One winter’s afternoon several months afterwards, I was sitting at home, in London, when I received an unexpected visit from Mascha.
“Congratulate me, Anton,” she said gaily, after we had exchanged warm greetings. “I have married!”
“Married!” I ejaculated.
“Yes, our wedding took place in Paris yesterday. Although you know my husband by sight, you have never spoken to him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Gaston Guéneau.”
“The son of Count Jules Guéneau?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes,” she replied, laughing. “I knew him when he was an attaché at the French Embassy at Petersburg, and although after poor Ivan’s death we became engaged, we resolved to keep the matter a secret. He joined our Circle, but his revolutionary tendency was discovered by the police, and he was recalled to France. In one of his letters he told me that he had become friendly with a General Martianoff. Knowing that our enemy, the ex-Governor of Mstislavl, was in the service of the ‘Third Section,’ I suspected that he was being drawn into the cleverly-woven web. Therefore I proceeded to Paris in order to keep watch upon the spy, and warn Gaston against him. I had no idea that you were engaged in the same matter, or that you had discovered who murdered Natalya Lebedeff until one day, quite recently, when they were talking of it at a meeting at La Glacière.”
“But you were aware that Shiryàlov had killed the General?”
“Ah! there, even you are mistaken,” she said, with a smile. “Paul was innocent.”