As soon as Velchaninoff left the sick child’s presence, he burst into tears. The doctor did not arrive until evening. On seeing the patient he frightened everybody by his very first remark, observing that it was a pity he had not been sent for before. When informed that the child had only been taken ill last night, he could not believe it at first. “Well, it all depends upon how this night is passed,” he decided at last. Having made all necessary arrangements, he took his departure, promising to come as early as possible next morning. Velchaninoff was anxious to stay the night, but Claudia Petrovna begged him to try once more “to bring down that brute of a man.” “Try once more!” cried Velchaninoff, passionately; “why, I’ll tie him hand and foot and bring him along myself!” The idea that he would tie Pavel Pavlovitch up and carry him down in his arms overpowered Velchaninoff, and filled him with impatience to execute his frantic desire. “I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty before him any more,” he said to Claudia Petrovna, at parting, “and I withdraw all my servile, abject words of yesterday—all I said to you,” he added, wrathfully. Liza lay with closed eyes, apparently asleep; she seemed to be better. When Velchaninoff bent cautiously over her in order to kiss—if it were but the edge of her bed linen—she suddenly opened her eyes, just as though she had been waiting for him, and whispered, “Take me away!” It was but a quiet, sad petition—without a trace of yesterday’s irritation; but at the same time there was that in her voice which betrayed that she made the request in the full knowledge that it could not be assented to. No sooner did Velchaninoff, in despair, begin to assure her as tenderly as he could that what she desired was impossible, than she silently closed her eyes and said not another word, just as though she neither saw nor heard him. Arrived in town Velchaninoff told his man to drive him to the Pokrofsky. It was ten o’clock at night. Pavel Pavlovitch was not at his lodgings. Velchaninoff waited for him half an hour, walking up and down the passage in a state of feverish impatience. Maria Sisevna assured him at last that Pavel Pavlovitch would not come in until the small hours. “Well, then, I’ll return here before daylight,” he said, beside himself with desperation, and he went home to his own rooms. What was his amazement, when, on arriving at the gate of his house, he learned from Mavra that “yesterday’s visitor” had been waiting for him ever since before ten o’clock. “He’s had some tea,” she added, “and sent me for wine again—the same wine as yesterday. He gave me the money to buy it with.” CHAPTER IX. Pavel Pavlovitch had made himself very comfortable. He was sitting in the same chair as he had occupied yesterday, smoking a cigar, and had just poured the fourth and last tumbler of champagne out of the bottle.