y have been?" said Rogojin, suspiciously. It
seemed to the prince that he was trembling.

"I don't know; I thought it was a hallucination. I often have
hallucinations nowadays. I feel just as I did five years ago when my
fits were about to come on."

"Well, perhaps it was a hallucination, I don't know," said Parfen.

He tried to give the prince an affectionate smile, and it seemed to the
latter as though in this smile of his something had broken, and that he
could not mend it, try as he would.

"Shall you go abroad again then?" he asked, and suddenly added, "Do you
remember how we came up in the train from Pskoff together? You and your
cloak and leggings, eh?"

And Rogojin burst out laughing, this time with unconcealed malice, as
though he were glad that he had been able to find an opportunity for
giving vent to it.

"Have you quite taken up your quarters here?" asked the prince

"Yes, I'm at home. Where else should I go to?"

"We haven't met for some time. Meanwhile I have heard things about you
which I should not have believed to be possible."

"What of that? People will say anything," said Rogojin drily.

"At all events, you've disbanded your troop--and you are living in your
own house instead of being fast and loose about the place; that's all
very good. Is this house all yours, or joint property?"

"It is my mother's. You get to her apartments by that passage."

"Where's your brother?"

"In the other wing."

"Is he married?"

"Widower. Why do you want to know all this?"

The prince looked at him, but said nothing. He had suddenly relapsed
into musing, and had probably not heard the question at all. Rogojin did
not insist upon an answer, and there was silence for a few moments.

"I guessed which was your house from a hundred yards off," said the
prince at last.

"Why so?"

"I don't quite know. Your house has the aspect of yourself and all your
family; it bears the stamp of the Rogojin life; but ask me why I think
so, and I can tell you nothing. It is nonsense, of course. I am nervous
about this kind of thing troubling me so much. I had never before
imagined what sort of a house you would live in, and yet no sooner did I
set eyes on this one than I said to myself that it must be yours."

"Really!" said Rogojin vaguely, not taking in what the prince meant by
his rather obscure remarks.

The room they were now sitting in was a large one, lofty but dark, well
furnished, principally with writin