I went out and had reached the bottom of the stairs when a footman suddenly overtook me at the street door. "My lady begs you to come back...." "The mistress, or Lizaveta Nikolaevna?" "The young lady." I found Liza not in the big room where we had been sitting, but in the reception-room next to it. The door between it and the drawing-room, where Mavriky Nikolaevitch was left alone, was closed. Liza smiled to me but was pale. She was standing in the middle of the room in evident indecision, visibly struggling with herself; but she suddenly took me by the hand, and led me quickly to the window. "I want to see _her_ at once," she whispered, bending upon me a burning, passionate, impatient glance, which would not admit a hint of opposition. "I must see her with my own eyes, and I beg you to help me." She was in a perfect frenzy, and--in despair. "Who is it you want to see, Lizaveta Nikolaevna?" I inquired in dismay. "That Lebyadkin's sister, that lame girl.... Is it true that she's lame?" I was astounded. "I have never seen her, but I've heard that she's lame. I heard it yesterday," I said with hurried readiness, and also in a whisper. "I must see her, absolutely. Could you arrange it to-day?" I felt dreadfully sorry for her. "That's utterly impossible, and, besides, I should not know at all how to set about it," I began persuading her. "I'll go to Shatov...." "If you don't arrange it by to-morrow I'll go to her by myself, alone, for Mavriky Nikolaevitch has refused. I rest all my hopes on you and I've no one else; I spoke stupidly to Shatov.... I'm sure that you are perfectly honest and perhaps ready to do anything for me, only arrange it." I felt a passionate desire to help her in every way. "This is what I'll do," I said, after a moment's thought. "I'll go myself to-day and will see her for sure, for sure. I will manage so as to see her. I give you my word of honour. Only let me confide in Shatov." "Tell him that I do desire it, and that I can't wait any longer, but that I wasn't deceiving him just now. He went away perhaps because he's very honest and he didn't like my seeming to deceive him. I wasn't deceiving him, I really do want to edit books and found a printing-press...." "He is honest, very honest," I assented warmly. "If it's not arranged by to-morrow, though, I shall go myself whatever happens, and even if every one were to know." "I can't be with you before three o'clock to-morrow," I observed, after a moment's deliberation. "At three o'clock then. Then it was true what I imagined yesterday at Stepan Trofimovitch's, that you--are rather devoted to me?" she said with a smile, hurriedly pressing my hand to say good-bye, and hurrying back to the forsaken Mavriky Nikolaevitch.