rch for him
in order to punish him. When we have found him, we'll give her up to
you. I promise you this."

This explanation shook the woman's mind, and a feeling of hatred
manifested itself in her distracted glance.

"So then they'll take him?"

"Yes, I promise you that."

She rose up, deciding to let them do as they liked; but, when the
captain remarked:

"'Tis surprising that her clothes were not found."

A new idea, which she had not previously thought of, abruptly found an
entrance into her brain, and she asked:

"Where are her clothes. They're mine. I want them. Where have they been
put?"

They explained to her that they had not been found. Then she called out
for them with desperate obstinacy and with repeated moans.

"They're mine--I want them. Where are they? I want them!"

The more they tried to calm her the more she sobbed, and persisted in
her demands. She no longer wanted the body, she insisted on having the
clothes, as much perhaps through the unconscious cupidity of a wretched
being to whom a piece of silver represents a fortune, as through
maternal tenderness.

And when the little body rolled up in blankets which had been brought
out from Renardet's house, had disappeared in the vehicle, the old woman
standing under the trees, held up by the Mayor and the Captain,
exclaimed:

"I have nothing, nothing, nothing in the world, not even her little
cap--her little cap."

The cure had just arrived, a young priest already growing stout. He took
it on himself to carry off La Roque, and they went away together towards
the village. The mother's grief was modified under the sugary words of
the clergyman, who promised her a thousand compensations. But she
incessantly kept repeating:

"If I had only her little cap."

Sticking to this idea which now dominated every other.

Renardet exclaimed some distance away:

"You lunch with us, Monsieur l'Abbe--in an hour's time."

The priest turned his head round, and replied:

"With pleasure, Monsieur le Maire. I'll be with you at twelve."

And they all directed their steps towards the house whose gray front and
large tower built on the edge of the Brindelle, could be seen through
the branches.

The meal lasted a long time. They talked about the crime. Everybody was
of the same opinion. It had been committed by some tramp passing there
by mere chance while the little girl was bathing.

Then the magistrates returned to Roug, announcing that they would