'And what do you think befell us in this abode of peace and innocence? Our journey was delayed for three hours in consequence of the one mule of the village being requisitioned by the 'Juge d'Instruction' from Grenoble, come to enquire into a murder committed two days before. My sister and I used once a day to walk for a couple of hours up a mountain-road of the most lovely description, and stop at the summit whence we looked down upon the minute hamlet of St.-Pierre d'Entremont,--even more secluded than our own: then we got back to our own aforesaid. And in this Paradisial place, they found, yesterday week, a murdered man--frightfully mutilated--who had been caught apparently in the act of stealing potatoes in a field: such a crime had never occurred in the memory of the oldest of our folk. Who was the murderer is the mystery--whether the field's owner--in his irritation at discovering the robber,--or one of a band of similar 'charbonniers' (for they suppose the man to be a Piedmontese of that occupation) remains to be proved: they began by imprisoning the owner, who denies his guilt energetically. Now the odd thing is, that, either the day of, or after the murder,--as I and S. were looking at the utter solitude, I had the fancy "What should I do if I suddenly came upon a dead body in this field? Go and proclaim it--and subject myself to all the vexations inflicted by the French way of procedure (which begins by assuming that you may be the criminal)--or neglect an obvious duty, and return silently." I, of course, saw that the former was the only proper course, whatever the annoyance involved. And, all the while, there was just about to be the very same incident for the trouble of somebody.' Here the account breaks off; but writing again from the same place, August 16, 1882, he takes up the suspended narrative with this question: 'Did I tell you of what happened to me on the last day of my stay here last year?' And after repeating the main facts continues as follows: