At length he turned away, casting at me as he did so one indefinable look, and with slow dignity passed again down the length of the nave and disappeared. Then, and not till then, I found my voice and my courage. I pulled the priest by the sleeve of his cassock. "Some one has just been in the cathedral," I said huskily. And I told him what I had seen. "Impossible! Retro me, Sathanas! It was imagination." His tone was dry, harsh. "No, no," I said eagerly. "I assure you...." He smiled incredulously, and repeated the word "Imagination!" But I well knew that it was not imagination, that I had actually seen this man enter and go forth. CHAPTER VIII THE MESSAGE When I returned to Alresca's house--or rather, I should say, to my own house--after the moving and picturesque ceremony of the funeral, I found a note from Rosetta Rosa, asking me to call on her at the Hotel du Commerce. This was the first news of her that I had had since she so abruptly quitted the scene of Alresca's death. I set off instantly for the hotel, and just as I was going I met my Anglo-Belgian lawyer, who presented to me a large envelope addressed to myself in the handwriting of Alresca, and marked "private." The lawyer, who had been engaged in the sorting and examination of an enormous quantity of miscellaneous papers left by Alresca, informed me that he only discovered the package that very afternoon. I took the packet, put it in my pocket, and continued on my way to Rosa. It did not occur to me at the time, but it occurred to me afterwards, that I was extremely anxious to see her again. Everyone who has been to Bruges knows the Hotel du Commerce. It is the Ritz of Bruges, and very well aware of its own importance in the scheme of things. As I entered the courtyard a waiter came up to me. "Excuse me, monsieur, but we have no rooms." "Why do you tell me that?" "Pardon. I thought monsieur wanted a room. Mademoiselle Rosa, the great diva, is staying here, and all the English from the Hotel du Panier d'Or have left there in order to be in the same hotel with Mademoiselle Rosa." Somewhere behind that mask of professional servility there was a smile. "I do not want a room," I said, "but I want to see Mademoiselle Rosa." "Ah! As to that, monsieur, I will inquire." He became stony at once. "Stay. Take my card." He accepted it, but with an air which implied that everyone left a card. In a moment another servant came forth, breathing apologies, and led me to Rosa's private sitting-room. As I went in a youngish, dark-eyed, black-aproned woman, who, I had no doubt, was Rosa's maid, left the room. Rosa and I shook hands in silence, and with a little diffidence. Wrapped in a soft, black, thin-textured tea-gown, she reclined in an easy-chair. Her beautiful face was a dead white; her eyes were dilated, and under them were dark semicircles. "You have been ill," I exclaimed, "and I was not told." She shrugged her shoulders in denial, and shivered.