It was a knot of velvet of a peculiar dark red colour, and had formed, as I knew the moment I set eyes on it, part of the fastening of mademoiselle's mask.

'Where did you find it ?' I muttered, supposing that he had picked it up on the stairs.
'Look at it!' he answered impatiently.

'You have not looked.' I turned it over, and then saw something which had escaped me at first--that the wider part of the velvet was disfigured by a fantastic stitching, done very roughly and rudely with a thread of white silk.
The stitches formed letters, the letters words.

With a start I read, 'A MOI!' and saw in a corner, in smaller stitches, the initials 'C.

d.