The fact that he had made her an offer, and she had refused him, had placed an insuperable barrier between her and him.

" I can't ask her to be my wife merely because she can't be the wife of the man she wanted to marry," he said to himself.

The thought of this made him cold and hostile to her.

" I should not be able to speak to her without a feeling of reproach; I could not look at her without resentment; and she will only hate me all the more, as she's bound to.

And besides, how can I now, after what Darya Alexandrovna told me, go to see them? Can I help showing that I know what she told me? And me to go magnanimously to forgive her, and have pity on her! Me go through a performance before her of forgiving, and deigning to bestow my love on her!... What induced Darya Alexandrovna to tell me that? By chance I might have seen her, then everything would have happened of itself; but, as it is, it's out of the question, out of the question!" Darya Alexandrovna sent him a letter, asking him for a side-saddle for Kitty's use.