remonstrance; but her death-like countenance and fixed eye
betrayed the violence of the shock she had received. During the whole of
the ride to the convent she spoke not, and, as those around her felt for,
and understood, her distress, the little cavalcade could not have been
more melancholy and silent had it borne with it the body of the slain. In
an hour they reached the long sought for and so anxiously desired place of
rest.

While this disposition of the feebler portion of the party was making, a
different scene had taken place near what have been already so well called
the houses of the living and the dead. As there existed no human
habitation within several leagues of the abode of the Augustines on either
side of the mountain, and as the paths were much frequented in the summer,
the monks exercised a species of civil jurisdiction in such cases as
required a prompt exercise of justice, or a necessary respect for those
forms that might be important in its ad ministration hereafter before the
more regular authorities. It was no sooner known, therefore, that there
was reason to suspect an act of violence had been committed, than the good
clavier set seriously about taking the necessary steps to authenticate all
those circumstances that could be accurately ascertained.

The identity of the body as that of Jacques Colis, a small but substantial
proprietor of the country of Vaud, was quickly established. To this fact
not only several of the travellers could testify, but he was also known to
one of the muleteers, of whom he had engaged a beast to be left at Aoste
and, it will also be remembered, he had been seen by Pierre at Martigny,
while making his arrangements to puss the mountain. Of the mule there were
no other traces than a few natural signs around the building, but which
might equally be attributed to the beasts that still awaited the leisure
of the travellers. The manner in which the unhappy man had come by his
death admitted of no dispute. There were several wounds in the body, and a
knife, of the sort then much used by travellers of an ordinary class, was
left sticking in his back in a position to render it impossible to
attribute the end of the sufferer to suicide. The clothes, too, exhibited
proofs of a struggle, for they were torn and soiled, but nothing had been
taken away. A little gold was found in the pockets, and though in no great
plenty still enough to weaken the first impression that there had also
b