"I will send it to you to take care of," he said to the lawyer. "It
will be safer in your hands than here, in my temporary quarters. But
first I wish to read it to my wife, and ... to my eldest daughter ...
if she arrives in time."

The lawyer and the priest, who was one of the witnesses, were already
preparing to take leave of the general, when voices and steps were
heard in the corridor; a footman's head appeared through the door,
calling the doctor hurriedly forth. It appeared that the general's
lady had arrived suddenly, without letting anyone know by telegram
that she was coming.

The doctor hastily slipped out of the room; he feared the result of
emotion on the sick man, and wished to warn the general's wife of his
grave danger, but the sick man noticed the move, and it was impossible
to guard him against disturbance.

"What is going on there?" he asked. "What are you mumbling about,
Edouard Vicentevitch? Tell me what is the matter? Is it my daughter?"

"Your excellency, I beg of you to take care of yourself!" the doctor
was beginning, evidently quite familiar with the general's family
affairs, and therefore dreading the meeting of husband and wife. "It
is not Anna Iurievna...."

"Aha!" the sick man interrupted him; "she has come? Very well. Let her
come in. Only the little one ... I don't wish her to come ... to-day."

Suffering was visible in his eyes, this time not bodily suffering.