Lemarque dared not describe her daughter as a wife—she would not record her name as a spinster. Marie was enough. For the first month after her burial I found the slab covered with flowers, wreaths, crosses, bouquets of the costliest flowers that can be bought in Paris. I noticed that among the variety of flowers there was one wreath frequently renewed, and always the same—a wreath of Maréchal Niel roses—and I knew that these had been her favourite flowers, the flowers she always wore, and had about her in her rooms. I had often heard her call the Maréchal Niel the king of roses. Months passed, and on my weekly visits with my poor little bunch of violets, or snowdrops, or jonquils, I found always the wreath of yellow roses. All through the winter, when even other token had ceased to adorn the grave—when the beautiful actress was beginning to be forgotten—the yellow roses were always renewed. I felt that this could be done only by some one who had devotedly loved Marie Prévol. For her admirers of the theatre her death had been a nine days' wonder. They had covered her grave with flowers, and then had gone away and forgotten all about her; but the wreath of yellow roses, renewed again and again, all through the dark dull winter, was the gift of a steadfast love, a grief which did not diminish with time. I questioned the people at the gates, but they knew nothing of the hand which laid those flowers on my mistress's grave. I hoped I should some day surprise the visitor who brought them; but though I altered the days of my visits, never going two weeks running on the same day, I seemed no nearer finding out that constant mourner. At last, early in the February after my mistress's death, I resolved upon going to the cemetery every day, and remaining there, in view of the grave, as long as my stock of patience would allow me. I spent three or four hours there for six days running, till my heart and my feet were alike weary. But I had seen no one: the roses had not been renewed. The seventh day was a Saturday, the day I always devoted to cleaning the apartment, which was now in the occupation of an elderly gentleman and his wife. I was not able to leave the house till late in the afternoon. The day had been foggy, and the fog had thickened by the time I left the omnibus, which took me to the Rue de la Roquette. At the gates of the cemetery it was so dark that if I had not been familiar with the paths which led to my mistress's grave, I should hardly have been able to find my way to the spot. The grave is in a narrow path, midway between two of the principal walks; and as I turned the corner between two large and lofty monuments, I saw a man standing in the middle of the path in front of Marie Prévol's grave. A tall figure, in a furred overcoat, a figure I knew well. I had not an instant's doubt that the murderer of my mistress stood there before me, looking at his victim's grave."
