for burial,
notifying the clergyman, etc., so Panna was spared all the mournful
business details which demand attention from a crushed spirit at a
moment when it is so incapable of forming any sensible, practical
conclusions, and could therefore remain near the committee.

After the post-mortem examination was over, the members went to view
the scene of the deed. Panna followed, and was silently permitted to
do so by the beadle and the constable, while the throng of villagers
was kept back. A mist dimmed Panna's eyes, when she saw the place
where the crime was committed, but she bore up bravely and watched the
proceedings around her with the utmost attention.

The gentlemen entered the coach-house and, standing at the door, she
could hear the physician say that he thought he noticed blood-stains on
the floor. The examining magistrate sketched a slight plan of the
place in his note-book, and ordered Janos and the gardener, who were in
the vicinity, to be brought in by the beadle. They were required to
point out the places where they were standing at the time of the
misfortune, and to briefly relate in turn the details of the story,
during which the prosecuting attorney and the lawyer for the defense
made notes. All this afforded Panna infinite satisfaction. She felt
her heart grow lighter, and became calm, almost cheerful. A voice in
her soul said: "There--there is justice!" and every letter which the
gentlemen, with swiftly moving pencils, scrawled on the paper, seemed
to her a link in the steel chain which was being forged before her
eyes, ever longer and heavier, and would serve to drag the criminal
fettered before the tribunal.

From the castle, the committee returned to the town-hall, and now
followed the real official examination of the witnesses, whose previous
information had been taken merely as unofficial information, and not as
legal depositions. They were summoned singly into the room and
examined, first Janos, then the gardener, and lastly the beadle. When
the latter came out Panna, who, until then had waited patiently at the
threshold, stepped resolutely into the chamber, though the constable
told her that she had not been summoned.

The examining magistrate looked at the new-comer in surprise, and asked
what she wanted.

"What do I want?" replied Panna in astonishment, "why, to be examined
as the others have been."

"Were you present when the misfortune happened?"

Panna felt a pang in he