into my arms. I was about condescendingly to interpellate him in my best
Polish, when I caught the gleam of an angry yellow eye and noted the
bristle of a red beard--Kossowski!

"Amazed, I fell back a step in silence. With a growl like an uncouth
animal disturbed, he drew his filthy cap over his brow with a savage
gesture and pursued his way down the corridor at a sort of wild-boar trot.

"This first meeting between host and guest was so odd, so incongruous,
that it afforded me plenty of food for a fresh line of conjecture as I
traced my way back to the picture gallery, and from thence successfully to
the drawing room, which, as the door was ajar, I could not this time
mistake.

"It was large and lofty and dimly lit by shaded lamps; through the rosy
gloom I could at first only just make out a slender figure by the hearth;
but as I advanced, this was resolved into a singularly graceful woman in
clinging, fur-trimmed velvet gown, who, with one hand resting on the high
mantelpiece, the other hanging listlessly by her side, stood gazing down
at the crumbling wood fire as if in a dream.

"My friends are kind enough to say that I have a cat-like tread; I know
not how that may be; at any rate the carpet I was walking upon was thick
enough to smother a heavier footfall: not until I was quite close to her
did my hostess become aware of my presence. Then she started violently and
looked over her shoulder at me with dilating eyes. Evidently a nervous
creature, I saw the pulse in her throat, strained by her attitude, flutter
like a terrified bird.

"The next instant she had stretched out her hand with sweet English words