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The Lock and Key Library - The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations: North Europe — Russian — Swedish — Danish — Hungarian by Unknown
page 47 of 487 (09%)
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.

The door opened, with the rustling of a silk dress. A tall, well-
developed, and decidedly handsome woman appeared on the threshhold.
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.

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