The door opened, with the rustling of a silk dress. A tall,
well-developed, and decidedly handsome woman appeared on the
threshold. She glanced at the pain-stricken face, which smiled
contemptuously toward her. In a moment she was beside the general,
kneeling beside him on the carpet, bending close to him, and pressing
his hand, as she repeated in a despairing whisper:

"Oh, Georges! Georges! Is it really you, my poor friend?"

It would be hard to define the expression of rapidly changing emotions
which passed over the sick man's face, which made his breast heave,
and his great heart quiver and tremble painfully. Displeasure and
pity, sympathy and contempt, anger and grief, all were expressed in
the short, sharp, bitter laugh, and the few words which escaped his
lips when he saw his little daughter timidly following her mother into
his room.

"Do not teach her to lie!" and he nodded toward the child, and turned
toward the wall, with an expression of pain and pity on his face. The
lawyer and the priest hastened to take their leave and disappear.

"Ah! Sinners! sinners!" muttered the latter, as he descended the
stairs.

"Things are not in good shape between them?" asked Lobnitchenko. "They
don't get on well together?"

"How should they be in good shape, when he came here to get a
divorce?" whispered the priest, shaping his fur cap. "But God decided