man," he said in sorrowful tones, "and a brave man in
your way, and a true gentleman--and--I suppose it was not your fault if
you were mad. Heaven give you peace and rest!"

He rose to his feet, debating what he should do.

"Poor Vjera!" he sighed. "Poor Vjera--she will go next!"

Once more, he looked down, and his eye caught sight of the papers
projecting from the inner pocket of the coat, which was still open and
thrown back upon the floor. It has been noticed more than once that Johann
Schmidt was a man subject to attacks of quite irresistible curiosity. He
hesitated a moment, and then came to the conclusion that he was as much
entitled as any one else to be the Count's executor.

"It cannot harm him now," he said, as he extracted the bundle from its
place.

One of the letters was quite fresh. The rest were evidently very old,
being yellow with age and ragged at the edges. He turned over the former.
It was addressed to Count Skariatine, at his lodging, and it bore the
postmark of a town in Great-Russia, between Petersburg and Moscow. Schmidt
took out the sheet, and his face suddenly grew very dark and angry. The
handwriting was either in reality Akulina's, or it resembled it so closely
as to have deceived a better expert than the Cossack.

The missive purported to be written by the wife of Count Skariatine's
steward, and it set forth in rather servile and illiterate language that
the said Count Skariatine and his eldest son were both dead, having been
seized on the same day with the smallpox, of which there had been an
epidemic in the neighbourhood, but which was supposed to have quite
disappeared when they fell ill. A week later and within twenty-four hours
of each other they had breathed their last. The Count Boris Michaelovitch
was now the heir, and would do well to come home as soon as possible to
look after his possessions, as the local authorities were likely to make a
good thing out of it in his absence.

The Cossack swore a terrific oath, and stamped furiously on the floor as
he rose to his feet. It was evident to him that Akulina had out of spite
concocted the letter, and had managed to have it posted by some friend in
Russia. He was not satisfied with one expletive, nor with many. The words
he used need not be translated for the reader of the English language. It
is enough to say that they were the strongest in the Cossack vocabulary,
that they were well selected and applied with force and precision.