"It was the first winter that we were in New York, and I returned to Florence that I might accompany my mother back to America. She, too, was to make her home in New York, my father having died. It was while I was away that Andrea met this devil of a woman. How? I do not know, but he loved her madly; the letter he left behind for me told me the intensity of his passion for her. "Andrea was young, idealistic; he thought her everything that was good, noble. And then there came to him a man; a low, common person, who was the woman's husband! "You see how she had tricked him? She was not the innocent, lovely girl she had led my brother to believe. He had thought to marry her--soon. The shock of the truth dethroned reason; he could not have her, and he could not give her up. There seemed to him only one way that he could forget. "If I could but show you his farewell letter to me, the letter that he wrote a few minutes before he fired the bullet through his heart!" Tears came into Victor Sarbella's eyes, and his voice trembled and broke. "Could you read that letter of Andrea's you would understand better. "He was my brother, my only brother, and I loved him devotedly. News of his death was cabled to me, but it was not until the boat docked in New York that I knew how he had died--and why. "My mother--Andrea was her very life. She--it killed her. This woman, this vampire, killed both of them--Andrea and our mother--as surely as though she had driven daggers into their hearts. And that--that would have been a kindlier way." He pointed a dramatically accusing finger to the couch. "There she is, a murderess, a moral murderess, and she has reaped as she had sown!" Victor Sarbella's voice came to a pause. "All right," said Constable Griggs, "let's have the rest of it. You killed her for revenge!" "A life for a life!" murmured Wiggly Price, his ears twitching again, as he thought of a dramatic line for this amazing story that he was to write for _The Star_. "'The code of Latin vengeance!' Wow! What a whale of a yarn!" Victor Sarbella shook his head slowly. "Time passes, and the deepest of wounds heal--although there may be a scar," he said. "It is futile for me to deny that in my first grief and rage against this woman I made bitter threats, that I said I would hound her down and make her pay. I do not deny that I meant it--at the moment; I do not deny that I sought her in vain." "But you did find her yesterday," exclaimed Constable Griggs. "I've heard tell of them Eyetalian vendettas. You hadda wait most three years, but you got 'er all right. Ain't no use holdin' out on me no longer, Mister Sarbella; we gotcha, an' we gotcha cold. Mebbe you can get by with that revenge business over in Italy, but you can't work it here." Victor Sarbella looked tired, and his face was drawn, haggard.