r, in which I told him I should come here if I
lived, of course I placed in the ebony casket with something else that
was worth more to me than all the diamonds in the world; it was the
certificate of my marriage to Prince Adalbert of Rittersheim at the
little church of the remote mountain village in Aquazilia.

"I was far more fearful of losing that than all my fortune. It was the
certificate of my honour and my son's birthright. I knew that if the
Duke Waldemar once got it into his possession he could demand any price
from me for its return.

"It was late in the morning, a dull foggy November morning, when I had
finished sealing the packets and locked them away in the steel safe
with my own key. The one I had given you was the only duplicate in
existence; they both bore my father's initial C, he was Carlo the Third
of Aquazilia.

"Having left directions on a paper which you could see within the safe
when you opened it, I carefully locked it and hid my own key under a
special place in the carpet.

"I intended then to write to you at once and tell you to come and open
the safe, whatever might happen to me, for I believed that its
hiding-place would not easily be discovered, but I never had this
chance.

"Exhausted with want of sleep, I went back to my room and threw myself
on my bed, half dressed as I was, with my white silk dressing-robe on
in which I had sat writing half the night.

"I at once fell asleep and must have slept for hours, for it was dark
again when I awoke, and then I was called back to consciousness by
having my arm roughly shaken. I found the Duke Waldemar and two other
men in my room.

"He at once demanded to know the whereabouts of the steel safe with the
diamonds, and held a naked knife to my throat to force me to tell him.

"Life was of very little value to me in comparison with the needs of
the poor for whom I was determined to preserve the riches.

"Each time I refused to tell him he pressed the knife closer to my
throat, until it cut into the flesh, and I felt the warm blood
trickling down on to my white dressing-robe.

"When he and his companions had been there it seemed to me a long, long
time, and it was useless for me to shriek for help, I gave myself up
for lost, turning my thoughts as well as I could to the next world.

"It was then that the Duke and his men were startled by hearing you
open the front door of the house and stumble through the dark passage.

"With horribl