X.
Nearly two years have passed since the events of the last chapter.
Rambousek turned out to be right in his opinion: Baron Mundy recovered—slowly at first, to be sure, but in the end completely; and the love-drama between him and Jenny Kučerová developed after its own particular fashion. That this was a very particular and unusual fashion, you may judge from the fact that although all the threads of the plot were spun in the castle, under the very eyes of the old baroness, she neither saw nor suspected anything of what was going on.
It certainly seems strange and hardly possible, knowing as we do her sharp, suspicious nature, and the watchfulness of her spies. Still, in the thickets of life so much unlikely and yet real truth is sometimes found to grow that even the most experienced botanist does not know often what to think, in spite of all his science.
Not to expose ourselves to the reproach of incompleteness, we may as well mention here, that the old Baroness Salomena rewarded Jenny munificently for saving by her efforts, on that eventful day in the avenue, the life of her only son, the last scion of the ancient and renowned family of the Poc̓ernickýs of Poc̓ernic. Instead of the
