“Go on, my dearest Britomarte, and believe that I am listening with the deepest interest and closest attention.”
“I pass on to the week of her death. I was here at the Parsonage helping to nurse your sister at that time, you remember?”
“Certainly.”
“The doctor came one morning and announced to me the death of my aunt, and placed a packet in my hand. It consisted of a half dozen newspapers, with certain passages marked in them. These passages related to the arrest, trial and execution of a guerrilla named Norse, alias Dipper, alias Dole. It was stated that he had confessed to having committed nine highway robberies, seventeen successful burglaries, and five murders. With these papers there was a written manuscript and a note. The note was from the chaplain of the prison in which he was confined. It was addressed to Miss Pole. It explained that the accompanying manuscript was the attested confession of the prisoner. Justin, I have that document by me; would you like to look at it?”
“Not now, dearest; I would rather you would tell me its contents. What did the dying culprit confess?”
“First to having murdered ‘Madame Mona’ as my sister was called, for the sum of a thousand dollars, paid him for the service by the Signor Adriano di Bercelloni.”
“Horrible!”
“Then to various other offences which would have seemed like felonies, except by the side of that one enormous crime.”
“You left the Parsonage soon after the receipt of that packet.”
“Yes; I could not maintain my self-possession sufficiently well to make me serviceable in a sick room. So I hastened back to my regiment to lose the keen sense of sorrow in active military service.”