had taken a seat beside him and was
listening naively to his words.

"I wonder, is it not too late to administer unction?" asked the lady,
adding the priest's clerical title, as if she had no opinion of her own
on the subject.

"Ah, madam, it is a great sacrament," replied the priest, passing his
hand over the thin grizzled strands of hair combed back across his bald
head.

"Who was that? The Military Governor himself?" was being asked at the
other side of the room. "How young-looking he is!"

"Yes, and he is over sixty. I hear the count no longer recognizes
anyone. They wished to administer the sacrament of unction."

"I knew someone who received that sacrament seven times."

The second princess had just come from the sickroom with her eyes red
from weeping and sat down beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting in a
graceful pose under a portrait of Catherine, leaning his elbow on a
table.

"Beautiful," said the doctor in answer to a remark about the weather.
"The weather is beautiful, Princess; and besides, in Moscow one feels as
if one were in the country."

"Yes, indeed," replied the princess with a sigh. "So he may have
something to drink?"

Lorrain considered.

"Has he taken his medicine?"

"Yes."

The doctor glanced at his watch.

"Take a glass of boiled water and put a pinch of cream of tartar," and
he indicated with his delicate fingers what he meant by a pinch.

"Dere has neffer been a gase," a German doctor was saying to an
aide-de-camp, "dat one liffs after de sird stroke."

"And what a well-preserved man he was!" remarked the aide-de-camp. "And
who will inherit his wealth?" he added in a whisper.

"It von't go begging," replied the German with a smile.

Everyone again looked toward the door, which creaked as the second
princess went in with the drink she had prepared according to Lorrain's
instructions. The German doctor went up to Lorrain.

"Do you think he can last till morning?" asked the German, addressing
Lorrain in French which he pronounced badly.

Lorrain, pursing up his lips, waved a severely negative finger before
his nose.

"Tonight, not later," said he in a low voice, and he moved away with a
decorous smile of self-satisfaction at being able clearly to understand
and state the patient's condition.

Meanwhile Prince Vasili had opened the door into the princess' room.

In this room it was almost dark; only two tiny lamps were burning before
the icons and there was a pleas