ing to go for a ride round the
neighboring villages with Ilyin; he let Lavrushka have another horse and
took him along with him.

CHAPTER VIII

Princess Mary was not in Moscow and out of danger as Prince Andrew
supposed.

After the return of Alpatych from Smolensk the old prince suddenly
seemed to awake as from a dream. He ordered the militiamen to be called
up from the villages and armed, and wrote a letter to the commander in
chief informing him that he had resolved to remain at Bald Hills to the
last extremity and to defend it, leaving to the commander in chief's
discretion to take measures or not for the defense of Bald Hills, where
one of Russia's oldest generals would be captured or killed, and he
announced to his household that he would remain at Bald Hills.

But while himself remaining, he gave instructions for the departure of
the princess and Dessalles with the little prince to Bogucharovo and
thence to Moscow. Princess Mary, alarmed by her father's feverish and
sleepless activity after his previous apathy, could not bring herself to
leave him alone and for the first time in her life ventured to disobey
him. She refused to go away and her father's fury broke over her in a
terrible storm. He repeated every injustice he had ever inflicted on
her. Trying to convict her, he told her she had worn him out, had caused
his quarrel with his son, had harbored nasty suspicions of him, making
it the object of her life to poison his existence, and he drove her from
his study telling her that if she did not go away it was all the same
to him. He declared that he did not wish to remember her existence and
warned her not to dare to let him see her. The fact that he did not, as
she had feared, order her to be carried away by force but only told her
not to let him see her cheered Princess Mary. She knew it was a proof
that in the depth of his soul he was glad she was remaining at home and
had not gone away.

The morning after little Nicholas had left, the old prince donned his
full uniform and prepared to visit the commander in chief. His caleche
was already at the door. Princess Mary saw him walk out of the house in
his uniform wearing all his orders and go down the garden to review his
armed peasants and domestic serfs. She sat by the window listening to
his voice which reached her from the garden. Suddenly several men came
running up the avenue with frightened faces.

Princess Mary ran out to the porch, down