The Countess is dead."
"My God! What do you say?"
"And I am afraid," added Hermann, "that I am the cause of her death."
Lizaveta looked at him, and Tomsky's words found an echo in her soul:
"This man has at least three crimes upon his conscience!" Hermann sat
down by the window near her, and related all that had happened.
Lizaveta listened to him in terror. So all those passionate letters,
those ardent desires, this bold obstinate pursuit--all this was not
love! Money--that was what his soul yearned for! She could not satisfy
his desire and make him, happy I The poor girl had been nothing but
the blind tool of a robber, of the murderer of her aged
benefactress!... She wept bitter tears of agonised repentance. Hermann
gazed at her in silence: his heart, too, was a prey to violent
emotion, but neither the tears of the poor girl, nor the wonderful
charm of her beauty, enhanced by her grief, could produce any
impression upon his hardened soul. He felt no pricking of conscience
at the thought of the dead old woman. One thing only grieved him: the
irreparable loss of the secret from which he had expected to obtain
great wealth.
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