"Tell me, but sincerely, do you entertain towards her any sentiment?"
"I will tell you candidly that I completely forgot her. Now I have recalled her and, in truth, I cannot have any ill-will towards her. On the contrary, that kind of recollection cannot, of course, be disagreeable, unless it is linked with remorse. But we were mere children--and a pure accident brought us together."
"Then permit me to ask one more question. If the deceased bequeathed to her the whole of Rzeslewo, and the funds, and if she did not within two years appear to claim them, would you renounce such a bequest?"
"I cannot answer a question to which I have not given any consideration. I would not want to represent myself to you any better or any worse than I am. But this much is certain: I would publish the advertisements, and would publish them for the two years. But after all, of what importance to you can my answer be?"
And here he abruptly paused, for from the direction of the adjacent birch grove some strange sound reached them, resembling a snort, and at the same time, above the tops of the birch and the lime-trees, there appeared upon the background of the twilight a gray bird, flying in a straight line to the underwood on the opposite side of the meadow.
"Woodcock!" cried Krzycki, and he bounded forward.
Gronski, following him, thought:
"He certainly never read Nietzsche, and yet in his veins, together with the blood, there courses some noble super-humanity. If anybody betrayed his sister, he would have shot him in the head like a dog, but as a village girl is concerned, he does not feel the slightest uneasiness."
Later they stopped at the edge of the birch grove. For a time intense silence prevailed; after which a strange voice resounded again above their heads and another woodcock appeared. Gronski fired and missed; Krzycki bettered--and they saw how, with descending flight, the fowl fell in the underwood farther off. The white dog for a while lingered in the dusk of the thicket and returned carrying the dead bird in his mouth.
"She was already wounded when I fired," said Ladislaus. "It is your bird."