ived, saying, 'You will not decline
our good offices this time, Monsieur le Cure. You shall have our
linen here in a few minutes.' Her father expressed himself in the same
sense, and the priest could not but assent, little dreaming of what a
trick had been played upon him by a person who was generally supposed
to be so wanting in intelligence.

"This singular robbery was further investigated the next day. There
was no sign of any force having been used to get into the house.
The main door and the one leading into the garden were untouched and
locked as usual. It never occurred to any one that the key intrusted
to young Kermelle could have been used to commit the robbery. It
followed, therefore, that the theft must have been committed by way
of the vestry door. The clerk had been in the church all the time,
but his wife had been in and out. She had been to the fire to get some
coals for the censers, and had attended to two or three other little
details; and so suspicion fell on her. She was a very respectable
woman, and it seemed most improbable that she would be guilty of such
an offence, but the appearances were dead against her. There was
no getting away from the argument that the thief had entered by the
vestry door, that she alone could have gone through this door, and
that, as she herself admits, she did go through it. The far too
prevalent idea of those days was that every offence must be followed
by an arrest. This gave a very high idea of the extraordinary sagacity
of justice, of its prompt perspicacity, and of the rapidity with which
it tracked out crime. The unfortunate woman was walked off between two
gendarmes. The effect produced by the gendarmes, with their burnished
arms and imposing cross-belts, when they made their appearance in
a village, was very great. All the spectators were in tears; the
prisoner alone retained her composure, and told them all that she was
convinced her innocence would be made clear.

"As a matter of fact, within forty-eight hours it was seen that a
blunder had been committed. Upon the third day, the villagers hardly
ventured to speak to one another on the subject, for they all of them
had the same idea in their heads, though they did not like to give
utterance to it. The idea seemed to them not less absurd than it was
self-evident, viz., that the flax-crusher's key must have been used
for the robbery. The priest remained within doors so as to avoid
having to give utterance to th