Alexey Alexandrovitch had not expected him that day, and was surprised at his visit, and still more so when the doctor questioned him very carefully about his health, listened to his breathing, and tapped at his liver.

Alexey Alexandrovitch did not know that his friend Lidia Ivanovna, noticing that he was not as well as usual that year, had begged the doctor to go and examine him.

" Do this for my sake," the Countess Lidia Ivanovna had said to him.

"I will do it for the sake of Russia, countess," replied the doctor.