"My good master," resumed he, "do you remember that Pauline whom I loved? Do you also remember having seen me crouched at your feet crying, 'Mercy! Mercy! for her and for me'? My good master, have you forgotten that corner of the street where you said to me one day: 'This woman is charming; but if your marriage is not broken off before evening, to-morrow she will learn from me who you are'? That day, Count Kostia Petrovitch, you had a happy and smiling air. Say, Kostia Petrovitch, do you recollect it?" The Count answered only by a disdainful smile. "Oh! most simple and most credulous of men," continued Vladimir, "how could you think that I would empty the cup of sorrow and of shame to the very dregs, and not revenge myself upon him who smiled as he made me drink it." "Six months later, you saved my life," said the Count, slightly shrugging his shoulders. "Because your days were dear to me. You do not know then the tenderness of hatred! I wished you to live, and that your life should be a hell." And then he added, panting: "The lover of the Countess Olga, . . . was I." The Count staggered as if struck by lightning. He supported himself by the back of a chair, to avoid falling; then springing to the table, he seized a carafe full of water and emptied it in a single draught. Then in a convulsed voice, he exclaimed: "You lie! The Countess Olga could never have given herself to a serf!" "Refer to your memory once more, Kostia Petrovitch. You forget that in her eyes I was not a serf, but an illustrious physician, a sort of great man. However, I will console you. The Countess Olga loved me no more than I loved her. My magnetic eyes, my threats had, as it were, bewitched her poor head; in my arms she was dying with fear, and when at the end of one of these sweet interviews, she heard me cry out, 'Olga Vassilievna, your lover is a serf,' she nearly perished of shame and horror." The Count cast upon his serf a look of indescribable disgust, and, making a superhuman effort to speak, once more exclaimed: "Impossible! That letter which you addressed to me at Paris--" "I feared that your dishonor might be concealed from you, and what would life have been to me then?" M. Leminof turned to the priest who remained standing at the other end of the room. "Father Alexis, is what this man says true?" The priest silently bowed. "And was it for this, foolish priest, that you have endured death and martyrdom--to prolong the days of a worm of the earth?" "I cared little for his life," answered the priest, with dignity, "but much for my conscience, and for the inviolable secrecy of the confessional." "And for two years in succession you have suffered my mortal enemy to lodge under my roof without warning me?"