"I was ignorant of his history and of the fact that he had reasons for hating you. I fancied that a mad passion had made him a traitor to friendship, and that in repentance he sought to expiate his fault, by the assiduous attentions which he lavished upon you." "Poor fellow!" said the Count, crushing him with a look of pity. Then Vladimir resumed in a voice growing more and more feeble: "Since that cursed hour, when I crawled at your feet, without being able to soften your stony heart with my tears, I became disgusted with life. To feel that I belonged to you was every instant a torment. But if you ask me why I have deferred my death so long, I answer that while you had a daughter living my vengeance was not complete. I let this child grow up; but when the clock of fate struck the hour I waited for, courage suddenly failed me, and I was seized with scruples, which still astonish me. But what am I saying? I bless my weakness, since I brought home a victim pure and without stain, and since her virginal innocence adds to the horror of your crime. Ah! tell me, was the steel which pierced her heart the same that silenced Morlof's? Oh, sword, thou art predestinated!" Count Kostia's eyes brightened. He had something like a presentiment that he was about to be delivered from that fatal doubt which for so many years had poisoned his life, and he fixed his vulture-like eyes upon Vladimir. "That child," said he, "was not my daughter." Vladimir opened his vest, tore the lining with his nails and drew out a folded paper, which he threw at the Count's feet: "Pick up that letter!" cried he, "the writing is known to you. I meant to have sent it to you by your dishonored daughter. Go and read it near your dead child." M. Leminof picked up the letter, unfolded it, and read it to the end with bearing calm and firm. The first lines ran thus: "Vile Moujik. Thou hast made me a mother. Be happy and proud. Thou hast revealed to me that maternity can be a torture. In my ignorant simplicity, I did not know until now it could be aught else than an intoxication, a pride, a virtue, which God and the church regard with favor, and the angels shelter with their white wings. When for the first time I felt my Stephan and my Stephane stir within me, my heart leaped for joy, and I could not find words enough to bless Heaven which at last rewarded six years of expectation; but now it is not a child I carry in bosom, it is a crime. . . ." This letter of four pages shed light, and carried conviction into the mind of Count Kostia. "She was really my daughter," said he, coolly. . . "Fortunately I have not killed her." He left the room, and an instant after re-appeared, accompanied by Gilbert, and carrying in his arms his daughter, pale and disheveled, but living. He advanced into the middle of the room. There, as if speaking to himself, he said: