I looked up at her again, when I had read it. She lifted her hand once more, and pointed to the handkerchief round her neck. As Ilooked at it, the fair white silk changed horribly in color--the fair white silk became darkened and drenched in blood.
A moment more--and the vision of her began to grow dim. By slow degrees, the fi gure, then the face, faded back into the shadowy appearance that I had first seen. The luminous inner light died out in the white mist. The mist itself dropped slowly downward--floated a moment in airy circles on the floor--vanished. Nothing was before me but the familiar wall of the room, and the photograph lying face downward on my desk.
X.
THE next day, the newspapers reported the discovery of a murder in London. A Frenchwoman was the victim. She had been killed by a wound in the throat. The crime had been discovered between ten and eleven o'clock on the previous night.