He re-read the telegram, and suddenly realized its full meaning.
"If it is true,—if the suffering, the approach of death, have caused her to repent sincerely, and if I should call this pretense, and refuse to go to her, that would not only be cruel, but foolish, and all would blame me."
"Piotr, order a carriage; I am going to Petersburg!" said he to the valet.
Alekseï Aleksandrovitch decided to go to Petersburg and to see his wife. If her illness was a pretense, he would say nothing and go away again; on the other hand, if she were really ill unto death, and wanted to see him before she died, he would forgive her; and, if he reached her too late, he could at least pay his last respects to her.
During the journey he gave no more thought of what he should do.
Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, tired and dusty with his night in the coach, reached Petersburg in the mist of the early morning. He rode along the still deserted Nevsky Prospekt,- looking straight before him, without thinking of what was awaiting him at home. He could not think about it, because as soon as he tried to imagine what might be, he could not drive away the suggestion that his wife's death would put a sudden end to all difficulties of his situation.
The bakers, the closed shops, the night izvoshchiks, the dvorniks sweeping the sidewalks,—all passed like a flash before his eyes; he noticed everything, in his endeavors to stifle the thought of what was before him—of what he dared not hope for and yet hoped for.
He reached his house; an izvoshchik and a carriage with a coachman asleep were standing before the door.
As he entered the vestibule Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, as it were, snatched at a decision from the most hidden recess of his brain, and succeeded in mastering it. It was to this effect: "If she has deceived me, I will be calm and go away again; but if she has told the truth, I will do what is proper."
The Swiss opened the door even before Alekseï Alek-
