An Unhappy Girl
but he turned round and stopped in the middle of the room.
'Well, what do you think?' I began, not waiting for him to speak.
'I have acted wrongly towards her,' Fustov declared thickly. 'I have behaved . . . rashly, unpardonably, cruelly. I believed that . . . Viktor'
'What!' I cried; 'that Viktor whom you despise so! But what could he say to you?'
Fustov crossed his arms and stood obliquely to me. He was ashamed, I saw that.
'Do you remember,' he said with some effort, 'that . . . Viktor alluded to . . . a pension. That unfortunate word stuck in my head. It's the cause of everything. I began questioning him. . . . Well, and he'
'What did he say?'
'He told me that the old man . . . what's his name? . . . Koltovsky, had allowed Susanna that pension because . . . on account of . . . well, in fact, by way of damages.'
I flung up my hands.
'And you believed him?'
Fustov nodded.
'Yes! I believed him. . . . He said, too, that with the young one . . . In fact, my behaviour is unjustifiable.'
'And you went away so as to break everything off?'
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