To tell the truth, Ivan was glad that his absence was compulsory. A warm, tender-hearted man, of weak will, he was unequal to the situation. Taller by a head than most other men, he had been chosen as a leader among them; but the position oppressed him, for, capable as he was in all else, he lacked the necessary courage and decision for the post. What he would most gladly have done would have been to say adieu one fine day to all his palaces, possessions, confederates, and to Russia, and to go out with Zeneida into the wide world to sing tenor to her soprano. Perhaps, too, it might have come about, had Zeneida been an ordinary artist and nothing more. But the disquieting thought is there--what may happen to-night on that other stage? Perhaps she is destined to mortification on the one; but on the other? On those boards the blood of the actors is wont to flow. And all this time his fond grandmother could not press him enough to eat, as she asked news of Maria Louisa and the great Napoleon, of the little King of Rome, and many another who had long passed away; to many of which questions Ivan returned such mixed answers that the good Ihnasko was constantly exercised to set him right, being far better informed through his newspapers of all these things than was the absent-minded Prince. At the first sound of the bells the old lady conscientiously lays down her knife and fork; and Ihnasko, without awaiting orders, proceeds to clear the table, and spreads another silken cover over it. It was Lent. "Let us draw near to our heavenly Father!" whispers the pious old lady. Ivan kisses her cheeks, and she his. There was a small door opening out from her bedchamber into the chapel. Opening this, Prince Ghedimin went in; and while his old grandmother, rosary in hand, began telling her beads, the tones of the organ were heard, and a man's clear voice began chanting the penitential psalm. "What a good son and a good Christian is my Ivan Maximovitch!" murmured Anna Feodorovna, amid her prayers. "And what a lovely voice he has! He might be one of the Czar's choristers." And amid the sounds of pealing organ and penitential psalm she reverently thanked the Lord, and, praying for the living and the faithful dead, fell into peaceful slumber in her arm-chair. The organ still continues to peal, and penitential psalms ascend, for Ivan Maximovitch--Prince Ghedimin--is a good man, and a tender, loving son. And yet this again is a fresh lie; for, as Ivan entered the chapel from his grandmother's room, one of the Czar's choirmen, who had been admitted by a secret door, was already in waiting there, and his task it was to sing on and play the organ until the old woman had fallen asleep.