e had a piece of twine in his pocket, he tied it up and hid it in a
deep portion of the stream, under the trunk of a tree, the foot of which
was steeped in the Brindelle.

Then he went off at a rapid pace, reached the meadows, took a wide turn
in order to show himself to some peasants who dwelt some distance away
at the opposite side of the district, and he came back to dine at the
usual hour, and told his servants all that was supposed to have happened
during his walk.

He slept, however, that night; he slept with a heavy brutish sleep, such
as the sleep of persons condemned to death must be occasionally. He
only opened his eyes at the first glimmer of dawn, and he waited,
tortured by the fear of having his crime discovered, for his usual
waking hour.

Then he would have to be present at all the stages of the inquiry as to
the cause of death. He did so after the fashion of a somnambulist, in a
hallucination which showed him things and human beings in a sort of
dream, in a cloud of intoxication, in that dubious sense of unreality
which perplexes the mind at the time of the greatest catastrophe.

The only thing that pierced his heart was La Roque's cry of anguish. At
that moment he felt inclined to cast himself at the old woman's feet,
and to exclaim--

"'Tis I."

But he restrained himself. He went back, however, during the night, to
fish up the dead girl's wooden shoes, in order to carry them to her
mother's threshold.

As long as the inquiry lasted, as long as it was necessary to guide and
aid justice, he was calm, master of himself, sly and smiling. He
discussed quietly with the magistrates all the suppositions that passed
through their minds, combated their opinions, and demolished their
arguments. He even took a keen and mournful pleasure in disturbing their
investigations, in embroiling their ideas in showing the innocence of
those whom they suspected.

But from the day when the inquiry came to a close he became gradually
nervous, more excitable still than he had been before, although he
mastered his irritability. Sudden noises made him jump up with fear; he
shuddered at the slightest thing, trembled sometimes from head to foot
when a fly alighted on his forehead. Then he was seized with an
imperious desire for movement, which compelled him to keep continually
on foot, and made him remain up whole nights walking to and fro in his
own room.

It was not that he was goaded by remorse. His brutality did not