He paused. He was tired and upset, and sat with drooping head, staring at the floor with his tired eyes. I took advantage of the interval to tell him of my visit to Filipov's house, and curtly and dryly expressed my opinion that Lebyadkin's sister (whom I had never seen) really might have been somehow victimised by Nicolas at some time during that mysterious period of his life, as Liputin had called it, and that it was very possible that Lebyadkin received sums of money from Nicolas for some reason, but that was all. As for the scandal about Darya Pavlovna, that was all nonsense, all that brute Liputin's misrepresentations, that this was anyway what Alexey Nilitch warmly maintained, and we had no grounds for disbelieving him. Stepan Trofimovitch listened to my assurances with an absent air, as though they did not concern him. I mentioned by the way my conversation with Kirillov, and added that he might be mad. "He's not mad, but one of those shallow-minded people," he mumbled listlessly. "_Ces gens-là supposent la nature et la societé humaine autres que Dieu ne les a faites et qu'elles ne sont réellement._ People try to make up to them, but Stepan Verhovensky does not, anyway. I saw them that time in Petersburg _avec cette chère amie_ (oh, how I used to wound her then), and I wasn't afraid of their abuse or even of their praise. I'm not afraid now either. _Mais parlons d'autre chose...._ I believe I have done dreadful things. Only fancy, I sent a letter yesterday to Darya Pavlovna and... how I curse myself for it!" "What did you write about?" "Oh, my friend, believe me, it was all done in a noble spirit. I let her know that I had written to Nicolas five days before, also in a noble spirit." "I understand now!" I cried with heat. "And what right had you to couple their names like that?" "But, _mon cher,_ don't crush me completely, don't shout at me; as it is I'm utterly squashed like... a black-beetle. And, after all, I thought it was all so honourable. Suppose that something really happened... _en Suisse_...or was beginning. I was bound to question their hearts beforehand that I..._enfin,_ that I might not constrain their hearts, and be a stumbling-block in their paths. I acted simply from honourable feeling." "Oh, heavens! What a stupid thing you've done!" I cried involuntarily. "Yes, yes," he assented with positive eagerness. "You have never said anything more just, _c'était bête, mais que faire? Tout est dit._ I shall marry her just the same even if it be to cover 'another's sins.' So there was no object in writing, was there?" "You're at that idea again!"