After Marion had given up the ghost, I hastened back to Mayence in order to notify Victoria of the occurrence, nor did I conceal from her that my suspicions again pointed to Tetrik as having a hand in the plot. The man, I explained, left again vacant the government of Gaul by the removal of Marion, after Victorin and his son were gotten out of the way. Although desolate by the death of Marion, my foster-sister combated my suspicions with regard to Tetrik. She reminded me that I myself, more than two months before the murder of Marion, was so struck by the expression of hatred and envy betrayed by the face and words of the captain's old companion, that I said to her before Tetrik that Marion must be very much blinded by his affection to fail to perceive that his friend was devoured by implacable jealousy. Victoria shared the opinion of the good Marion, that the crime to which he had fallen a victim had no other cause than the envious hatred of Eustace, who was driven to the point of insanity by the more recent elevation of his friend. Besides, a singular coincidence, on that same day my foster-sister received from Tetrik, then on his way to Italy, a letter in which he informed her that seeing his health was daily declining, the physicians saw but one chance of safety for him--a trip to some southern country. For that reason he was on the way to Rome with his son. These facts, Tetrik's conduct since the death of Victorin, the touching letters that he wrote, together with what seemed to be the irrefutable arguments advanced by Victoria, once more overthrew my mistrust toward the Governor of Gascony. I also arrived at the conclusion, which was certainly justified on the face of the events, that, in view of the previous behavior of Eustace, the atrocious murder committed by him had no other motive than a savage jealousy, that was driven to the point of insanity by the recent distinction that fell to the lot of his friend. I kept the promise that I made to the good and brave Marion at the hour of his death. His assassination was attributed to some unknown murderer, but not to Eustace. I took the man's sword with me to Victoria; no suspicion was drawn to the actual felon, who was never more seen either at Mayence, or in the camp. Marion's remains, wept over by the whole army, received the pompous military honors due to a general and a Chief of Gaul. CHAPTER VI. THE TRAITOR UNMASKED. The direst day of my life since that on which I accompanied the remains of Victorin, his son and my beloved wife Ellen to the funeral pyre that was to consume them, was the day on which the following events took place. They happened, my son, two hundred and sixty years after our ancestress Genevieve saw the young man of Nazareth die upon the cross, and five years after the assassination of Marion, the successor of Victorin in the government of Gaul.