least surprise.

"I've no more white wine--no more anything," said Daddy Mathieu,
surlily.

"How is Madame Mathieu?"

"Quite well, thank you."

So the young Woman with the large, tender eyes, whom we had just seen,
was the wife of this repugnant and brutal rustic, whose jealousy seemed
to emphasise his physical ugliness.

Slamming the door behind him, the innkeeper left the room. Mother
Angenoux was still standing, leaning on her stick, the cat at her feet.

"You've been ill, Mother Angenoux?--Is that why we have not seen you for
the last week?" asked the Green Man.

"Yes, Monsieur keeper. I have been able to get up but three times, to
go to pray to Sainte-Genevieve, our good patroness, and the rest of the
time I have been lying on my bed. There was no one to care for me but
the Bete du bon Dieu!"

"Did she not leave you?"

"Neither by day nor by night."

"Are you sure of that?"

"As I am of Paradise."

"Then how was it, Madame Angenoux, that all through the night of the
murder nothing but the cry of the Bete du bon Dieu was heard?"

Mother Angenoux planted herself in front of the forest-keeper and struck
the floor with her stick.

"I don't know anything about it," she said. "But shall I tell you
something? There are no two cats in the world that cry like that. Well,
on the night of the murder I also heard the cry of the Bete du bon Dieu
outside; and yet she was on my knees, and did not mew once, I swear. I
crossed myself when I heard that, as if I had heard the devil."

I looked at the keeper when he put the last question, and I am much
mistaken if I did not detect an evil smile on his lips. At that moment,
the noise of loud quarrelling reached us. We even thought we heard a
dull sound of blows, as if some one was being beaten. The Green Man
quickly rose and hurried to the door by the side of the fireplace; but
it was opened by the landlord who appeared, and said to the keeper:

"Don't alarm yourself, Monsieur--it is my wife; she has the toothache."
And he laughed. "Here, Mother Angenoux, here are some scraps for your
cat."

He held out a packet to the old woman, who took it eagerly and went out
by the door, closely followed by her cat.

"Then you won't serve me?" asked the Green Man.

Daddy Mathieu's face was placid and no longer retained its expression of
hatred.

"I've nothing for you--nothing for you. Take yourself off."

The Green Man quietly refilled his pipe, lit it, bowed to us, and