From that moment Marie became a different creature. Always high-spirited and highly-strung, she only required a feeling of injustice to influence her to take to the path that leads to perdition. Her husband neglected her, and she could not bear to be alone. Other men flocked round her and talked lyrically of her exquisite beauty. The neglected wife eagerly welcomed these compliments. Of course she and her husband, as members of the Russian aristocracy, had to maintain outwardly an appearance of perfect amity, but they were rapidly drifting apart, and tragedy was hovering over them all the time. What would have happened had Marie found a strong and loving husband one can only conjecture. That she was born with a "kink" in her brain is evident. She has since confessed to that, and more than one specialist has recorded that she inherited disease as well as life from her parents and that she was not always responsible for her actions. But it has to be admitted that when she began to carve out a career for herself independently of her husband and children she permitted no scruple, no sense of honour, and no decency to interfere with her in her mad pursuit of pleasure. The first of her victims was her husband's brother. Peter Tarnowska was a quiet, intellectual youth with a great reverence for womenfolk. He admired his sister-in-law, and was under the impression that Vassili was devoted to her. His amazement was, therefore, all the greater when, happening to call unexpectedly, he saw Marie with tear-stained eyes sitting in desolate loneliness. As a result of that interview Peter Tarnowska knew that he had found his ideal, but, of course, he was too late. She was another man's, and that man was his brother. Vassili Tarnowska, who prided himself on his taste, was in the habit of haunting night restaurants with beauties of questionable antecedents, and he was presiding at a banquet in a restaurant in Kieff when he was startled to see his wife enter with a man. She was beautifully dressed, and she looked so happy that he thought her the loveliest woman there. The realization made him jealous, and Tarnowska, who did not want his wife until others showed their appreciation of her beauty and wit, now came back to her, and at once was the most jealous of husbands. Had Marie been wise she would have seized the opportunity to atone for the past and make her future happiness certain. She had two pretty children, and Tarnowska was evidently determined to do his duty by them all, but the countess had already gone too far to wish to withdraw. She had lovers; here a doctor, there an officer of the Imperial Guard; and there was always a flattering number of candidates for the honour of escorting her to the theatre or restaurant. She was convinced that respectability was synonymous with dullness, and, accordingly, when the count expressed his penitence and desired a reconciliation he was too late. Marie had no room for him now in her overcrowded heart.