"Good morning, Monsieur!" he said.
"Our poor canon is not to be heard of. They
tell me that he left the town about nine
o'clock to join our little festival. Heaven
send he has come to no harm! Those three
men on horseback ——"

"Ah! by the way," said the waiter stepping
forward, "one of those gentlemen came
here last night, but must have departed again
before daylight."

"So he did," I said.

"Mordieu!" said Bontiquet, muttering.

"But," said I, starting, and thinking of
what I had seen, " the canon must have been
here last ——"

A peasant came running across the green,
holding up something like a black rag all
over mud.

"This was found," he said, "in the ditch
by the roadside. It looks like the canon's
skull-cap."

People gathered round from all sides.

"It is no other," they said.

There were hairs and clotted blood sticking
to it. at the sight of which the gentle-hearted
bystanders groaned and wept. All this
while I was in a sort of dream, trying to bring
back, one by one, the mysterious events of
the night. They were coming—coming
slowly.

"What can they have done with him?"
said one.

"We should try the road both sides—all
along to the fountain!"

To the fountain! That soft sighing echo
came back at once. Sleeping behind the
fountain! behind the fountain! Had it
been a dream?

No; for within an hour they came back
slowly, those good village souls, with
downcast eyes and drooped heads, and brought
news that behind the fountain, indeed, had
been found their loved canon, quite cold and
stiff; with which melancholy messengers
came a train of weeping women and children.

"O, sirs," said one, "it was a devilish
thing, with no reason in the wide world; for
he never was enemy to so much as a fly!
Who could have done it?"

"Mordieu!" Bontiquet said, through his
closed teeth. "I know well. Too well."

"I saw," said an old peasant, stepping
forward, "I saw Dupin the younger with
these eyes ride through the village last
night, with two other horsemen."

"Ah-h-h!" from all the crowd; and then
a pause

"The same that were at the gate during
the dance," Bontiquet added. "Yes, the
nephew."

The events of the night before, and its
mysterious disturbances, began to take
something like shape in iny mind. "Had he not
a scar across his face?" I asked, hurriedly:
"a short, thick-set fellow?"

"Ay," said Bontiquet, "the same."

Here broke in some one: "He was here
last night, that man with the scar. I stabled
his horse; but he was gone in the morning.
He slept inside Monsieur's room."

"I heard some one ride away at dead of
night," a guest put in.

"Mordieu! so did I," said another.

"Ha!" Bontiquet said, rubbing his hands;
"this looks like business. We shall have
him, yet. Fetch your best horses, and we
will go forth together. Hi! Jacques! Bring
round the grey horse."

Each man was soon mounted, and off;
tearing away, belly to ground, as they say,
in different directions.

It was a weary day. I should have been
on my road, only I longed to see the end of
this strange drama. It came to eleven o'clock;
and then to mid-day; to one, to two o'clock.
I wandered in and out restlessly; setting
out at last on the road towards that fountain.
There were groups at the house-doors, and
leaning on gates, talking that one engrossing
business over. The day was beautiful; the
sun shining brightly, and a sweet scent
abroad as of new-mown hay. Three o'clock
now, by those tinkling church-bells whose
music sounded from afar off,—as far, indeed,
as Petit- Pont. For this was the very spot
where, the evening before, I had parted with
the poor canon, then on his errand of charity.
There were the marks of that strange
diagram he had drawn with his stick, still
fresh. Here, a few steps on, was the fountain,
christened Blandusian, clattering noisily
as ever, but no longer the pure, fresh, innocent
stream of the night before. And in the
brake behind, was that rough, terrible gap,
where he had lain for the long weary night;
the rent briars and broken twigs telling
plainly of what violence it had been the
scene. The bells of Petit-Pont had to chime
again and again before I left the place.

Six o'clock. A cloud of dust approaching;
people from inns, from cottages, from fields
all run out—run hastily to the cloud. They
are coming, they are coming! See yonder! It
is Bontiquet, it is Jacques; it is everybody
that has gone forth in the morning. There is a
procession; there is a buzz of many tongues;
there are cocked-hats and drawn swords,
many of them; and, as the dust, thickened by
crowds pressing round, clears a little, I see the
short, thick man in the centre mounted on his
black steed. Terrible excitement! bitter
execrations! Gendarmes with difficulty
keeping the people off. Bontiquet rode at the
head. It was his caption.

Said I to Bontiquet, when dismounting,
"See, is his shirt torn in front?"

There was a great rent in the breast. It
was blood-stained besides. In his pocket,
too, a packet of his own letters taken from
the Abbé, with ample proof besides. But the
bold ruffian made show of denial—laughed
the thing off. It was only when he saw me
that he suddenly turned pale and trembled.

"You were in the room?" he said, in a