Then, at the Countess's funeral, Hermann experiences (he thinks) the dead Countess's telling him, as she lies inside her coffin, the winning secret after all. But when Hermann goes to play these cards, on three consecutive nights, just as he is about to take all, he somehow mistakes his queen of spades for an ace, losing all. Subsequently, Hermann, once rational to a fault, "went mad. He is now installed in Room 17 of the Obukhov Hospital; he answers no questions, but merely mutters with unusual rapidity: 'Three, seven, ace! Three, seven, queen'" (Pushkin, "The Queen of Spades", p. 883). .

             The poor servant girl Lizaveta Ivanovna, according to Pushkin's curiously detached, newspaper article-like conclusion to this story, fares better: she marries "a very agreeable young man" ("The Queen of Spades", p. 883). However, Lizaveta Ivanovna is now also "bringing up a poor relative" (Pushkin), one whom she may very well in turn tyrannize, just as she herself was tyrannized by the Countess. Justice, within such circumstances, is ambiguous. Arguably, since Hermann likely contributed to the old Countess's death, he should not be rewarded by successfully executing her secret and growing rich. He is not. It seems harsh justice that Hermann should go mad (except, perhaps, as an ironic replacement for his over-rational approach to life). In terms of human concepts of justice, one could reasonably wonder rather or not it is indeed just, early on in the story, for the Countess to insist on keeping her lucrative gambling secret, when others (including her grandson) might have also benefited from it. It might also have been unjust, considering the Countess's own, earlier, chronic card-playing compulsion, that she herself was ever told the secret, instead of being forced, as most would be in similar circumstances, to simply sweat out her losses.

             If justice indeed exists (and the question of whether it exists is never answered in this story) Pushkin implies in "The Queen of Spades" that it is up to fate, rather than human beings, to either understand, recognize, or dispense it.