and did not dare to utter it. This thought seemed to them at once obvious and absurd: it is the flax pounder’s key which alone could have been used for the theft. The vicar avoided going out so as not to have to give voice to a suspicion which obsessed him. Up till then he had not examined the linen which had been substituted for his own. His eyes fell by chance on the markings: he was astonished, reflected sadly, could not account for the mystery of the two letters, so impossible was it to divine the queer hallucinations of a poor madwoman.

‘He was plunged in the most gloomy thoughts when he saw the flax pounder enter, pulled up to his full height, and paler than death. The old man remained standing, then burst into tears.

‘ “It is she,” he said, “oh! the unfortunate girl! I ought to have watched her more, entered more into her thoughts; but she was always melancholic and she eluded me.”

‘He revealed the mystery: a moment afterwards, the linen that had been stolen was brought back to the vestry.

‘The poor girl, because of her lack of sense, had hoped that the scandal would die down and that she would quietly enjoy her little loving stratagem. The arrest of the vestry-woman and the excitement which followed it spoiled all her plan. If the moral sense had not been as completely obliterated in her as it was, she would have thought of nothing but freeing the vestry-woman; but she scarcely thought of it. She was plunged in a sort of stupor which had nothing in common with remorse. What crushed her was the obvious miscarriage of her attack on the mind of the vicar. Any other mind than that of a priest would have been touched by the revelation of such a violent love. The vicar remained unaffected. He forbade himself to think of the extraordinary episode, and, as soon as he clearly saw the innocence of the vestry-woman, he slept, said his Mass and his breviary with the same calm as on any other day.

‘The blunder that had been made in arresting the vestry-woman was seen then in its enormity. Without that the affair could have been hushed up. It had not been a real theft: but, after an innocent woman had spent several days in prison for an act qualified as a theft, it was very difficult to leave the real criminal unpunished. Her madness was not obvious: one must admit that this madness was only an inner thing. Before this, it had not occurred to anybody that Kermelle’s daughter was mad. Externally she was like everybody else, except for her almost complete speechlessness. The excuse of mental alienation, then could be contested: besides, the true explanation was so queer, so unbelievable that they hardly dared to bring it forward. Madness not being alleged, the fact of having let the vestry-woman be arrested, was unpardonable. If the theft had only been a game, the author of the joke ought to have cut it short as soon as a third person was its victim. The wretched girl was arrested and taken to St. Brieuc for the Assizes. She did not emerge a moment from her complete prostration; she seemed out of the world. Her dream was finished: the kind of chimæra that she had cherished for some time and which had sustained her, had fallen flat; it existed no longer. Her state had nothing violent about it; it was a mournful silence; then doctors came and judged her with discernment.

At the Assizes, the case was quickly heard. Not a single word could be drawn from her. The flax pounder entered, upright and firm, his face resigned. He approached the prætorian table, and there laid down his gloves, his cross of St. Louis, his sash.

‘ “Gentlemen,” he said, “I can take them up again only if you tell me to. It is she who has done this, and yet she is not a thief. She is ill.”

‘The good man burst into tears: he suffocated.

‘ “That’s enough that’s enough”, was heard from all sides. The solicitor-general showed tact, and without making a speech on a case of erotic aberration, he dropped the accusation.