"Well," repeated he, "what more do you want to know? It will interest you but slightly, I am sure, to hear how I found my way back to the Hof; or how I told as much as I deemed prudent of the evening's gruesome work to the baron's servants, who, by the way, to my amazement, displayed the profoundest and most unmistakable sorrow at the tidings, and sallied forth (at their head the Cossack who had seen us depart) to seek for his remains. Excuse the unpleasantness of the remark; I fear the dogs must have left very little of him; he had dieted them so carefully. However, since it was to have been a case of 'chop, crunch, and gobble,' as the baron had it, I preferred that that particular fate should have overtaken him than me--or, for that matter, either of these two country people of ours in the sledge.
"Nor am I going to inflict upon you," continued Marshfield, after draining his glass, "a full account of my impressions when I found myself once more in that immense, deserted, and stricken house, so luxuriously prepared for the mistress who had fled from it; how I philosophized over all this, according to my wont; the conjectures I made as to the first acts of the drama, the untold sufferings my country-woman must have endured from the moment her husband first grew jealous till she determined on this desperate step; as to how and when she had met her lover, how they communicated, and how the baron had discovered the intended flitting in time to concoct his characteristic revenge.
"One thing you may be sure of, I had no mind to remain at Yany an hour longer than necessary. I even contrived to get well clear of the neighbourhood before the lady's absence was discovered. Luckily for me--or I might have been taxed with connivance; though indeed the simple household did not seem to know what suspicion was, and accepted my account with childlike credence--very typical, and very convenient to me at the same time."
"But how do you know," said one of us, "that the man was her lover?--he might have been her brother or some other relative?"
"That," said Marshfield, with his little flat laugh, "I happen to have ascertained--and, curiously enough, only a few weeks ago. It was at the play, between the acts, from my comfortable seat (first row of the pit), I was looking leisurely round the house when I caught sight of a woman, in a box, close by, whose head was turned from me, and who presented the somewhat unusual spectacle of a young neck and shoulders of the most exquisite contour--and perfectly gray hair; and not dull gray, but rather of a pleasing tint--like frosted silver. This aroused my curiosity. I brought my glasses to a focus on her, and waited patiently till she turned round. Then I recognized the Baroness Kossowski, and I no longer wondered at the young hair being white.