ticed by the chaplain (an observant man) that the dress she wore was
stained with blood about the knees, and that there were traces of small
blood-stained hands low down on the staircase walls, so that it was
conjectured that she had really been at the postern-door when her
husband fell and, feeling her way up to him in the darkness on her hands
and knees, had been stained by his blood dripping down on her. Of course
it was argued on the other side that the blood-marks on her dress might
have been caused by her kneeling down by her husband when she rushed out
of her room; but there was the open door below, and the fact that the
finger-marks in the staircase all pointed upward.

The accused held to her statement for the first two days, in spite of
its improbability; but on the third day word was brought to her that
Herve de Lanrivain, a young nobleman of the neighbourhood, had been
arrested for complicity in the crime. Two or three witnesses thereupon
came forward to say that it was known throughout the country that
Lanrivain had formerly been on good terms with the lady of Cornault; but
that he had been absent from Brittany for over a year, and people had
ceased to associate their names. The witnesses who made this statement
were not of a very reputable sort. One was an old herb-gatherer
suspected of witchcraft, another a drunken clerk from a neighbouring
parish, the third a half-witted shepherd who could be made to say
anything; and it was clear that the prosecution was not satisfied
with its case, and would have liked to find more definite proof of
Lanrivain's complicity than the statement of the herb-gatherer, who
swore to having seen him climbing the wall of the park on the night of
the murder. One way of patching out incomplete proofs in those days was
to put some sort of pressure, moral or physical, on the accused person.
It is not clear what pressure was put on Anne de Cornault; but on
the third day, when she was brought in court, she "appeared weak and
wandering," and after being encouraged to collect herself and speak
the truth, on her honour and the wounds of her Blessed Redeemer, she
confessed that she had in fact gone down the stairs to speak with Herve
de Lanrivain (who denied everything), and had been surprised there by
the sound of her husband's fall. That was better; and the prosecution
rubbed its hands with satisfaction. The satisfaction increased when
various dependents living at Kerfol were induced to