I saw her, and that helped to relieve my chaotic state of mind.

I breathed her--I inhaled the perfume of the lady in black, whom I should never see again.

I would have given ten years of my life--half my life--to see once more the lady in black! Alas! I no more meet her but from time to time,--and yet!--and yet! how the memory of that perfume--felt by me alone--carries me back to the days of my childhood.* It was this sharp reminder from my beloved perfume, of the lady in black, which made me go to her--dressed wholly in white and so pale--so pale and so beautiful!--on the threshold of the inexplicable gallery.
Her beautiful golden hair, gathered into a knot on the back of her neck, left visible the red star on her temple which had so nearly been the cause of her death.

When I first got on the right track of the mystery of this case I had imagined that, on the night of the tragedy in The Yellow Room, Mademoiselle Stangerson had worn her hair in bands.

But then, how could I have imagined otherwise when I had not been in The Yellow Room! * When I wrote these lines, Joseph Rouletabille was eighteen years of age,--and he spoke of his "youth." I have kept the text of my friend, but I inform the reader here that the episode of the mystery of The Yellow Room has no connection with that of the perfume of the lady in black.