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"My lodging," he answered, listlessly. "Yes, the lodging had a

great deal to do with it.... I thought that, too.... If only you

knew, though, what a strange thing you said just now, mother," he

said, laughing strangely.

A little more, and their companionship, this mother and this

sister, with him after three years' absence, this intimate tone

of conversation, in face of the utter impossibility of really

speaking about anything, would have been beyond his power of

endurance. But there was one urgent matter which must be settled

one way or the other that day--so he had decided when he woke.

Now he was glad to remember it, as a means of escape.

"Listen, Dounia," he began, gravely and drily, "of course I beg

your pardon for yesterday, but I consider it my duty to tell you

again that I do not withdraw from my chief point. It is me or

Luzhin. If I am a scoundrel, you must not be. One is enough. If

you marry Luzhin, I cease at once to look on you as a sister."