etail, and without
any reserve. I comply with the request.

'"Lord Montbarry received the intelligence of his approaching death
with becoming composure, but with a certain doubt. He signed to me to
put my ear to his mouth. He whispered faintly, 'Are you sure?' It was
no time to deceive him; I said, 'Positively sure.' He waited a little,
gasping for breath, and then he whispered again, 'Feel under my
pillow.' I found under his pillow a letter, sealed and stamped, ready
for the post. His next words were just audible and no more--'Post it
yourself.' I answered, of course, that I would do so--and I did post
the letter with my own hand. I looked at the address. It was directed
to a lady in London. The street I cannot remember. The name I can
perfectly recall: it was an Italian name--'Mrs. Ferrari.'

'"That night my lord nearly died of asphyxia. I got him through it for
the time; and his eyes showed that he understood me when I told him,
the next morning, that I had posted the letter. This was his last
effort of consciousness. When I saw him again he was sunk in apathy.
He lingered in a state of insensibility, supported by stimulants, until
the 25th, and died (unconscious to the last) on the evening of that day.

'"As to the cause of his death, it seems (if I may be excused for
saying so) simply absurd to ask the question. Bronchitis, terminating
in pneumonia--there is no more doubt that this, and this only, was the
malady of which he expired, than that two and two make four. Doctor
Torello's own note of the case is added here to a duplicate of my
certificate, in order (as I am informed) to satisfy some English
offices in which his lordship's life was insured. The English offices
must have been founded by that celebrated saint and doubter, mentioned
in the New Testament, whose name was Thomas!"

'Doctor Bruno's evidence ends here.

'Reverting for a moment to our inquiries addressed to Lady Montbarry,
we have to report that she can give us no information on the subject of
the letter which the doctor posted at Lord Montbarry's request. When
his lordship wrote it? what it contained? why he kept it a secret from
Lady Montbarry (and from the Baron also); and why he should write at
all to the wife of his courier? these are questions to which we find it
simply impossible to obtain any replies. It seems even useless to say
that the matter is open to suspicion. Suspicion implies conjecture of
some kind--and the letter under m