ties increase, replied--

"Dame Louise is praising my brother for bearing no ill-will to her."

"Why?" said the countess, turning to the midwife,--"why should you fear
any ill-will on the part of my husband?"

"I was afraid," said Louise Goillard awkwardly, "that he might have taken
a dislike to me on account of all that happened when you expected to be
confined."

The obscurity of these words and embarrassment of the two women produced
a lively effect upon the countess; but she controlled herself and let the
subject drop. Her agitation, however, did not escape the notice of the
marchioness, who the next day had horses put to her coach and retired to
hey estate of Lavoine. This clumsy proceeding strengthened suspicion.

The first determination of the countess was to arrest Louise Goillard;
but she saw that in so serious a matter every step must be taken with
precaution. She consulted the count and the countess dowager. They
quietly summoned the midwife, to question her without any preliminaries.
She prevaricated and contradicted herself over and over again; moreover,
her state of terror alone sufficed to convict her of a crime. They
handed her over to the law, and the Count de Saint-Geran filed an
information before the vice-seneschal of Moulins.

The midwife underwent a first interrogatory. She confessed the truth of
the accouchement, but she added that the countess had given birth to a
still-born daughter, which she had buried under a stone near the step of
the barn in the back yard. The judge, accompanied by a physician and a
surgeon, repaired to the place, where he found neither stone, nor foetus,
nor any indications of an interment. They searched unsuccessfully in
other places.

When the dowager countess heard this statement, she demanded that this
horrible woman should be put on her trial. The civil lieutenant, in the
absence of the criminal lieutenant, commenced the proceedings.

In a second interrogation, Louise Goillard positively declared that the
countess had never been confined;

In a third, that she had been delivered of a mole;

In a fourth, that she had been confined of a male infant, which Baulieu
had carried away in a basket;

And in a fifth, in which she answered from the dock, she maintained that
her evidence of the countess's accouchement had been extorted from her by
violence. She made no charges against either Madame de Bouille or the
Marquis de Saint Maixent. On the other ha