impassiveness. “Only it will be no easy matter.”

The officer stooped down and drew aside the skirt of the cloak which concealed the dead man’s face, disclosing as he did so a frightful wound. The sentinel had been struck in the[Pg 106] throat and the weapon had not been withdrawn from the wound. It was a common kitchen-knife, with a black handle.

[Pg 106]

“Look at that knife,” the officer said to Father Merlier. “Perhaps it will assist us in our investigation.”

The old man had started violently, but recovered himself at once; not a muscle of his face moved as he replied:

“Every one about here has knives like that. Like enough your man was tired of fighting and did the business himself. Such things have happened before now.”

“Be silent!” the officer shouted in a fury. “I don’t know what it is that keeps me from setting fire to the four corners of your village.”

His anger fortunately kept him from noticing the great change that had come over Françoise’s countenance. Her feelings had compelled her to sit down upon the stone bench beside the well. Do what she would she could not remove her eyes from the body that lay stretched upon[Pg 107] the ground, almost at her feet. He had been a tall, handsome young man in life, very like Dominique in appearance, with blue eyes and yellow hair. The resemblance went to her heart. She thought that perhaps the dead man had left behind him in his German home some sweetheart who would weep for his loss. And she recognised her knife in the dead man’s throat. She had killed him.

[Pg 107]

The officer, meantime, was talking of visiting Rocreuse with some terrible punishment, when two or three soldiers came running in. The guard had just that moment ascertained the fact of Dominique’s escape. The agitation caused by the tidings was extreme. The officer went to inspect the locality, looked out through the still open window, saw at once how the event had happened, and returned in a state of exasperation.

Father Merlier appeared greatly vexed by Dominique’s flight. “The idiot!” he murmured; “he has upset everything.”

[Pg 108]

[Pg 108]

Françoise heard him, and was in an agony of suffering. Her father, moreover, 

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