on his breast, came out of the bedroom after feeling Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna's pulse and looking at her tongue, Laevsky, who was
standing in the doorway, asked him anxiously: "Well? Well?"

There was an expression of terror, of extreme uneasiness, and of
hope on his face.

"Don't worry yourself; there's nothing dangerous," said Samoylenko;
"it's the usual fever."

"I don't mean that." Laevsky frowned impatiently. "Have you got the
money?"

"My dear soul, forgive me," he whispered, looking round at the door
and overcome with confusion.

"For God's sake, forgive me! No one has anything to spare, and I've
only been able to collect by five- and by ten-rouble notes. . . .
Only a hundred and ten in all. To-day I'll speak to some one else.
Have patience."

"But Saturday is the latest date," whispered Laevsky, trembling
with impatience. "By all that's sacred, get it by Saturday! If I
don't get away by Saturday, nothing's any use, nothing! I can't
understand how a doctor can be without money!"

"Lord have mercy on us!" Samoylenko whispered rapidly and intensely,
and there was positively a breaking note in his throat. "I've been
stripped of everything; I am owed seven thousand, and I'm in debt
all round. Is it my fault?"