And she dreaded that more than anything in the world, and so she hid from him everything that related to her son.

Spending the whole day at home she considered ways of seeing her son, and had reached a decision to write to her husband.

She was just composing this letter when she was handed the letter from Lidia Ivanovna.

The countess's silence had subdued and depressed her, but the letter, all that she read between the lines in it, so exasperated her, this malice was so revolting beside her passionate, legitimate tenderness for her son, that she turned against other people and left off blaming herself.