a knife, a
child's small knife. When he picked it up, he discovered a thimble and
also a needle-case not far away.

Having taken up these objects, he thought: "I'll intrust them to the
Mayor," and he resumed his journey, but now he kept his eyes open
expecting to find something else.

All of a sudden, he drew up stiffly as if he had knocked himself against
a wooden bar; for, ten paces in front of him, lay stretched on her back
a little girl, quite naked, on the moss. She was about twelve years old.
Her arms were hanging down, her legs parted, and her face covered with
a handkerchief. There were little spots of blood on her thighs.

Mederic advanced now on tiptoe, as if he were afraid to make a noise,
apprehended some danger, and he glanced towards the spot uneasily.

What was this? No doubt, she was asleep. Then, he reflected that a
person does not go to sleep thus naked, at half-past seven in the
morning under cool trees. So then she must be dead; and he must be face
to face with a crime. At this thought, a cold shiver ran through his
frame, although he was an old soldier. And then a murder was such a rare
thing in the country, and above all the murder of a child, that he could
not believe his eyes. But she had no wound--nothing save this blood
stuck on her leg. How, then, had she been killed?

He stopped quite near her; and he stared at her, while he leaned on his
stick. Certainly, he knew her, as he knew all the inhabitants of the
district; but, not being able to get a look at her face, he could not
guess her name. He stooped forward in order to take off the handkerchief
which covered her face, then paused with outstretched hand, restrained
by an idea that occurred to him.

Had he the right to disarrange anything in the condition of the corpse
before the magisterial investigation? He pictured justice to himself as
a kind of general whom nothing escapes, and who attaches as much
importance to a lost button as to a stab of a knife in the stomach.
Perhaps under this handkerchief evidence to support a capital charge
could be found; in fact if there were sufficient proof there to secure a
conviction, it might lost its value, if touched by an awkward hand.

Then, he raised himself with the intention of hastening towards the
Mayor's residence, but again another thought held him back. If the
little girl was still alive, by any chance, he could not leave her lying
there in this way. He sank on his knees very gently, a