The room beyond the folding-doors was lit with a brilliant light. Grouped round a table were four men. One of them was Ceneri, the other Macari. The third man was a stranger to me. These three men were looking at a fourth man--a young man who appeared to be falling out of his chair, clutching convulsively the hilt of a dagger, the blade of which had been buried in his heart, clearly by Macari, who stood over him. I cannot explain this vision. I only saw it when I held Pauline's hand. When I let her hand drop the scene vanished. You may call it cataleptic, clairvoyant, anything you will; it was as I relate. _IV.--Seeking the Truth in Siberia_ Macari called on me the day after this strange scene to ask me about the memorial to Victor Emanuel. "Before I consent to help you," I said, "I must know why you murdered a man three years ago in a house in Horace Street." He sprang to his feet and grasping my arm, looked intently into my eyes. I saw that he recognised me in spite of the great change that blindness makes in a face. "Why should I deny the affair to an eye-witness? To others I would deny it fast enough. Now, my fine fellow, my gay bridegroom, my dear brother-in-law, I will tell you why I killed that man. He had insulted my family. That man was Pauline's lover!" He saw what was in my face as I rose and walked towards him. "Not here," he said hastily, "what good can it do here--a vulgar scuffle between two gentlemen?" "Go," I cried, "murderer and coward. Every word you have spoken to me has been a lie, and because you hate me you have to-day told me the greatest lie of all." He left me with a look of malicious triumph in his face. I knew he lied, but how could I prove that he lied? Only Ceneri could tell me the truth. He was in Siberia, and, mad as the scheme seemed, thither I determined to go to get the whole truth from his lips. I exerted all the influence I possessed. I spent money freely, and with a special passport signed by the Czar himself, which placed all the resources of the Russian police at my disposal, I passed across Russia into Siberia. At last, after travelling thousands of miles, I came up with the gang of wretched prisoners in which the doctor was. Showing my papers to the officer in command, I was taken at once to the awful prison-house. I had him brought to me in a private room, and placed before him food and drink. "I want to ask you some questions," I said, "questions which you alone can answer." "Ask them. You have given me an hour's release from misery. I am grateful." "The first question I have to ask is--who and what is that man Macari?" Ceneri sprang to his feet. "A traitor! a traitor!" he cried. It was Macari who had betrayed him. Macari was no more Anthony March, the brother of Pauline, than I was, and Pauline had never had a lover in the sense in which Macari had used the word.