‘Another thing I observed,’ she went on, pushing back his hair--‘I made so many observations all this time in my leisure--when any one is very, very miserable, with what stupid attention he follows everything that’s going on about him! I really sometimes lost myself in gazing at a fly, and all the while such chill and terror in my heart! But that’s all past, all past, isn’t it? Everything’s bright in the future, isn’t it?’ ‘You are for me in the future,’ answered Insarov, ‘so it is bright for me.’ ‘And for me too! But do you remember, when I was here, not the last time--no, not the last time,’ she repeated with an involuntary shudder, ‘when we were talking, I spoke of death, I don’t know why; I never suspected then that it was keeping watch on us. But you are well now, aren’t you?’ ‘I’m much better, I’m nearly well.’ ‘You are well, you are not dead. Oh, how happy I am!’ A short silence followed. ‘Elena?’ said Insarov. ‘Well, my dearest?’ ‘Tell me, did it never occur to you that this illness was sent us as a punishment?’ Elena looked seriously at him. ‘That idea did come into my head, Dmitri. But I thought: what am I to be punished for? What duty have I transgressed, against whom have I sinned? Perhaps my conscience is not like other people’s, but it was silent; or perhaps I am guilty towards you? I hinder you, I stop you.’ ‘You don’t stop me, Elena; we will go together.’ ‘Yes, Dmitri, let us go together; I will follow you.... That is my duty. I love you.... I know no other duty.’ ‘O Elena!’ said Insarov, ‘what chains every word of yours fastens on me!’ ‘Why talk of chains?’ she interposed. ‘We are free people, you and I. Yes,’ she went on, looking musingly on the floor, while with one hand she still stroked his hair, ‘I experienced much lately of which I had never had any idea! If any one had told me beforehand that I, a young lady, well brought up, should go out from home alone on all sorts of made-up excuses, and to go where? to a young man’s lodgings--how indignant I should have been! And that has all come about, and I feel no indignation whatever. Really!’ she added, and turned to Insarov. He looked at her with such an expression of adoration, that she softly dropped her hand from his hair over his eyes. ‘Dmitri!’ she began again, ‘you don’t know of course, I saw you there in that dreadful bed, I saw you in the clutches of death, unconscious.’ ‘You saw me?’ ‘Yes.’ He was silent for a little. ‘And Bersenyev was here?’ She nodded. Insarov bowed down before her. ‘O Elena!’ he whispered, ‘I don’t dare to look at you.’ ‘Why? Andrei Petrovitch is so good. I was not ashamed before him. And what have I to be ashamed of? I am ready to tell all the world that I am yours.... And Andrei Petrovitch I trust like a brother.’ ‘He saved me!’ cried Insarov. ‘He is the noblest, kindest of men!’