During these last two weeks, Sergius and I saw each other every day; he always dined with us and remained until midnight; but, though he often told me--and I knew he was telling the truth--that he could not now live without me, yet he never spent the whole day with me, and even, after a fashion, continued to attend to his business matters. Our outward relations, up to the very time of our marriage, were exactly what they had been; we still said "_you_" to each other, he did not even kiss my hand, and not only did he not seek, but he actually avoided occasions of finding himself alone with me, as if he feared giving himself up too much to the great and dangerous love he bore in his heart. All these days the weather was bad, and we spent most of them in the drawing-room; our conversations being held in the corner between the piano and the window. "Do you know that there is one thing I have been wishing to say to you for a long time?" he said, late one evening, when we were alone in our corner. "I have been thinking of it, all the time you have been at the piano." "Tell me nothing, I know all," I replied. "Well then, we will say no more about it." "Oh, yes, indeed, tell me; what is it?" I asked. "It is this. You remember me telling you that story about A. and B.?" "As if I could help remembering that foolish story! How lucky that it has ended so...." "A little more, and I would have destroyed my happiness with my own hand; you saved me; but the thing is, that I was not truthful with you, then; it has been on my conscience, and now I wish to tell you all." "Ah, please do not!" "Do not be afraid," he said, smiling, "it is only that I must justify myself. When I began to talk to you, I wished to debate the question." "Why debate?" said I, "that is never necessary." He looked at me in silence, then went on. "In regard to the end of that story,--what I said to you, then, was not nonsense; clearly there was something to fear, and I was right to fear it. To receive everything from you, and give you so little! You are yet a child, yet an unexpanded flower, you love for the first time, while I...." "Oh, yes, tell me the truth!" I exclaimed. But all at once I was afraid of his answer. "No, do not tell me!" I added. "Whether I have loved before? is that it?" he said, instantly divining my thought. "It is easy to tell you that. No, I have not loved. Never has such a feeling.... So, do you not see how imperative it was for me to reflect, before telling you that I loved you? What am I giving you? Love, it is true...." "Is that so little?" I asked, looking into his face.