Henry looked at the chambermaid.  She had little to tell.  The Countess had refused to go to bed, and had placed herself at her desk to proceed with her writing.  Finding it useless to remonstrate with her, the maid had left the room to speak to the manager.  In the shortest possible time, the doctor was summoned to the hotel, and found the Countess dead on the floor.  There was this to tell—­ and no more.

Looking at the writing-table as he went out, Henry saw the sheet of paper on which the Countess had traced her last lines of writing.  The characters were almost illegible.  Henry could just distinguish the words, ‘First Act,’ and ‘Persons of the Drama.’  The lost wretch had been thinking of her Play to the last, and had begun it all over again!

CHAPTER XXVII

Henry returned to his room.

His first impulse was to throw aside the manuscript, and never to look at it again.  The one chance of relieving his mind from the dreadful uncertainty that oppressed it, by obtaining positive evidence of the truth, was a chance annihilated by the Countess’s death.  What good purpose could be served, what relief could he anticipate, if he read more?

He walked up and down the room.  After an interval, his thoughts took a new direction; the question of the manuscript presented itself under another point of view.  Thus far, his reading had only informed him that the conspiracy had been planned.  How did he know that the plan had been put in execution?

The manuscript lay just before him on the floor.  He hesitated; then picked it up; and, returning to the table, read on as follows, from the point at which he had left off.

’While the Countess is still absorbed in the bold yet simple combination of circumstances which she has discovered, the Baron returns.  He takes a serious view of the case of the Courier; it may be necessary, he thinks, to send for medical advice.  No servant is left in the palace, now the English maid has taken her departure.  The Baron himself must fetch the doctor, if the doctor is really needed.

’"Let us have medical help, by all means,” his sister replies.  “But wait and hear something that I have to say to you first.”  She then electrifies the Baron by communicating her idea to him.  What danger of discovery have they to dread?  My Lord’s life in Venice has been a life of absolute seclusion:  nobody but his banker knows him, even by personal appearance.  He has presented his letter of credit as a perfect stranger; and he and his banker have never seen each other since that first visit.  He has given no parties, and gone to no parties.  On the few occasions when he has hired a gondola or taken a walk, he has always been alone.  Thanks to the atrocious suspicion which makes him ashamed of being seen with his wife, he has led the very life which makes the proposed enterprise easy of accomplishment.