"He seemed amused at my question, and thought for some time before replying, little guessing what was running in my mind. He answered me at last, and said that he thought that a person could be best hidden and lost to the world by living just a fairly ordinary life in a quiet way in one of the larger towns in England. That was his experience during his long life as a lawyer.
"I treasured his opinion, and formed a scheme in my mind upon it.
"Just then poor Carlotta d'Altenstein, a widow without friends, my dear companion, was seized with her mortal illness, and then I saw my scheme complete before me.
"By the lavish use of money, of which I had more than I needed by far, for my father's private fortune invested in Europe was very great, I contrived that I should change places with the Baroness d'Altenstein.
"To the public it was I who was ill; to the world at large, even to Don Juan, it was I who died. It was then that, passing as the Baroness d'Altenstein—in England as plain Mrs. Carlotta Altenstein—I went to the city of Bath, which had been recommended, and also offered certain devotional advantages to me, for I intended to give the remainder of my life to religion and the poor.
"There in Monmouth Street, where you saw me, Mr. Anstruther, amusing myself with philanthropic literature, I succeeded for ten years in hiding myself from the Duke Waldemar of Rittersheim, who had in a manner reformed himself and become a philanthropist too, in public; in secret his life was worse than ever. In that little room in which you found me, I was foolish enough to keep the steel safe, hidden away in a receptacle cut in the stone wall of the house. But the safe no longer contained all the diamonds. I had been gradually selling them and devoting the proceeds to the poor of the world. This convent, a refuge for aged men and women, and orphaned children, was founded with part of the money.
"But to my horror, at the end of the ten years, I met the Duke Waldemar, face to face, coming out of the Pump Room at Bath, where quietly and unobtrusively I had gone to take the waters. That was on the morning of the day I spoke to you, for I knew then that my refuge was a refuge no longer.
"I intended on the morrow to have asked you to help me remove what remained of the diamonds to a place of security and leave the safe behind. Perhaps I might have even encroached on your kindness to have asked you to escort me here, but it was arranged otherwise.
"During the night and early morning, I became aware that something was taking place in the next house, which up to then had stood empty. I connected it in my mind with some plot of the Duke, who I doubted not had had me followed home. The sequel proved I was right.
"This fear so worked upon me that, towards morning, I rose and commenced to write the letters to you and Don Juan, and to make them up in packets.