little girl, who was in the charge of the police. She was crying bitterly. The corpses were removed to Paris on the following evening."
The examination of the driver came next. He had very little to tell. He had been told to wait at the cross-roads until the lady and gentleman returned from their stroll. It was a lovely night—a night which might have tempted any one to alight and walk in the forest glade. The moon was rising, but it was dark amid the old trees. The man had been waiting about a quarter of an hour, when he heard a shot a little way off—and then another, and another, and another, in rapid succession—and then he heard a child screaming. He tied his horse to a tree, and he ran into the glade, guided by the screams of the child. He found the lady and gentleman lying on the ground, side by side, the child kneeling by the lady; and screaming with grief and terror. The gentleman groaned two or three times, and then expired. The lady neither stirred nor moaned. Her light-coloured gown and mantle were covered with blood.
The driver was questioned as to whether anybody had passed him while he waited at the crossroads. No, he had not observed any one, except an old woman and a boy who had been gathering sticks in the forest. The place at which he was waiting was a well-known point. The glade in which the murder occurred was considered one of the most picturesque spots in the forest. He always drove there with people who wanted to see the beauties of Saint-Germain. But at that late hour there were very few people driving. He had met no carriage after leaving the terrace.
Then followed the examination of the child, and of Marie Prévol's mother. They were both lengthy, for the Juge d'Instruction had applied himself with peculiar earnestness to the task of unravelling this mystery, and it was only in the details of the dead woman's surroundings that the clue to the secret could be found.
The child had evidently answered the magisterial questions with extreme intelligence. However she might have broken down afterwards, she had been perfectly rational at the time of the interrogatory. It seemed to Heathcote, influenced, perhaps, by his knowledge of after events, that the child's replies indicated a hyper-sensitiveness, and an intellect intensified by feverish excitement.
"You remember going to Saint-Germain with your aunt?"
"Yes."
"Tell me all you can recall about that day. Tell me exactly when and how you started, and what happened to you on the way. I want to hear everything."
"It was three o'clock when we left my aunt's house. Monsieur de Maucroix came a little before that, and asked my aunt
