“I expected nothing at all from him,” she replied⁠—quietly enough, to all outward seeming, yet with a note of irritation in her tone. “Long ago I made up my mind on the subject, for I could read his thoughts, and knew what he was thinking. He thought that possibly I should sue him⁠—that one day I might become a nuisance.” Here Polina halted for a moment, and stood biting her lips. “So of set purpose I redoubled my contemptuous treatment of him, and waited to see what he would do. If a telegram to say that we had become legatees had arrived from, St. Petersburg, I should have flung at him a quittance for my foolish stepfather’s debts, and then dismissed him. For a long time I have hated him. Even in earlier days he was not a man; and now!⁠—Oh, how gladly I could throw those fifty thousand roubles in his face, and spit in it, and then rub the spittle in!”

“But the document returning the fifty-thousand rouble mortgage⁠—has the General got it? If so, possess yourself of it, and send it to De Griers.”

“No, no; the General has not got it.”