a, do you think--Juana! is it so
pressing?--I want to kiss you."

The gendarmes were mounting the staircase. Juana grasped the pistol,
aimed it at Diard, holding him, in spite of his cries, by the throat;
then she blew his brains out and flung the weapon on the ground.

At that instant the door was opened violently. The public prosecutor,
followed by an examining judge, a doctor, a sheriff, and a posse of
gendarmes, all the representatives, in short, of human justice, entered
the room.

"What do you want?" asked Juana.

"Is that Monsieur Diard?" said the prosecutor, pointing to the dead body
bent double on the floor.

"Yes, monsieur."

"Your gown is covered with blood, madame."

"Do you not see why?" replied Juana.

She went to the little table and sat down, taking up the volume of
Cervantes; she was pale, with a nervous agitation which she nevertheless
controlled, keeping it wholly inward.

"Leave the room," said the prosecutor to the gendarmes.

Then he signed to the examining judge and the doctor to remain.

"Madame, under the circumstances, we can only congratulate you on the
death of your husband," he said. "At least he has died as a soldier
should, whatever crime his passions may have led him to commit. His act
renders negatory that of justice. But however we may desire to spare you
at such a moment, the law requires that we should make an exact report
of all violent deaths. You will permit us to do our duty?"

"May I go and change my dress?" she asked, laying down the volume.

"Yes, madame; but you must bring it back to us. The doctor may need it."

"It would be too painful for madame to see me operate," said the doctor,
understanding the suspicions of the prosecutor. "Messieurs," he added,
"I hope you will allow her to remain in the next room."

The magistrates approved the request of the merciful physician,
and Felicie was permitted to attend her mistress. The judge and the
prosecutor talked together in a low voice. Officers of the law are
very unfortunate in being forced to suspect all, and to imagine evil
everywhere. By dint of supposing wicked intentions, and of comprehending
them, in order to reach the truth hidden under so many contradictory
actions, it is impossible that the exercise of their dreadful functions
should not, in the long run, dry up at their source the generous
emotions they are constrained to repress. If the sensibilities of the
surgeon who probes into the mysteries of the