At that instant the door was opened violently. The public prosecutor, followed by an examining judge, a doctor, a sheriff, and a posse of gendarmes, all the representatives, in short, of human justice, entered the room. “What do you want?” asked Juana. “Is that Monsieur Diard?” said the prosecutor, pointing to the dead body bent double on the floor. “Yes, monsieur.” “Your gown is covered with blood, madame.” “Do you not see why?” replied Juana. She went to the little table and sat down, taking up the volume of Cervantes; she was pale, with a nervous agitation which she nevertheless controlled, keeping it wholly inward. “Leave the room,” said the prosecutor to the gendarmes. Then he signed to the examining judge and the doctor to remain. “Madame, under the circumstances, we can only congratulate you on the death of your husband,” he said. “At least he has died as a soldier should, whatever crime his passions may have led him to commit. His act renders negatory that of justice. But however we may desire to spare you at such a moment, the law requires that we should make an exact report of all violent deaths. You will permit us to do our duty?” “May I go and change my dress?” she asked, laying down the volume. “Yes, madame; but you must bring it back to us. The doctor may need it.” “It would be too painful for madame to see me operate,” said the doctor, understanding the suspicions of the prosecutor. “Messieurs,” he added, “I hope you will allow her to remain in the next room.” The magistrates approved the request of the merciful physician, and Felicie was permitted to attend her mistress. The judge and the prosecutor talked together in a low voice. Officers of the law are very unfortunate in being forced to suspect all, and to imagine evil everywhere. By dint of supposing wicked intentions, and of comprehending them, in order to reach the truth hidden under so many contradictory actions, it is impossible that the exercise of their dreadful functions should not, in the long run, dry up at their source the generous emotions they are constrained to repress. If the sensibilities of the surgeon who probes into the mysteries of the human body end by growing callous, what becomes of those of the judge who is incessantly compelled to search the inner folds of the soul? Martyrs to their mission, magistrates are all their lives in mourning for their lost illusions; crime weighs no less heavily on them than on the criminal. An old man seated on the bench is venerable, but a young judge makes a thoughtful person shudder. The examining judge in this case was young, and he felt obliged to say to the public prosecutor,-- “Do you think that woman was her husband’s accomplice? Ought we to take her into custody? Is it best to question her?” The prosecutor replied, with a careless shrug of his shoulders,-- “Montefiore and Diard were two well-known scoundrels. The maid evidently knew nothing of the crime. Better let the thing rest there.”