t far from the high road, a large splash of blood not yet dry. He said
to himself: "Hallo! some boozer must have had a nose bleed."

But he perceived ten paces farther on a pocket handkerchief also stained
with blood. He picked it up. The linen was fine, and the postman, in
alarm, made his way over to the ditch, where he fancied he saw a strange
object.

Mademoiselle Source was lying at the bottom on the grass, her throat cut
with a knife.

An hour later, the gendarmes, the examining magistrate, and other
authorities made an inquiry as to the cause of death.

The two female relatives, called as witnesses, told all about the old
maid's fears and her last plans.

The orphan was arrested. After the death of the woman who had adopted
him, he wept from morning till night, plunged, at least to all
appearance, in the most violent grief.

He proved that he had spent the evening up to eleven o'clock in a cafe.
Ten persons had seen him, having remained there till his departure.

The driver of the diligence stated that he had set down the murdered
woman on the road between half-past nine and ten o'clock.

The accused was acquitted. A will, drawn up a long time before, which had
been left in the hands of a notary in Rennes, made him sole heir. So he
inherited everything.

For a long time, the people of the country boycotted him, as they still
suspected him. His house, that of the dead woman, was looked upon as
accursed. People avoided him in the street.

But he showed himself so good-natured, so open, so familiar, that
gradually these horrible doubts were forgotten. He was generous,
obliging, ready to talk to the humblest about anything, as long as they
cared to talk to him.

The notary, Maitre Rameau, was one of the first to take his part,
attracted by his smiling loquacity. He said at a dinner, at the tax
collector's house:

"A man who speaks with such facility and who is always in good humor
could not have such a crime on his conscience."

Touched by his argument, the others who were present reflected, and they
recalled to mind the long conversations with this man who would almost
compel them to stop at the road corners to listen to his ideas, who
insisted on their going into his house when they were passing by his
garden, who could crack a joke better than the lieutenant of the
gendarmes himself, and who possessed such contagious gaiety that, in
spite of the repugnance with which he inspired them, they could not