o had accompanied me now rushed into the house,
and secured the person of the old man. As to his wife, no one could at
first tell what had become of her. After some search, however, she was
found hidden behind a bundle of fagots.

By this time, nearly the whole town had gathered around the spot; and
now that this horrible fact had come to light, every body had some crime
to tell, which had been laid to the charge of the old couple. The people
who predict after an event, are numerous.

The old couple were brought before the proper authorities, and privately
and separately examined. The old man persisted in his denial, most
pertinaciously; but his wife at length confessed, that, in concert with
her husband, she had once--a very long time ago--murdered a peddler,
whom they had met one night on the high-road, and who had been
incautious enough to tell them of a considerable sum of money which he
had about him, and whom, in consequence, they induced to pass the night
at their house. They had taken advantage of the heavy sleep induced by
fatigue, to strangle him; his body had been put into the chest, the
chest thrown into the well, and the well stopped up.

The peddler being from another country, his disappearance had occasioned
no inquiry; there was no witness of the crime; and as its traces had
been carefully concealed from every eye, the two criminals had good
reason to believe themselves secure from detection. They had not,
however, been able to silence the voice of conscience; they fled from
the sight of their fellow-men; they trembled at the slightest noise, and
silence thrilled them with terror. They had often formed a determination
to leave the scene of their crime--to fly to some distant land; but
still some undefinable fascination kept them near the remains of their
victim.

Terrified by the deposition of his wife, and unable to resist the
overwhelming proofs against him, the man at length made a similar
confession; and six weeks after, the unhappy criminals died on the
scaffold, in accordance with the sentence of the Parliament of Toulouse.
They died penitent.

The well was once more shut up, and the cottage leveled to the ground.
It was not, however, until fifty years had in some measure deadened the
memory of the terrible transaction, that the ground was cultivated. It
is now a fine field of corn.

Such was the dream and its result.

I never had the courage to revisit the town where I had been an actor in