Then he caught the feeble tinkle of a little bell, the opening and shutting of a door, and he was alone in the gloom of the evening.
For some minutes he stood still, as though listening for some faint echo from the direction in which Vjera had disappeared, then he slowly and thoughtfully walked away.

He had forgotten to eat at dinner-time, and now he forgot that the hour of the second meal had come round.

He walked on, not knowing and not caring whither he went, absorbed in the contemplation of the bright pictures which framed themselves in his brain, troubled only by his ever-recurring wonder at Vjera's behaviour.
Unconsciously, and from sheer force of habit, he threaded the streets in the direction of the tobacconist's shop where so much of his time was spent.

If it be not true that the ghosts of the dead haunt places familiar to them in life, yet the superstition is founded upon the instincts of human nature.

Men begin to haunt certain spots unconsciously while they are alive, especially those which they are obliged to visit every day and in which they are accustomed to sit, idle or at work, during the greater part of the week.