“No, no, let me be, I’ll stay.”

She saw now that from the place of Vronsky’s accident an officer was running across the course towards the pavilion.  Betsy waved her handkerchief to him.  The officer brought the news that the rider was not killed, but the horse had broken its back.

On hearing this Anna sat down hurriedly, and hid her face in her fan.  Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that she was weeping, and could not control her tears, nor even the sobs that were shaking her bosom.  Alexey Alexandrovitch stood so as to screen her, giving her time to recover herself.

“For the third time I offer you my arm,” he said to her after a little time, turning to her.  Anna gazed at him and did not know what to say.  Princess Betsy came to her rescue.

“No, Alexey Alexandrovitch; I brought Anna and I promised to take her home,” put in Betsy.

“Excuse me, princess,” he said, smiling courteously but looking her very firmly in the face, “but I see that Anna’s not very well, and I wish her to come home with me.”

Anna looked about her in a frightened way, got up submissively, and laid her hand on her husband’s arm.

“I’ll send to him and find out, and let you know,” Betsy whispered to her.

As they left the pavilion, Alexey Alexandrovitch, as always, talked to those he met, and Anna had, as always, to talk and answer; but she was utterly beside herself, and moved hanging on her husband’s arm as though in a dream.

“Is he killed or not?  Is it true?  Will he come or not?  Shall I see him today?” she was thinking.

She took her seat in her husband’s carriage in silence, and in silence drove out of the crowd of carriages.  In spite of all he had seen, Alexey Alexandrovitch still did not allow himself to consider his wife’s real condition.  He merely saw the outward symptoms.  He saw that she was behaving unbecomingly, and considered it his duty to tell her so.  But it was very difficult for him not to say more, to tell her nothing but that.  He opened his mouth to tell her she had behaved unbecomingly, but he could not help saying something utterly different.

“What an inclination we all have, though, for these cruel spectacles,” he said.  “I observe...”

“Eh?  I don’t understand,” said Anna contemptuously.

He was offended, and at once began to say what he had meant to say.

“I am obliged to tell you,” he began.

“So now we are to have it out,” she thought, and she felt frightened.

“I am obliged to tell you that your behavior has been unbecoming today,” he said to her in French.

“In what way has my behavior been unbecoming?” she said aloud, turning her head swiftly and looking him straight in the face, not with the bright expression that seemed covering something, but with a look of determination, under which she concealed with difficulty the dismay she was feeling.