had been himself conscious of his
danger--they were clothes that had disguised him as a French artisan.
For a few moments, but not for longer, I forced myself to see these
things through the glass screen. I can write of them at no greater
length, for I saw no more.

The few facts in connection with his death which I subsequently
ascertained (partly from Pesca and partly from other sources), may be
stated here before the subject is dismissed from these pages.

His body was taken out of the Seine in the disguise which I have
described, nothing being found on him which revealed his name, his
rank, or his place of abode. The hand that struck him was never
traced, and the circumstances under which he was killed were never
discovered. I leave others to draw their own conclusions in reference
to the secret of the assassination as I have drawn mine. When I have
intimated that the foreigner with the scar was a member of the
Brotherhood (admitted in Italy after Pesca's departure from his native
country), and when I have further added that the two cuts, in the form
of a T, on the left arm of the dead man, signified the Italian word
"Traditore," and showed that justice had been done by the Brotherhood
on a traitor, I have contributed all that I know towards elucidating
the mystery of Count Fosco's death.

The body was identified the day after I had seen it by means of an
anonymous letter addressed to his wife. He was buried by Madame Fosco
in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. Fresh funeral wreaths continue to
this day to be hung on the ornamental bronze railings round the tomb by
the Countess's own hand. She lives in the strictest retirement at
Versailles. Not long since she published a biography of her deceased
husband. The work throws no light whatever on the name that was really
his own or on the secret history of his life--it is almost entirely
devoted to the praise of his domestic virtues, the assertion of his
rare abilities, and the enumeration of the honours conferred on him.
The circumstances attending his death are very briefly noticed, and are
summed up on the last page in this sentence--"His life was one long
assertion of the rights of the aristocracy and the sacred principles of
Order, and he died a martyr to his cause."

III

The summer and autumn passed after my return from Paris, and brought no
changes with them which need be noticed here. We lived so simply and
quietly that the income which I was n