hy last visit?"

"Three, reverend clavier; and yet the ladies spoke of four. I looked for
the fourth when in the building, but there appeared none fresh, except
this of poor Jacques Colis."

"Come hither, and say if there do not appear to be two in the far
corner--here, where the body of thy old comrade the guide was placed, from
respect for his calling; surely, there at least is a change in its
position!"

Pierre approached, and taking off his cap in reverence, he leaned forward
in the building, so as to exclude the external light from his eyes.

"Father!" he said, drawing back in surprise, "there is truly another;
though I overlooked it when we entered the place."

"This must be examined into! The crime may be greater than we had
believed!"

The servants of the convent and Pierre, whose long services rendered him a
familiar of the brotherhood, now re-entered the building, while those
without impatiently awaited the result. A cry from the interior prepared
the latter for some fresh subject of horror, when Pierre and his companion
quickly reappeared, dragging a living man into the open air. When the
light permitted, those who knew him recognized the mild demeanor, the
subdued look, and the uneasy, distrustful glance of Balthazar.

The first sensation of the spectators was that of open amazement; but dark
suspicion followed. The baron, the two Genoese, and the monk, had all been
witnesses of the scene in the great square of Vevey. The person of the
headsman had become so well known to them by the passage on the lake and
the event just alluded to, that there was not a moment of doubt touching
his identity, and, coupled with the circumstances of that morning, there
remained little more that the clue was now found to the cause of the
murder.

We shall not stop to relate the particulars of the examination. It was
short, reserved, and had the character of an investigation instituted more
for the sake of form, than from any incertitude there could exist on the
subject of the facts. When the necessary-inquiries were ended, the two
nobles mounted. Father Xavier led the way, and the whole party proceeded
towards the summit of the pass, leading Balthazar a prisoner, and leaving
the body of Jacques Colis to its final rest, in that place where so many
human forms had evaporated into air before him, unless those who had felt
an interest in him in life should see fit to claim his remains.

The ascent between the Refuge and t