explained. "They were sorting all sorts of papers; some of them
they tied up, writing something on them; others they tore up, or
threw into the fire. The grate is full of ashes. Yakov told me."

"And there were no more telegrams?"

"No, madam, there were no more. Yakov and our Friedrich would have
let me know at once; I was there in the anteroom; they both kept
coming through on errands. But there were no more telegrams,
except the two that were sent last night."

Olga Vseslavovna dressed, breakfasted, and went to her husband.
But at the threshold of his room she was stopped by the direction
of the sick man to admit no one without special permission except
the doctor, or his eldest daughter, if she should come.

"Tell Edouard Vicentevitch to come out to me," ordered the
general's wife. The doctor was called, and in great confusion
confirmed the general's orders.

"But perhaps he did not think that such an order could apply to
me?" she said, astonished.

The doctor apologized, but had to admit that it was she who was
intended, and that his excellency had sent word to her excellency
that she should not give herself the trouble of visiting him.

"He is out of his mind," declared the general's wife quietly, but
with conviction, shrugging her shoulders. "Why should he hate me
so--for all my love to him, an old man, who might have been my