When Vernon's death became generally known, a great hubbub arose. Mrs. Hartopp went almost, if not quite, out of her senses. If I remember rightly, nearly twelve months elapsed before she was sufficiently recovered to marry Phillimore Baines. The cause of Vernon's death was never made clear. The doctors agreed to differ; the post-mortem revealed nothing. There were suggestions of heart-disease; the jury brought it in valvular disease of the heart. There were whispers of poison, which, as no traces of any were found in the body, the coroner pooh-poohed. And, though there were murmurs of its being a case of suicide, no one, so far as I am aware, hinted at its being a case of murder. To the surprise of many people, and to the amusement of more, Arthur Crampton married Lilian Trowbridge. He had been infatuated with her all along. His infatuation even survived her yielding to Decimus Vernon--bitter blow though that had been--and I have reason to believe that, on the very day on which Vernon was buried, he asked her to be his wife. Whether she cared for him one snap of her finger is more than I should care to say; I doubt it, but, at least, she consented. At very short notice she quitted the stage, and, as Mrs. Arthur Crampton, she retired into private life. Her married life was a short, if not a merry one. Within twelve months of her marriage, in giving birth to a daughter, Mrs. Crampton died. I had seen nothing since their marriage either of her or her husband. I was therefore the more surprised when, about a fortnight after her death, there came to me a small package, accompanied by a note from Arthur Crampton. The note was brief almost to the point of curtness. Dear Benham,-- My wife expressed a wish that you should have, as a memorial of her, a sealed packet which would be found in her desk. I hand you the packet precisely as I found it. Yours sincerely, Arthur Crampton. Within an outer wrapper of coarse brown paper was an inner covering of cartridge paper, sealed with half a dozen seals. Inside the second enclosure was a small, duodecimo volume, in a tattered binding. Half a dozen leaves at the beginning were missing. There was nothing on the cover. What the book was about, or why Mrs. Crampton had wished that I should have it, I had not the faintest notion. The book was printed in Italian--my acquaintance with Italian is colloquial, of the most superficial kind. It was probably a hundred years old, and more. Nine pages about the middle of the volume were marked in a peculiar fashion with red ink, several passages being trebly underscored. My curiosity was piqued. I marched off with the volume there and then, to a bureau of translation.