“I know your heart,” repeated the prince.

“I know your heart,” repeated the prince. “I value your affection, and I could wish you had the same opinion of me. Calm yourself and let us talk sensibly while there is time—perhaps twenty-four hours, perhaps one. Tell me all you know about the will, and what’s of most consequence, where it is; you must know. We will take it now at once and show it to the count. He has no doubt forgotten about it and would wish to destroy it. You understand that my desire is to carry out his wishes religiously. That is what I came here for. I am only here to be of use to him and to you.”

“Now I see it all. I know whose plotting this is. I know,” the princess was saying.

“That’s not the point, my dear.”

“It’s all your precious Anna Mihalovna, your protégée whom I wouldn’t take as a housemaid, the nasty creature.”

“Do not let us waste time.”

“Oh, don’t talk to me! Last winter she forced her way in here and told such a pack of vile, mean tales to the count about all of us, especially Sophie—I can’t repeat them—that it made the count ill, and he wouldn’t see us for a fortnight. It was at that time, I know, he wrote that hateful, infamous document, but I thought it was of no consequence.”

“There we are. Why didn’t you tell us about it before?”

“It’s in the inlaid portfolio that he keeps under his pillow. Now I know,” said the princess, making no reply. “Yes, if I have a sin to my account, a great sin, it’s my hatred of that infamous woman,” almost shrieked the princess, utterly transformed. “And why does she force herself in here? But I’ll have it out with her. The time will come!”