And she added in almost a whisper: "Little master!--'tis I--of the mill." And tears coursed quietly over her pallid countenance. PART III. I Krzycki left Miss Anney's with a sensation as if lightning had struck directly in front of him and suddenly stunned him. He could neither collect nor connect his thoughts; he was not even in a condition to realize his situation nor reflect upon it. The only impression, or rather feeling, which in the first moments remained was a feeling of illimitable amazement. On the way he repeated every little while, "Hanka Skibianka! Hanka Skibianka!" and seemed incapable of doing aught else. He did not find Gronski at home, as the latter had left immediately after the noon hour, telling the servant that he would return late at night. So he went to his room, locked himself in without knowing why; afterwards he flung himself into an armchair and sat abstractedly for over an hour. After the lapse of that time, he opened his trunk and began to pack things into it with excessive zeal, until finally he propounded to himself the question: "Why am I doing this?" Not being able to find an answer, he abandoned that work and only resumed it when he came to the unexpected conclusion that in any case he would have to move away from Gronski's. Having finished, he put on his hat and left, without any well-defined object, for the city. For a while a desire rose in him to call upon his mother and Pani Otocka, but he stifled it at once. For what? It seemed to him that he had nothing to tell his mother about himself and his intentions; and that he could talk with her only about this unheard-of intelligence, the discussion of which would be for him, beyond all expression, afflicting. Unconsciously, he reached the Holy Cross Church and wanted to enter it, but the hour was late and the church was locked. The morning of that day and the joint prayer with her stood vividly before his eyes. Ah, how sincerely he prayed; how he loved her; how he loved her! And now he could not resist the impression that this light-haired, idolized lady, with whom he said in that chapel "Under Thy Protection," and Hanka Skibianka were two different beings. And he felt in his heart a kind of disenchantment with which he began to contend. For why was he nevertheless so acutely affected by it? Was it because Hanka was a peasant girl and he a nobleman? No! Miss Anney never represented herself as an English noblewoman, and a Polish peasant is no worse than an English commoner. He could not clearly perceive that the reason of it lay in this: that Miss Anney through her descent alone, foreign and distant, appeared to him a sort of princess, and Hanka was a near and domestic girl from Zarnow. She aroused less curiosity and therefore was less attractive. She was so much easier, therefore, cheaper to him. In vain he recalled and repeated that this