‘I give you my word I will let you hear every day how his illness goes on, and if there should be immediate danger----’ ‘Swear you will send for me at once whenever it may be, day or night, write a note straight to me--I care for nothing now. Do you hear? you promise you will do that?’ ‘I promise before God’ ‘Swear it.’ ‘I swear.’ She suddenly snatched his hand, and before he had time to pull it away, she had bent and pressed her lips to it. ‘Elena Nikolaevna, what are you----’ he stammered. ‘No--no--I won’t have it----’ Insarov muttered indistinctly, and sighed painfully. Elena went up to the screen, her handkerchief pressed between her teeth, and bent a long, long look on the sick man. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘Elena Nikolaevna,’ Bersenyev said to her, ‘he might come to himself and recognise you; there’s no knowing if that wouldn’t do harm. Besides, from hour to hour I expect the doctor.’ Elena took her hat from the sofa, put it on and stood still. Her eyes strayed mournfully over the room. She seemed to be remembering.... ‘I cannot go away,’ she whispered at last. Bersenyev pressed her hand: ‘Try to pull yourself together,’ he said, ‘calm yourself; you are leaving him in my care. I will come to you this very evening.’ Elena looked at him, said: ‘Oh, my good, kind friend!’ broke into sobs and rushed away. Bersenyev leaned against the door. A feeling of sorrow and bitterness, not without a kind of strange consolation, overcame him. ‘My good, kind friend!’ he thought and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who is here?’ he heard Insarov’s voice. Bersenyev went up to him. ‘I am here, Dmitri Nikanorovitch. How are you? How do you feel?’ ‘Are you alone?’ asked the sick man. ‘Yes.’ ‘And she?’ ‘Whom do you mean?’ Bersenyev asked almost in dismay. Insarov was silent. ‘Mignonette,’ he murmured, and his eyes closed again. XXVI