ltenstein, a widow without friends, my dear
companion, was seized with her mortal illness, and then I saw my scheme
complete before me.

"By the lavish use of money, of which I had more than I needed by far,
for my father's private fortune invested in Europe was very great, I
contrived that I should change places with the Baroness d'Altenstein.

"To the public it was _I_ who was ill; to the world at large, even to
Don Juan, it was _I_ who died. It was then that, passing as the
Baroness d'Altenstein--in England as plain Mrs. Carlotta Altenstein--I
went to the city of Bath, which had been recommended, and also offered
certain devotional advantages to me, for I intended to give the
remainder of my life to religion and the poor.

"There in Monmouth Street, where you saw me, Mr. Anstruther, amusing
myself with philanthropic literature, I succeeded for ten years in
hiding myself from the Duke Waldemar of Rittersheim, who had in a
manner reformed himself and become a philanthropist too, _in public_;
in secret his life was worse than ever. In that little room in which
you found me, I was foolish enough to keep the steel safe, hidden away
in a receptacle cut in the stone wall of the house. But the safe no
longer contained all the diamonds. I had been gradually selling them
and devoting the proceeds to the poor of the world. This convent, a
refuge for aged men and women, and orphaned children, was founded with
part of the money.

"But to my horror, at the end of the ten years, I met the Duke
Waldemar, face to face, coming out of the Pump Room at Bath, where
quietly and unobtrusively I had gone to take the waters. That was on
the morning of the day I spoke to you, for I knew then that my refuge
was a refuge no longer.

"I intended on the morrow to have asked you to help me remove what
remained of the diamonds to a place of security and leave the safe
behind. Perhaps I might have even encroached on your kindness to have
asked you to escort me here, but it was arranged otherwise.

"During the night and early morning, I became aware that something was
taking place in the next house, which up to then had stood empty. I
connected it in my mind with some plot of the Duke, who I doubted not
had had me followed home. The sequel proved I was right.

"This fear so worked upon me that, towards morning, I rose and
commenced to write the letters to you and Don Juan, and to make them up
in packets.

"The letter to the latte