"No," Countess Lidia Ivanovna interrupted him; "there are limits to everything.

I can understand immorality," she said, not quite truthfully, since she never could understand that which leads women to immorality; "but I don't understand cruelty: to whom? to you! How can she stay in the town where you are? No, the longer one lives the more one learns.

And I'm learning to understand your loftiness and her baseness.

" "Who is to throw a stone?" said Alexey Alexandrovitch, unmistakably pleased with the part he had to play.

" I have forgiven all, and so I cannot deprive her of what is exacted by love in her--by her love for her son....