dagger, were found in the chest; one, entered from the
back between the shoulders; the fingers of the right hand were also cut
nearly through, as though he had grasped a sharp weapon in his struggle.
Death must have been immediate, as the heart was twice wounded; probably
he expired almost at once. The direction and the position of the wounds
refuted every idea of a suicide--and yet how account for the crime of
murder? The stranger was scarcely a week in Baden, not known to any
one before his arrival here, and since had merely formed those chance
acquaintanceships of watering-places. There was not, so far as one could
see, the slightest ground to suspect any malice or hatred towards him..
The few particulars I have here set down were all that my servant could
tell me. But what from the terrible nature of the tidings themselves,
my own excitable state when hearing them, but, more than either, the
remembrance of the dialogue I had overheard the night before--all
combined and increased my fever to that degree that ere noon I became
half wild with delirium. What I said, or how my wandering faculties
turned, I cannot--nor would I willingly--remember. There was enough of
illness in my ravings, and of method in them too, to bring Guckhardt
again to my bedside, accompanied by a high agent of the police. The
attempt to examine a man in such a state relative to the circumstances
of a dreadful crime could only have entered the head of a _Prefet de
Police_ or a _Juge d'Instruction_. What my revelations were I know
not; but it is clear they assumed a character of independent fancy that
balked the scrutiny of the official, for he left me to the unmixed cares
of my doctor.

By his counsel I was speedily removed from Baden, under the impression
that the scene would be prejudicial to my recovery. I was indifferent
where, or in what way, they disposed of me; and when I was told I was to
try the air of the Lake of Constance, I heard it with the apathy of
one sunk in a trance. Nor do I yet know by what means the police, so
indefatigable in tormenting the innocent, abandoned their persecution of
me. They must have had their own sufficient reasons for it; so much is
certain.

And now, once more, I ask myself, Is all that I have here set down the
mere wanderings of a broken and disjointed brain? have these incidents
no other foundation than a morbid fancy? I would most willingly accept
even this sad alternative, and have it so; but here is e