“Yes. It was one of those strange and complete assumptions of personality which puzzle the alienists. Wilfrid Blair’s diseased mind had fastened upon the strange history of his ancestress, and brooded on it until he became convinced that her spirit was reincarnated in himself. Undoubtedly his striking likeness to the portrait of Camilla Grosvenor powerfully aided the obsession. There were her letters, in the library, to give color to his unconscious imitation. As is common in this form of dementia, he was secretive. But there can be no doubt that from the time when he recognized in Preston Jax’s advertisement, the call of Astræa’s kindred soul, Hermann von Miltz, his one overwhelming desire was to reenact the drama of the last century, in his own assumed personality. Jax has told us how cleverly and secretly the plan for the double suicide was matured. This obsession must have been of long standing.” “We thought it melancholia,” said Alexander Blair. “As you say, he had been very secretive. Very silent, too. We kept Gansett Jim with him as a sort of body-guard.” Marjorie Blair got to her feet. She was ghost-white; but her voice and eyes were steady, as she faced Kent. “I must understand this all,” she said. “Wilfrid’s body is where?” “In Annalaka churchyard.” “Then who—what is buried in his grave at Hedgerow House?” “Nothing,” said Alexander Blair. “A mock funeral!” “My dear,” said the man—he seemed to have grown suddenly old under the unspoken arraignment—“I could not tell you what I thought the truth. I thought then that Wilfrid had encountered Mr. Sedgwick, and that—that there had been a fight in which he was killed. Rather than face the scandal of a murder trial, a scandal in which the family name would have been dragged through the mire of the public prints again, I chose the part of deceit. I’d have bribed a hundred officers of the law rather than have had you dragged to the witness-stand, and have been compelled to give testimony myself. There has been enough of public shame in my life.” “But you made me believe that Mr. Sedgwick killed Wilfrid!” she accused. “I believed it myself,” he retorted. “But what basis had _you_ for suspecting me of the crime?” cried Sedgwick, turning to Marjorie Blair. “You didn’t know of his visit to me in women’s clothes. You knew nothing of the quarrel, it seems, until just now. For what possible reason, in your belief, should I have killed him?” She flushed to her temples. “I—I—thought,” she murmured, “that he might have known of our acquaintance, and have misconstrued: that he might have gone to find you, and attacked you, and that you killed him. In self-defense, I mean.” “Thank you for that last, at least,” said Sedgwick rather bitterly. Then, as he saw her wince, “Forgive me!” he added in a low tone. “But, to be suspected by you, even though you were misled—” He stopped, catching Kent’s frowning glance. “Who discovered that the burial was a false one?” she asked, after a pause.