Then the bounds of all his mad passion burst, and as he knelt beside
the couch, great tears suffused his eyes and trickled down his cheeks.
"My Doushka! my love!" he whispered, brokenly. "Oh, God! and I would
have hurt you!"
He rose quickly, and going to the window opened the ventilator at the
top, picked up the pistol from the table and replaced it in his belt,
and then he knelt once more beside Tamara, and with deepest reverence
bent down and kissed her feet.
"Sleep, sleep, my sweet Princess," he said softly, and then crept
stealthily from the room.
CHAPTER XVIII
The light was gray when Tamara awoke, though the lamp still burned--
more than three parts of the window was darkened by snow--only a peep
of daylight flickered in at the top.
Where was she! What had happened? Something ghastly--but what?
Then she perceived her torn blouse, and with a terrible pang
remembrance came back to her.
She started up, and as she did so realized she was only in her
stockinged feet.
For a moment she staggered a little and then fell back on the couch.
The awful certainty--or so it seemed to her--of what had occurred came
upon her, Gritzko had won--she was utterly disgraced.
The whole training of her youth thundered at her. Of all sins, none had
been thought so great as this which had happened to her.
She was an outcast.
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