“He doesn’t love Katerina Ivanovna,” said Alyosha firmly.

“Well, whether he loves her or not, I’ll soon find out for myself,” said Grushenka, with a menacing note in her voice, taking the handkerchief from her eyes. Her face was distorted. Alyosha saw sorrowfully that from being mild and serene, it had become sullen and spiteful.

“Enough of this foolishness,” she said suddenly; “it’s not for that I sent for you. Alyosha, darling, to-morrow—what will happen to-morrow? That’s what worries me! And it’s only me it worries! I look at every one and no one is thinking of it. No one cares about it. Are you thinking about it even? To-morrow he’ll be tried, you know. Tell me, how will he be tried? You know it’s the valet, the valet killed him! Good heavens! Can they condemn him in place of the valet and will no one stand up for him? They haven’t troubled the valet at all, have they?”

“He’s been severely cross-examined,” observed Alyosha thoughtfully; “but everyone came to the conclusion it was not he. Now he is lying very ill. He has been ill ever since that attack. Really ill,” added Alyosha.

“Oh, dear! couldn’t you go to that counsel yourself and tell him the whole thing by yourself? He’s been brought from Petersburg for three thousand roubles, they say.”

“We gave these three thousand together—Ivan, Katerina Ivanovna and I—but she paid two thousand for the doctor from Moscow herself. The counsel Fetyukovitch would have charged more, but the case has become known all over Russia; it’s talked of in all the papers and journals. Fetyukovitch agreed to come more for the glory of the thing, because the case has become so notorious. I saw him yesterday.”

“Well? Did you talk to him?” Grushenka put in eagerly.

“He listened and said nothing. He told me that he had already formed his opinion. But he promised to give my words consideration.”

“Consideration! Ah, they are swindlers! They’ll ruin him. And why did she send for the doctor?”

“As an expert. They want to prove that Mitya’s mad and committed the murder when he didn’t know what he was doing”; Alyosha smiled gently; “but Mitya won’t agree to that.”

“Yes; but that would be the truth if he had killed him!” cried Grushenka. “He was mad then, perfectly mad, and that was my fault, wretch that I am! But, of course, he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it! And they are all against him, the whole town. Even Fenya’s evidence went to prove he had done it. And the people at the shop, and that official, and at the tavern, too, before, people had heard him say so! They are all, all against him, all crying out against him.”

“Yes, there’s a fearful accumulation of evidence,” Alyosha observed grimly.

“And Grigory—Grigory Vassilyevitch—sticks to his story that the door was open, persists that he saw it—there’s no shaking him. I went and talked to him myself. He’s rude about it, too.”

“Yes, that’s perhaps the strongest evidence against him,” said Alyosha.

“And as for Mitya’s being mad, he certainly seems like it now,” Grushenka began with a peculiarly anxious and mysterious air. “Do you know, Alyosha, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it for a long time. I go to him every day and simply wonder at him. Tell me, now, what do you suppose he’s always talking about? He talks and talks and I can make nothing of it. I fancied he was talking of something intellectual that I couldn’t understand in my foolishness. Only he suddenly began talking to me about a babe—that is, about some child. ‘Why is the babe poor?’ he said. ‘It’s for that babe I am going to Siberia now. I am not a murderer, but I must go to Siberia!’ What that meant, what babe, I couldn’t tell for the life of me. Only I cried when he said it, because he said it so nicely. He cried himself, and I cried, too. He