him.

I rose nervously, wishing to retire, but Kamarowsky detained me.

“What is troubling you, dearest?” he asked, noticing my frightened eyes. And he turned to see what was behind him.

I trembled in prevision of a stormy scene. But the Count did not recognize Prilukoff; he had only seen him once for a few moments that evening in my drawing-room when he had brought me the mysterious sealed envelope. Now Donat had his hat on his head; and besides, with that sinister smirk distorting his face I scarcely recognized him myself.

As soon as we rose from the table, Prilukoff did the same, and passing in front of us entered the hotel before we did. I trembled, while Kamarowsky with his arm in mine led me, talking placidly and affectionately, towards the entrance of the hotel. Doubtless he intended to accompany me to my sitting-room. But what if we found Prilukoff there?

It was Elise Perrier who saved me. As we stepped out of the lift I saw her coming quickly down the corridor to meet us.

“If you please, madame,” she stammered, “there is a lady—a visitor”—her lips were white as she uttered the falsehood—“who wishes to see madame. She is waiting here, in the sitting-room, and she would like to—to see your ladyship alone.”

“Who is it?” asked the Count.

“I think it is the—that relation of madame's”—Elise was going red and white by turns—“that relation from—from Otrada.”

“Ah, I know,” I stammered breathlessly. “Aunt Sonia, perhaps.” Then turning to Kamarowsky: “Will you wait for me downstairs in the reading-room?”

“Very well. Don't be long.” And Count Kamarowsky turned on his heel and left us.

I went rapidly on in front of Elise, who, humiliated by the falsehood she had told, hung her head in shame both for herself and for me; and I entered my sitting-room. On the couch, smoking a cigarette, sat Prilukoff. He did not rise when I entered. He sat there smoking and looking at me with that curious crooked smile. A great fear clutched my heart.

“Donat,” I stammered, “why did you not let me know you had arrived?”

He made no answer; but he laughed loudly and coarsely, and my fear of him increased.

“Did you receive my letter? Are you cross with me?”

“Cross?” he shouted, leaping to his feet, his eyes glaring like those of a madman. “Cross? No, I am not cross.” I recoiled from him in terror, but he followed me, pushing his distorted face close to mine. “You ruin a man, you drive him to perdition, and then you inquire whether he is cross. You take an honorable man in your little talons, you turn and twist him round your fingers, you mold him and transform him and turn him into a coward, a rogue, and a thief; then you throw him aside like a dirty rag—and you ask him if he is cross! Ha, ha!” And he laughed in my face; he was ghastly to look at, livid in hue, with a swollen vein drawn like a cord across his forehead.

I burst into tears. “Why—why do you say that?” I sobbed.

“Why do I say that?” stormed Prilukoff. “Why? Because I had a wife and I betrayed her for you; I had two children and I forsook them for you; I had a career and I lost it for you; I was a man of honor and I have turned thief for you.”

“Oh, no, no!” I stammered, terrified.

“What? No? No?” he exclaimed, and with trembling hands he searched his breast-pocket and drew from it a bulky roll of banknotes. “No? This I stole—and this—and this—and this—because you, vampire that you are, needed money.”

“But I never told you to steal—”

“No, indeed; you never told me to steal. And where was I to get the money from? Where? Where?” So saying, he flung the banknotes in my face and they fell all over and around me. “You did not tell me to steal, no. But you wanted money, money, money. And now you have got it. Take it, take it, take it!”

I sobbed despairingly. “Oh, no, no, Donat! Have pity!”

“I have had pity,” he shouted. “I have always had pity—nothing but pity. You were ill and miserable and alone, and I left my home in order to stay with you. You wept, and I comforted you. You had no money, and I stole it for you. How could I have more pity?” He was himself in tears. “And now, because I am degraded and a criminal on your account, you leave me, you fling me aside and you marry an honest man. And I may go to perdition or to penal servitude.”

“Do not speak like that, I implore you.”

“Ah, but Countess Tarnowska, if I go to penal servitude, so shall you. I swear it. I am a thief and may become a murderer; but if I go to prison, you go too.” He collapsed upon the sofa and hid his face in his hands.

As I stood looking down upon him I saw as in a vision the somber road to ruin that this man had traversed for my sake, and I fell on my knees at his feet.

“Donat! Donat! Do not despair. Forgive me, forgive me! Go back, and return the money you have taken; go back and become an honest man again!”

He raised a haggard face in which his wild, bloodshot eyes seemed almost phosphorescent.

“There is no going back. By this time all Moscow knows that I have absconded, and carried off with me the money that was confided to my care.”

“But if you go back at once and return it?”

“I am ruined all the same. I am utterly lost and undone. Who would ever place their trust in me again? Who would ever rely upon my honor? No, I am a criminal, and every one knows it. The brand of infamy is not to be cancelled by a flash of tardy remorse. I am done for. I am a thief, and that is all there is about it.”

A thief! I had never seen a thief. In my imagination thieves were all slouching, unkempt roughs, with caps on their heads, and colored handkerchiefs tied round their throats. And here was this gentleman in evening dress—this gentleman who had been introduced to me as a celebrated and impeccable lawyer, who had been my lover, and Tioka's friend, and Elise's Lohengrin—and he was a thief!

I could not believe it.

At that moment a voice was heard outside. It was one of the bell-boys of the hotel; he was passing through the corridor calling: “Forty-seven! Number forty-seven.”

Prilukoff started. “Forty-seven? That is the number of my room. Who can be asking for me? Who can know that I am here?”

In his eyes there was already the look of the fugitive, the startled flash of fear and defiance of the hunted quarry.

I looked round me at all the banknotes scattered on the carpet, and I felt myself turn cold. “Hide them, hide them,” I whispered, wringing my hands. “Hide them yourself!” he answered scornfully.

I heard footsteps in the corridor. They drew near. They stopped. Some one knocked at the door. Terror choked my throat and made my knees totter.

I stooped in haste to pick up all the money while Prilukoff still looked at me without moving. I held it out to him in a great heap of crumpled paper. But still he did not stir.

Again the knocking was repeated. Who could it be? Kamarowsky? The police? I opened a desk and flung the bundle of banknotes into it.

Then I said, “Come in.”