sked of me, and the sick man sank back calmer.

A little later, the nurse and attendants came for the operation. As they
were about to administer the ether, Burwell pushed them from him, and
insisted on having brought to his bedside an iron box from the safe.

"The card is here," he said, laying his trembling hand upon the box,
"you will remember your promise!"

Those were his last words, for he did not survive the operation.

Early the next morning I received this message: "The stranger of
yesterday begs to see you"; and presently a gentleman of fine presence
and strength of face, a tall, dark-complexioned man wearing glasses, was
shown into the room.

"Mr. Burwell is dead, is he not?" were his first words.

"Who told you?"

"No one told me, but I know it, and I thank God for it."

There was something in the stranger's intense earnestness that convinced
me of his right to speak thus, and I listened attentively.

"That you may have confidence in the statement I am about to make, I
will first tell you who I am"; and he handed me a card that caused me to
lift my eyes in wonder, for it bore a very great name, that of one of
Europe's most famous savants.

"You have done me much honour, sir," I said with respectful inclination.

"On the contrary you will oblige me by considering me in your debt, and
by never revealing my connection with this wretched man. I am moved to
speak partly from considerations of human justice, largely in the
interest of medical science. It is right for me to tell you, doctor,
that your patient was beyond question the Water Street assassin."

"Impossible!" I cried.

"You will not say so when I have finished my story, which takes me back
to Paris, to the time, eleven years ago, when this man was making his
first visit to the French capital."

"The mysterious card!" I exclaimed.

"Ah, he has told you of his experience, but not of what befell the night
before, when he first met my sister."

"Your sister?"

"Yes, it was she who gave him the card, and, in trying to befriend him,
made him suffer. She was in ill health at the time, so much so that we
had left our native India for extended journeyings. Alas! we delayed too
long, for my sister died in New York, only a few weeks later, and I
honestly believe her taking off was hastened by anxiety inspired by this
man."

"Strange," I murmured, "how the life of a simple New York merchant could
become entangled with that of a great lady of t