again?  Was there, then, another man involved in the enigma of this tragedy?  Was it the man I had seen opposite the Devonshire Mansion on the night when I had found the dagger?  Or was “he” merely an error for “she”?  “I love her.  She has come again.”  That would surely make better sense than what Alresca had actually written?  And he must have been mentally perturbed.  Such a slip was possible.  No, no!  When a man, even a dying man, is writing a message which he has torn out of his heart, he does not put “he” for “she” ...  “I love her....”  Then, had he misjudged her heart when he confided in me during the early part of the evening?  Or had the sudden apparition of Rosa created his love anew?  Why had she once refused him?  She seemed to be sufficiently fond of him.  But she had killed him.  Directly or indirectly she had been the cause of his death.

And as I looked at her, my profound grief for Alresca made me her judge.  I forgot for the instant the feelings with which she had once inspired me, and which, indeed, had never died in my soul.

“How do you explain this?” I demanded of her in a calm and judicial and yet slightly hostile tone.

“Oh!” she exclaimed.  “How sad it is!  How terribly sad!”

And her voice was so pure and kind, and her glance so innocent, and her grief so pitiful, that I dismissed forever any shade of a suspicion that I might have cherished against her.  Although she had avoided my question, although she had ignored its tone, I knew with the certainty of absolute knowledge that she had no more concern in Alresca’s death than I had.

She came forward, and regarded the corpse steadily, and took the lifeless hand in her hand.  But she did not cry.  Then she went abruptly out of the room and out of the house.  And for several days I did not see her.  A superb wreath arrived with her card, and that was all.

But the positive assurance that she was entirely unconnected with the riddle did nothing to help me to solve it.  I had, however, to solve it for the Belgian authorities, and I did so by giving a certificate that Alresca had died of “failure of the heart’s action.”  A convenient phrase, whose convenience imposes perhaps oftener than may be imagined on persons of an unsuspecting turn of mind!  And having accounted for Alresca’s death to the Belgian authorities, I had no leisure (save during the night) to cogitate much upon the mystery.  For I was made immediately to realize, to an extent to which I had not realized before, how great a man Alresca was, and how large he bulked in the world’s eye.

The first announcement of his demise appeared in the “Etoile Belgi,” the well-known Brussels daily, and from the moment of its appearance letters, telegrams, and callers descended upon Alresca’s house in an unending stream.  As his companion I naturally gave the whole of my attention to his affairs, especially as he seemed to have no relatives whatever.  Correspondents of English, French, and