them about the matter in a gasping voice. The two
women thought she was going mad and tried to reassure her.

She said:

"If you knew the way he looks at me from morning till night. He never
takes his eyes off me! At times, I feel a longing to cry for help, to
call in the neighbors, so much am I afraid. But what could I say to
them? He does nothing to me except to keep looking at me."

The two female cousins asked:

"Is he ever brutal to you? Does he give you sharp answers?"

She replied:

"No, never; he does everything I wish; he works hard; he is steady;
but I am so frightened I don't mind that much. He has something in his
head, I am certain of that--quite certain. I don't care to remain all
alone like that with him in the country."

The relatives, scared by her words, declared to her that they were
astonished, and could not understand her; and they advised her to keep
silent about her fears and her plans, without, however, dissuading her
from coming to reside in the city, hoping in that way that the entire
inheritance would eventually fall into their hands.

They even promised to assist her in selling her house and in finding
another near them.

Mademoiselle Source returned home. But her mind was so much upset that
she trembled at the slightest noise, and her hands shook whenever any
trifling disturbance agitated her.

Twice she went again to consult her relatives, quite determined now
not to remain any longer in this way in her lonely dwelling. At last,
she found a little cottage in the suburbs, which suited her, and she
privately bought it.

The signature of the contract took place on a Tuesday morning, and
Mademoiselle Source devoted the rest of the day to the preparations
for her change of residence.

At eight o'clock in the evening she got into the diligence which
passed within a few hundred yards of her house, and she told the
conductor to let her down in the place where it was his custom to stop
for her. The man called out to her as he whipped his horses:

"Good evening, Mademoiselle Source--good night!"

She replied as she walked on:

"Good evening, Pere Joseph." Next morning, at half-past seven, the
postman who conveyed letters to the village, noticed at the
cross-road, not far from the high road, a large splash of blood not
yet dry. He said to himself: "Hallo! some boozer must have got a
bleeding in the nose."

But he perceived ten paces farther on a pocket-handkerchief also
stained