“Monsieur,” said the steward, “it is fatality, I am sure. First, you purchase a house at Auteuil⁠—this house is the one where I have committed an assassination; you descend to the garden by the same staircase by which he descended; you stop at the spot where he received the blow; and two paces farther is the grave in which he had just buried his child. This is not chance, for chance, in this case, is too much like Providence.”

“Well, amiable Corsican, let us suppose it is Providence. I always suppose anything people please, and, besides, you must concede something to diseased minds. Come, collect yourself, and tell me all.”

“I have related it but once, and that was to the Abbé Busoni. Such things,” continued Bertuccio, shaking his head, “are only related under the seal of confession.”