Bozevsky was terrified by that laugh, and fled from the apartment to tell Marie what had happened. They agreed on a course of action, knowing that there was no room in the world for both the count and the officer, and they felt that they were helpless to avert the approaching tragedy. A few days later Count Tarnowska, very pale and very self-possessed, entered the police station at Kieff. "I have shot Alexis Bozevsky," he said calmly. "I found him dining with my wife at the Grand Hotel. I am your prisoner." The astounded and agitated inspector did not detain him. Tarnowska was of too high a rank, and, besides, he suspected that the count was not quite right in his head. But Tarnowska had spoken the truth. Bozevsky was not dead, but he was dying, and Marie had left her home and had deserted her children in order to nurse him. Bozevsky lingered for a few days, and Marie scarcely ever left his side. She knew that never again would she go back to her husband. The attack on Bozevsky outside the Grand Hotel precluded that. She spent hours praying for the recovery of the young officer whom she passionately loved, and often he would lie with a wan smile on his strained face whilst she pictured their happy future together. At these interviews Dr. Stahl, who was attending the wounded man, was always present. He was pale and weak-looking, obviously the victim of drugs, and Marie ignored him because she knew that he was in love with her too! For Stahl had introduced Marie to the mysteries of drug-taking, to which she was now addicted. This accounts for a lot. At her trial she was described as a "human vampire," yet at times she had been the most devoted of mothers and the most generous of friends. But she lacked a brake to steady her when she began to descend, and she went from one wickedness to another until the final catastrophe. When the young officer died Marie Tarnowska's heart died too. She could never love again, and she never did, but she could pretend to. In her desolation she rushed off into the country; she travelled and tried to forget. Her husband and her children were lost to her; she had been told that she would never be allowed to see them again. The sentence hardly affected her, for she could not think of anything or anybody now that the world was very lonely and her life empty. Hitherto Marie Tarnowska had never known what it was to lack money. She had spent freely without any thought of the morrow. She had no idea of the value of money. In the past it had always been there for her to take. But now that her husband no longer acknowledged her existence her sources of supply were cut off, and it was the soulless proprietor of a second-rate hotel who drew her attention to the fact that even beautiful countesses must pay their way or suffer the humiliations attendant on poverty.