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The more I endeavored to reach some tangible solution of the mystery, the more confused I became. According to the girl, Arletta's story, I had been introduced to her at a reception in Paris three years previously, had apparently fallen desperately in love with her, and made myself obnoxious by following her everywhere she went for several months.
There, as Sir Francis Palgrave sums up the story, "Arletta's pretty feet twinkling in the brook made her the mother of William the Bastard." And certainly, if great events depend upon great men, and if great men are in any way influenced by the places of their birth, there is no place which seems more distinctly designed by nature to be the cradle of great events.
But notwithstanding that our many meetings had the effect of strengthening our mutual admiration and love for each other, and that I was beginning to fairly idolize this beautiful young woman, still certain things came to pass that I could not understand, and which caused me to feel that Arletta's actions were very mysterious, and that there was something about her life she was trying to withhold from me.
On the other hand, if I refused, I could look forward to a life of poverty, hard work, and the abuse of my fellow beings. The temptation was a trying one, and it seemed impossible for me to refuse Arletta's offering. As I raised my head and looked into her beautiful eyes, which expressed great love, and tenderness, and expectation, I felt that I could not say no to her.
So, standing erect and without further hesitation, I took Arletta's hand in mine and said: "My dear girl, to lose you will cause me much suffering and pain, so much that it would be impossible for you to form any conception of it. To lose you is to deprive me of all that is dear and sweet in this life.
"Eis vos la Bataille assemblee, Dunc encore est grant renomee." Arletta's pretty feet twinkling in the brook gained her a duke's love, and gave us William the Conqueror. Had she not thus fascinated Duke Robert, the Liberal, of Normandy, Harold would not have fallen at Hastings, no Anglo-Norman dynasty could have arisen, no British empire.
The case attracted widespread interest, and the newspapers teemed with sensational accounts of it. At the trial, all of the evidence pointed directly to me as the perpetrator of the deed. The elevator operator swore that I was the man whom he had taken to Arletta's apartments shortly after eleven o'clock that night.
In fact, being under the direct influence of Arletta's perception, conditions appeared much more comprehensive to me than ever before and I felt like some great judge looking down upon the earth and its inhabitants with an impartial eye. And somehow these inhabitants did not seem to impress me as being in such a high state of intelligence as I had formerly been led to believe they were.
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