“Well, supposing I do love him?” thought Princess Márya.

Ashamed as she was of acknowledging to herself that she had fallen in love with a man who would perhaps never love her, she comforted herself with the thought that no one would ever know it and that she would not be to blame if, without ever speaking of it to anyone, she continued to the end of her life to love the man with whom she had fallen in love for the first and last time in her life.

Sometimes when she recalled his looks, his sympathy, and his words, happiness did not appear impossible to her. It was at those moments that Dunyásha noticed her smiling as she looked out of the carriage window.

“Was it not fate that brought him to Boguchárovo, and at that very moment?” thought Princess Márya. “And that caused his sister to refuse my brother?” And in all this Princess Márya saw the hand of Providence.