Nekhludoff stood over her, not knowing what to do.

“You do not believe me,” he said.

“That you wish to marry me?  That will never happen.  I will sooner hang myself.”

“But I will serve you anyway.”

“That is your business.  Only I don’t want anything from you.  Now, that is certain,” she said.  “Oh, why did I not die then!” she added, and began to cry piteously.

Nekhludoff could not speak; her tears called forth tears in his own eyes.

She raised her eyes, looked at him, as if surprised, and with her ’kerchief began to wipe the tears streaming down her cheeks.

The warden again approached them and reminded them that it was time to part.  Maslova rose.

“You are excited now.  If possible I will call to-morrow.  Meantime, think it over,” said Nekhludoff.

She made no answer, and without looking at him left the room, preceded by the warden.

* * * * *

“Well, girl, good times are coming,” said Korableva to Maslova when the latter returned to the cell.  “He seems to be stuck on you, so make the most of it while he is calling.  He will get you released.  The rich can do anything.”

“That’s so,” drawled the watch-woman.  “The poor man will think ten times before he will marry, while the rich man can satisfy his every whim.  Yes, my dear; there was a respectable man in our village, and he——­”

“Have you spoken to him of my case?” asked the old woman.

But Maslova was silent.  She lay down on her bunk, gazing with her squinting eyes into the corner, and remained in that position till evening.  Her soul was in torment.  That which Nekhludoff told her opened to her that world in which she had suffered and which she had left, hating without understanding it.  She had now lost that forgetfulness in which she had lived, and to live with a clear recollection of the past was painful.  In the evening she again bought wine, which she drank with her fellow-prisoners.

CHAPTER XLVII.

“So, that is how it is!” thought Nekhludoff as he made his way out of the prison, and he only now realized the extent of his guilt.  Had he not attempted to efface and atone for his conduct, he should never have felt all the infamy of it, nor she all the wrong perpetrated against her.  Only now it all came out in all its horror.  He now for the first time perceived how her soul had been debased, and she finally understood it.  At first Nekhludoff had played with his feelings and delighted in his own contrition; now he was simply horrified.  He now felt that to abandon her was impossible.  And yet he could not see the result of these relations.

At the prison gate some one handed Nekhludoff a note.  He read it when on the street.  The note was written in a bold hand, with pencil, and contained the following: