"No, you did quite, quite right to come," he said, and was silent again.

Seeing that he was powerless to begin the conversation, she began herself.

"Alexey Alexandrovitch," she said, looking at him and not dropping her eyes under his persistent gaze at her hair, "I'm a guilty woman, I'm a bad woman, but I am the same as I was, as I told you then, and I have come to tell you that I can change nothing.

" "I have asked you no question about that," he said, all at once, resolutely and with hatred looking her straight in the face; "that was as I had supposed.

" Under the influence of anger he apparently regained complete possession of all his faculties.