would be repeated. The box-office was closed. The dramatic
company had left Rome.

My interest in discovering how the story ended led me next to the
booksellers' shops--in the hope of buying the play. Nobody knew
anything about it. Nobody could tell me whether it was the
original work of an Italian writer, or whether it had been stolen
(and probably disfigured) from the French. As a fragment I had
seen it. As a fragment it has remained from that time to this.

SECOND EPOCH.

ONE of my objects in writing these lines is to vindicate the
character of an innocent woman (formerly in my service as
housekeeper) who has been cruelly slandered. Absorbed in the
pursuit of my purpose, it has only now occurred to me that
strangers may desire to know something more than they know now of
myself and my friend. "Give us some idea," they may say, "of what
sort of persons you are, if you wish to interest us at the outset
of your story."

A most reasonable suggestion, I admit. Unfortunately, I am not
the right man to comply with it.

In the first place, I cannot pretend to pronounce judgment on my
own character. In the second place, I am incapable of writing
impartially of my friend. At the imminent risk of his own life,
Rothsay re scued me from a dreadful death by accident, when we
were at college together. Who can expect me to speak of his
faults? I am not even capable of seeing them.