As she said that, although the tone of her voice was quite natural, almost too natural, there was a peculiar intonation in the way she said the word "he," in that word and that word only, which gave me the curious sensation of a veil being lifted. I felt I was looking through a hole in the clouds. I felt certain that Countess Yaskov had known Kranitski.
"He never told me one word that had anything to do with what Rudd tells in his novel," I said.
I felt that my voice was no longer natural as I said this. There was a strain in it. There was a pause. I do not know why I now felt certain that Countess Yaskov possessed the key of the mystery. I suddenly felt she was the woman whom Kranitski had known and loved for seven years, so much so, that I could say nothing further. I also felt that she knew that I knew. We talked of other things. In the course of the conversation I asked her if she thought of staying a long time at Haréville.
"It depends on my husband," she said. "I don't know yet whether he is coming here to fetch me, or whether he wants me to meet him. At any rate I shall go back to Russia for my boys' holidays. I have two sons at school."
The next time I saw Sabran I asked him what he had meant by telling me that Countess Yaskov was divorced from her husband. I told him what she had said to me about her husband and her sons. He did not seem greatly surprised; but he stuck to his point that she was divorced.
The next time I saw Countess Yaskov, she told me she had told a friend of hers about Rudd's story. Her friend had instantly recognized the character of Anikin.
"My friend tells me," she said, "that the novelist is quite false as far as that character is concerned, false and not fair. She said what happened was this: The man whom Rudd describes as Anikin had been in love for many years with a married woman. She was in love with him, too, but she did not want to divorce her husband, for various reasons. So they separated. They separated after having known each other a long time. Then the woman changed her mind and she settled she would divorce, and she let Anikin know. She wrote to him and said she was willing, at last, to divorce. My friend says it was complicated by other things as well. She did not tell me the whole story, but the man went to Africa and the woman did not divorce. What Anikin was supposed to have said to the novelist was true. He told the truth, and the novelist thought he was saying false things. That is what you thought, too. But all has been for the best in the end, because do you know what there is in to-day's Daily Mail?" she asked.
I said no one had read me the newspaper as yet.
"The marriage is announced," she said, "of Miss Brandon to a man called Sir Somebody Canning."
"That," said I, "is the Englishman in the book."