“I can’t tell you. It was all so awfully sudden. We were looking in at a shop-window, when suddenly some one shouted out something in Italian behind us--about his father and mother, I think--and I heard two blows struck, and Mr Steinherz gave a kind of gasp, and fell against me. I tried to lift him up and stop the bleeding, and people were standing round staring, and the man who had done it kept talking, talking, in English. But when I got Mr Steinherz’s head on my shoulder, so that his face showed, the man gave a yell and dashed away. They say there’s no doubt he mistook him for the Archduke Ferdinand Joachim, and it’s curious that last night I noticed there was a distinct likeness between them from behind, but not the very least in front.” “I would just love to tell you that I know exactly as much as you do!” thought Maimie enviously. Aloud she merely said, “And Mr Steinherz?” “A doctor came up, and said he was stabbed in the lungs, and couldn’t possibly live. He tried to speak, though the doctor told him not, but he could only get out a few disjointed words. And just as they got him into the receiving-room he died.” They had reached the hotel now, and Usk waited in the sitting-room while Maimie went to look for Félicia. It was more than an hour before she came back, and in the interval Usk was a prey to all kinds of interruptions. In order to spare the girls, he made all the arrangements he could without direct authority from them; other matters he put aside resolutely, refusing to allow Miss Steinherz to be troubled at present. When Maimie returned she looked so old and harassed that he was shocked. “How is she?” he asked anxiously. “Quieter now; I’ve given her a sleeping-draught. But it’s been terrible. Her nerves are pretty highly strung, and she screamed fit to make your blood run cold. And I know there are millions of things to do, and I can’t tell the way they fix them over here. Say, Lord Usk, you oughtn’t to be here, any way; people will talk, you know they will. Folks in England are so censorious. Do, please, go right away. It makes me nervous to see you there.” Usk obeyed, with apparent willingness, for a splendid idea had entered his head. He went straight to the nearest post-office, and telegraphed to the Marchioness of Caerleon at Llandiarmid Castle. “‘Terrible accident to Mr Steinherz. Daughter quite prostrate. Can you come?’” He read over the message. “That’ll bring her,” he muttered. “And I never knew the people yet that the mater couldn’t comfort when they were in trouble.” As he put the change into his pocket he felt a paper there. Taking it out, he found it was the envelope Mr Steinherz had given him the night before, to be opened after his death. The time had come already, he realised with awe. Stepping aside, he opened the envelope, and drew out a cutting from a newspaper.