After having exhausted every artifice, he stationed himself on the watch for a long time where the roads crossed and one went up to the Valsets' cottage.
But fortune did not favour him this evening; he remained standing there with his workbox.
It was dark all down the street except near the lamp-post.
There was somebody! There she was!
He hurried up.
No, it was that Jakobina Silla had been so much with in the summer.
There would at any rate be no harm in asking her.
"Isn't Mrs. Holman at home this evening?" he asked, taking off his cap.
"No; she's down at the fair, helping sell."
The inference flashed with a passionate joy upon Nikolai; then he would be able to go in and see Silla.