"I do not believe that she ever loved any man. It is certain that she did not love her husband. At any event, the monotonous life of a British official's wife was more than she could stand. The climax came when a maid whom she had beaten and discharged caused one of her gardeners to poison her infant son. "The tragic sequence and scandal which followed the death of her son still is remembered by old timers in India. She started an investigation of the killing independent of the British authorities, and finally, in her own mind, fixed the guilt on one of her gardeners. She took a revolver, and, walking into the garden where the man was working, shot him dead. "She was arrested, but owing to the high position occupied by her husband everything possible was done to suppress the scandal. Finally she was told that she would have to leave British India. It was just what she wanted to do. She left her home in the night, stealing her daughter from her husband. She made her way to Marseilles and thence to Holland, where she placed her daughter in a convent. Then she went straight to Paris, where she learned that she was penniless, the small fortune which her father had left her having, under the Dutch law, passed to her child. Then she set about to captivate Paris. Not satisfied with her conquest, she went to Berlin, to Petrograd, to Vienna--she travelled over all Europe--and became one of the most talked of women on the Continent. "She met many men. One of them was a wealthy German, who was a high official of the Berlin government. He bought a home for her at Nieully-sur-Seine and furnished it in a style that was representative of what was most truly Oriental splendor. There the two of them lived. It was there that I first saw her. "Soon she tired of this German. He was extremely jealous of her. Always her art--her dancing--called to her. He would not let her dance. There were many 'scenes' at home. Her life was not happy, despite the wealth at her disposal. "Then she met a one-time Minister of Finance, of France, and, through him, his brother-in-law. He fell in love with her and she with him. "This man was at that time the managing director of a great Paris bank. He deserted his wife and bought a magnificent château in Touraine. For two years they lived there. Then, one day, the police entered the bank and arrested the managing director. He was charged with embezzling the funds of the institution. He was tried and convicted and sentenced to two years at hard labor. The woman then went back to the German official at Neuilly-sur-Seine. They were living there when I left France four years ago." (Told in the _New York Herald_.) IV--STORY OF EXECUTION OF SUSANNA RAYNAL