"Where are you coming with that box of yours?" Then he turned again to the old man: "It is written, 'not a hair falls from the head of a man except by the will of God.'" "What's one to say?" said the old man, and nodded in agreement: then he added, half aloud, his eyes twinkling, "It is well known that God marks the wicked. The Lord forgive me, it's wrong to speak of it, but it's difficult also to be silent." "And you'll see," went on the stern merchant, "they'll never find the guilty one; mark my words." Lunev laughed right out. The sound of this conversation seemed to send new strength and courage streaming through him. If any one at this moment had asked him: "Did you murder him?" he would have answered "yes" boldly and fearlessly. With this feeling in his breast he pushed through the crowd, close up to the policeman. The man looked at him, gave him a push on the shoulder, and said loudly: "Now then, what are you doing here? Be off!" Ilya backed away and struck against a bystander. He received another push and a voice cried: "Give him one over the head!" Then he left the crowd, sat on the church steps and laughed in his heart at all these men. He heard the snow scrunch under their feet and the muttered conversation, fragments of which reached his ears. "Why must the rascal do his dirty work just when I'm on duty?" "In all the town he took the biggest discount, he always was a thief." "It'll never stop snowing to-day, you can't see the shop at all." "He used to fleece his debtors properly." "He was a man after all--one can't help pitying him." "They're all greedy--think of nothing but their profits." "Look! there's his wife." "Ah! poor thing!" sighed a ragged peasant. Lunev stood up and saw a stout, elderly woman in a loosely-fitting dress and a black veil, getting heavily out of a wide sledge covered with a bear's skin. The police officer and a man with a red moustache helped her. "Ah! my dear, my husband." As her trembling, frightened voice was heard, silence fell on all the bystanders. Ilya looked at her and thought of Olympiada. "Where's the son?" said some one, softly. "He's in Moscow, they say." "He'll get the bad news soon enough." "That's true."