house, while the crowd, restrained with difficulty by the gendarmes,
stamped with impatience, or leant over the garden wall, stretching their
necks eagerly, to see or hear something of what was passing within the
cottage.

Those who anticipated the discovery of a crime, were unhappily not
deceived. The commissary was convinced of this as soon as he crossed the
threshold. Everything in the first room pointed with a sad eloquence to
the recent presence of a malefactor. The furniture was knocked about,
and a chest of drawers and two large trunks had been forced and broken
open.

In the inner room, which served as a sleeping apartment, the disorder
was even greater. It seemed as though some furious hand had taken a
fiendish pleasure in upsetting everything. Near the fireplace, her face
buried in the ashes, lay the dead body of Widow Lerouge. All one side of
the face and the hair were burnt; it seemed a miracle that the fire had
not caught her clothing.

"Wretches!" exclaimed the corporal. "Could they not have robbed, without
assassinating the poor woman?"

"But where has she been wounded?" inquired the commissary, "I do not see
any blood."

"Look! here between the shoulders," replied the corporal; "two fierce
blows, by my faith. I'll wager my stripes she had no time to cry out."

He stooped over the corpse and touched it.