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“A ghastly fear ran through my blood, and froze it. I understood why I had wakened. In my nostrils was an awful odor that I knew well enough. I bent over her; I touched her. Her face was very cold; her eyes glared glassily at me; my hands were wet with something. My hands were wet with blood–her blood!

“I tore away the blind from the lamp, and then I could see that my wife of a week lay there stabbed straight to the heart–dead–dead beyond doubting; murdered in her sleep.”

Devereux’s stern, low voice shook ever so little as he spoke those last words; and we both sat very silent after them for a good while. Only when he could trust his utterance again he went on.

“A curious piece of devilry, wasn’t it? That child–whom had she ever harmed? Who could hate her like this? I remember I thought that, in a dull, confused sort of way, when I found myself alone in that carriage with her lying dead on the cushions before me. Alone with her–you understand? It was confusing.

“I pass over what immediately followed. The express came duly to a halt; and then I called people to me, and–and the Paris express went on without that particular carriage.

“The inquiry began before some local authority next day. Very little came of it. What could come of it, unless they had convicted me of the murder of this child I would have given my own life to save?

“They might have done that at home; but they knew better here, and didn’t. They couldn’t find me the actual assassin, however; though I believe they did their best. All they found was his weapon, which he most purposely have left behind. I asked for this, and got it. It gave their police no clue; and it gave me none. But I had a fancy for it.

“It was a plain, double-edged, admirably-tempered dagger–a very workmanlike article indeed. On the cross hilt of it I swore one day that I would live thenceforth for one thing alone–the discovery of the murderer of old D’Avray’s child, whom I had promised him to care for before all. When I had found this man, whoever he was, I also swore that I would kill him. Kill him myself, you understand; without any of the law’s delay or uncertainty, without troubling bourreau or hangman. Kill him as he had killed her–to do this was what I meant to live for. There was war to the knife between him and me.

“I started, of course, under one heavy disadvantage. He knew me, probably, whereas I didn’t know him at all. When he found that his amiable intention of fixing the crime on me had been frustrated, it must, I imagined, have occurred to him that the said crime might eventually be fixed by me on him. And he had proved himself to be a person who didn’t stick at trifles. It behooved me, therefore, to go to work cautiously. But I hadn’t fought Indians for nothing; and I was very cautious. I waited quiet till I got a clue. It was a curious one; and I got it in this way. It struck me one day, suddenly, that I had heard of a murder precisely similar to this already. I could not at first call the thing to mind; but presently I remembered–my dream. And then I asked myself this: Had not this murder been done before my eyes three years ago?

“I came to the conclusion that the circumstances of the murder in my dream were absolutely identical with the circumstances of the actual crime. Yes; the girl whose face in that dream I had never been able to see was Lucille. Yes; the assassin whose face I had seen so plainly in that dream was the real assassin. In short, I believe that the murder had been rehearsed before me three years previous to its actual committal.