Bersenyev pressed her hand: 'Try to pull yourself together,' he
said, 'calm yourself; you are leaving him in my care. I will come to
you this very evening.'

Elena looked at him, said: 'Oh, my good, kind friend!' broke into
sobs and rushed away.

Bersenyev leaned against the door. A feeling of sorrow and bitterness,
not without a kind of strange consolation, overcame him. 'My good,
kind friend!' he thought and shrugged his shoulders.

'Who is here?' he heard Insarov's voice.

Bersenyev went up to him. 'I am here, Dmitri
Nikanorovitch. How are you? How do you feel?'

'Are you alone?' asked the sick man.

'Yes.'

'And she?'

'Whom do you mean?' Bersenyev asked almost in dismay.

Insarov was silent. 'Mignonette,' he murmured, and his eyes closed
again.