“I denounce you!” replied Saveliitch, in tears.  “Oh, good heavens!  Here, be so good as to read what master has written to me, and see if it was I who denounced you.”

With this he drew from his pocket a letter, which he offered to me, and I read as follows:—­

“Shame on you, you old dog, for never writing and telling me anything about my son, Petr’ Andrejitch, in spite of my strict orders, and that it should be from strangers that I learn his follies!  Is it thus you do your duty and act up to your master’s wishes?  I shall send you to keep the pigs, old rascal, for having hid from me the truth, and for your weak compliance with the lad’s whims.  On receipt of this letter, I order you to let me know directly the state of his health, which, judging by what I hear, is improving, and to tell me exactly the place where he was hit, and if the wound be well healed.”

Evidently Saveliitch had not been the least to blame, and it was I who had insulted him by my suspicions and reproaches.  I begged his pardon, but the old man was inconsolable.

“That I should have lived to see it!” repeated he.  “These be the thanks that I have deserved of my masters for all my long service.  I am an old dog.  I’m only fit, to keep pigs, and in addition to all this I am the cause of your wound.  No, my father, Petr’ Andrejitch, ’tis not I who am to blame, it is rather the confounded ‘mossoo;’ it was he who taught you to fight with those iron spits, stamping your foot, as though by ramming and stamping you could defend yourself from a bad man.  It was, indeed, worth while spending money upon a ‘mossoo’ to teach you that.”

But who could have taken the trouble to tell my father what I had done.  The General?  He did not seem to trouble himself much about me; and, indeed, Ivan Kouzmitch had not thought it necessary to report my duel to him.  I could not think.  My suspicions fell upon Chvabrine; he alone could profit by this betrayal, which might end in my banishment from the fort and my separation from the Commandant’s family.  I was going to tell all to Marya Ivanofna when she met me on the doorstep.

“What has happened?” she said to me.  “How pale you are!”

“All is at an end,” replied I, handing her my father’s letter.

In her turn she grew pale.  After reading the letter she gave it me back, and said, in a voice broken by emotion—­

“It was not my fate.  Your parents do not want me in your family; God’s will be done!  God knows better than we do what is fit for us.  There is nothing to be done, Petr’ Andrejitch; may you at least be happy.”

“It shall not be thus!” I exclaimed, seizing her hand.  “You love me; I am ready for anything.  Let us go and throw ourselves at your parents’ feet.  They are honest people, neither proud nor hard; they—­they will give us their blessing—­we will marry, and then with time, I am sure, we shall succeed in mollifying my father.  My mother will intercede for us, and he will forgive me.”