"But what is it all about?" she said, with such genuine and droll wonder.

" What do you want of me?" Alexey Alexandrovitch paused, and rubbed his forehead and his eyes.

He saw that instead of doing as he had intended--that is to say, warning his wife against a mistake in the eyes of the world--he had unconsciously become agitated over what was the affair of her conscience, and was struggling against the barrier he fancied between them.

"This is what I meant to say to you," he went on coldly and composedly, "and I beg you to listen to it.