He was painfully conscious himself, as were all about him, that at his years it is not well for man to be alone.

He remembered how before starting for Moscow he had once said to his cowman Nikolay, a simple-hearted peasant, whom he liked talking to: "Well, Nikolay! I mean to get married," and how Nikolay had promptly answered, as of a matter on which there could be no possible doubt: "And high time too, Konstantin Demitrievitch.

" But marriage had now become further off than ever.