ne thus buried for
a year acquires the quality and characteristics of the oldest brands."

"It is possible," said the mason, again taking his spade, "but all the
same it seems a little odd to me."

When he had finished, Derues asked him to help to drag the chest
alongside the trench, so that it might be easier to take out the bottles
and arrange them: The mason agreed, but when he moved the chest the
foetid odour which proceeded from it made him draw back, declaring that a
smell such as that could not possibly proceed from wine. Derues tried to
persuade him that the smell came from drains under the cellar, the pipe
of which could be seen. It appeared to satisfy him, and he again took
hold of the chest, but immediately let it go again, and said positively
that he could not execute Derues' orders, being convinced that the chest
must contain a decomposing corpse. Then Derues threw himself at the
man's feet and acknowledged that it was the dead body of a woman who had
unfortunately lodged in his house, and who had died there suddenly from
an unknown malady, and that, dreading lest he should be accused of having
murdered her, he had decided to conceal the death and bury her here.

The mason listened, alarmed at this confidence, and not knowing whether
to believe it or not. Derues sobbed and wept at his feet, beat his
breast and tore out his hair, calling on God and the saints as witnesses
of his good faith and his innocence. He showed the book he was reading
while the mason excavated: it was the Seven Penitential Psalms. "How
unfortunate I am!" he cried. "This woman died in my house, I assure
you--died suddenly, before I could call a doctor. I was alone; I might
have been accused, imprisoned, perhaps condemned for a crime I did not
commit. Do not ruin me! You leave Paris to-night, you need not be
uneasy; no one would know that I employed you, if this unhappy affair
should ever be discovered. I do not know your name, I do not wish to
know it, and I tell you mine, it is Ducoudray. I give myself up to you,
but have some pity!--if not for me, yet for my wife and my two little
children--for these poor creatures whose only support I am!"

Seeing that the mason was touched, Derues opened the chest.

"Look," he said, "examine the body of this woman, does it show any mark
of violent death? My God!" he continued, joining his hands and in tones
of despairing agony,--"my God, Thou who readest all hearts, and who
knowest