Cases of robbery were twice as numerous as usual.

But all this, of course, would have been perfectly ordinary had there been no other and more weighty reasons to disturb the equanimity of Andrey Antonovitch, who had till then been in good spirits.
What struck Yulia Mihailovna most of all was that he became more silent and, strange to say, more secretive every day.

Yet it was hard to imagine what he had to hide.

It is true that he rarely opposed her and as a rule followed her lead without question.

At her instigation, for instance, two or three regulations of a risky and hardly legal character were introduced with the object of strengthening the authority of the governor.