“Before the evening service. She asked first where you were and then she went to the convent.”

“Then it was her I saw in the church, just now! Oh, Lord!”

And the bishop laughed with joy.

“She bade me tell your holiness,” the lay brother went on, “that she would come tomorrow. She had a little girl with her⁠—her grandchild, I suppose. They are staying at Ovsyannikov’s inn.”

“What time is it now?”

“A little after eleven.”

“Oh, how vexing!”

The bishop sat for a little while in the parlour, hesitating, and as it were refusing to believe it was so late. His arms and legs were stiff, his head ached. He was hot and uncomfortable. After resting a little he went into his bedroom, and there, too, he sat a little, still thinking of his mother; he could hear the lay brother going away, and Father Sisoy coughing the other side of the wall. The monastery clock struck a quarter.