Prascovie had mysteriously disappeared!
While I remained in charge of the post-house, the three men mounted the horses and rode out in different directions, thinking it possible that she had strayed away upon the steppe and become lost in a snowdrift. Towards evening, however, they returned, after a long and futile search.
Anxious to solve the mystery, and reluctant to leave without her, I remained there several days. As the nearest dwelling was twenty miles distant, and her overcoat and hat still remained in her room, her disappearance was all the more puzzling. I examined her box, but found nothing in it except articles of male wearing apparel; so after a week of anxious waiting, I became convinced that to remain there longer was useless.
With heavy heart, and sorely puzzled over the mystery, I continued my lonely journey towards the mines of Yeniseisk. Having inspected them, I journeyed south, alone and dejected, and investigated the great prisons at Krasnoiarsk and Irkutsk, afterwards returning through Omsk and Tobolsk, and thence to the Urals and civilisation.
I missed her companionship very much, and long before my journey ended, I had grown dull, morose, and melancholy.
After an absence of six months, I again returned to London. When I arrived home, fatigued and hungry, and before I had time to cast off my worn-out travelling suit, the servant girl handed me a small packet which she said had arrived by registered post a week before.
It had a Russian stamp upon it, and bore the postmark of Kiakhta, a small town south of Irkutsk, on the border of Mongolia.
Breaking open the seals, I found a small box, from which I took a thick gold ring, set with a magnificent diamond.
Attached to it was a small piece of paper which bore, in a man’s handwriting, the following words:—
“The husband of Prascovie Souvaroff, who owes to you the safe return of his beloved wife, sends this little gift as a slight recognition of the kindness she received at your hands.”