"I did--I did, but she was the only person who could talk about Mr. Vane. She loved him also, but not as I did, and we have talked for hours in this very room. We quarreled, certainly, but at times she was very nice. I miss our talks greatly." It really seemed as though Miss Bull was weak in the head. She admitted to hating Mrs. Jersey, and yet she came to stop with her. It might be that Mrs. Jersey looked after her as a kind of keeper and that she acted the tyrant. At that moment, as though answering his thought, Miss Bull made a sudden observation. "Mrs. Jersey knew that I had been in an asylum. She would have sent me back if she could, the vile woman! But I was never afraid of her, never. And she always talked to me of Mr. Vane," concluded Miss Bull in a softer tone. "Did she know who killed him?" Miss Bull shook her head. "No. She never knew. No one ever knew. I sometimes thought that Violet--but she declared that he left her at the door of the ballroom." "Miss Bull," said George, growing impatient of this disconnected recital, "will you go on with your story?" "Story--yes, it is a story--a sad romance." She passed her hand again over her forehead as though wearied, and resumed with an effort. "Mr. Vane left Como and came to Milan; afterward he went on to San Remo. My father, who liked his society, joined him there. We stopped at the Hotel d'Angleterre. Eliza Stokes was a housemaid there, and it was while attending to our bedroom that she told me she had been your nurse. She was a large, stout girl with red cheeks. As Mrs. Jersey she was vastly improved, but as a girl----" Miss Bull shuddered in a prim way and continued: "Yet, she had her admirers. A waiter, called George Rates, wished to marry her. She had accepted him, but while within sight of Mr. Vane she could not love him." "How do you mean?" "Well, Eliza used to spy on Mr. Vane and follow him in his walks. She was quite insane about him. I told Mr. Vane, and he kept away from the hotel. And George Rates was jealous of Eliza's love for Mr. Vane. But he never loved her, nor Violet--he loved no one but me." "And he told you so at the masked ball?"