'And for a full year you let me be suspected of being a thief ... protesting all the while that you loved me?'
'I do love you ... and I regret....'
'Ah! you regret, you scoundrel! And to show your regret you spoiled my life as your father had spoiled my father's work? Scoundrel, scoundrel, scoundrel!'
"I heard the man laugh, a cold, cruel laugh.
'No!' she went on, 'you do not regret, but I will teach you to repent!...'
"The next second I heard a report. George and I broke in the door. She had shot him through the left arm. I am afraid, P. C., that you have never seen her look as beautiful as I have.
"What more can I say? The next day the affair was in the papers. I hoped it would be an advertisement for the 'Grand-duke's hotel.' It would perhaps have been one for a bigger place or one that had been better known. As it was, it finished my business. Three months later I was ruined. You may believe me, P. C., that my wish to be revenged on that scoundrel is as strong as yours."
"And Mitzi?" I ask.
"Mitzi was arrested. But after three days, as the gentleman had left the country, she was restored to liberty. He had gone away with all their luggage, and she possessed nothing except a few jewels, which she pawned. The proceeds did not suffice to pay her journey home, not to speak of her bill, for she had remained several weeks in Paris, hoping to find an engagement, a hope in which she failed. Finally I had to give her a few francs in order to help her to return to her country."
There, Mr. Reader, is what Charles Young tells me. It leads you exactly to the point—namely, Mitzi's coming home—where I had left you.