Many readers of these present lines no doubt saw reports of both affairs in the papers, but few, I expect, will recollect the actual facts, or if they do, they little dream of the remarkable romance of life of which those two unexplained tragedies formed the prologue. On the night when the coroner's jury returned in the case of Richard Harborne a verdict of "Wilful murder by some person unknown," a girl sat in her small, plainly-furnished bedroom on the top floor of a house in New Oxford Street, in London, holding the evening paper in her thin, nerveless fingers. It was Jean Libert. She had been reading an account of the evidence given at the inquest, devouring it eagerly, with pale face and bated breath. And as she read her chest rose and fell quickly, her dark eyes were filled with horror, and her lips were ashen grey. The light had faded from her pretty face, her cheeks were sunken, her face haggard and drawn, and about her mouth were hard lines, an expression of bitter grief, remorse, despair. A quarter of an hour ago, while in the small, cheap French restaurant below, kept by her father--a long, narrow place with red-plush seats along the white walls and small tables set before them--an urchin had passed, selling the "extra special." On the contents bill he carried in front of him were the words, in bold type: "Norfolk Mystery--Verdict." She had rushed out into the street, bought a paper, and hastily concealing it, had ascended to her room, and there locked herself in. Then she sank upon her bed and read it. Three times had she carefully read every word, for the report was a rather full one. Afterwards she sat, the paper still in her white hand, staring straight at the old mahogany chest of drawers before her. "Poor Dick!" she murmured. "Ah! Heaven! Who could have done it? Why--why was he killed on that evening? If he had not gone to Mundesley to meet me he would not have lost his life. And yet----" She paused, startled at the sound of her own voice, so nervous had she now become. She glanced at the mirror, and started at sight of her own white, drawn countenance. She placed both hands upon her eyes, as though striving to recall something, and in that position she remained, bent and pensive, for some moments. Her lips moved at last. "I wonder," she exclaimed, very faintly, speaking to herself, "I wonder whether Ralph will ever know that I met Dick? Ah! yes," she sighed; "I was foolish--mad--to dare to go to Mundesley that afternoon. If only I could have foreseen the consequence of our secret meeting--ah! if only I had known what I know now!" Again she was silent, her face pale, with a fixed, intense look, when at last she rose, unlocked one of the small top drawers of the chest, and, taking the drawer entirely out, extracted something that had been concealed beneath it.