“Yes--I went up then--to drive them off.” “The dogs?” “Yes.” “Well--?” “When I got there it was quite dark. I found my husband’s flint and steel and struck a spark. I saw him lying there. He was dead.” “And the dogs?” “The dogs were gone.” “Gone--where to?” “I don’t know. There was no way out--and there were no dogs at Kerfol.” She straightened herself to her full height, threw her arms above her head, and fell down on the stone floor with a long scream. There was a moment of confusion in the court-room. Some one on the bench was heard to say: “This is clearly a case for the ecclesiastical authorities”--and the prisoner’s lawyer doubtless jumped at the suggestion. After this, the trial loses itself in a maze of cross-questioning and squabbling. Every witness who was called corroborated Anne de Cornault’s statement that there were no dogs at Kerfol: had been none for several months. The master of the house had taken a dislike to dogs, there was no denying it. But, on the other hand, at the inquest, there had been long and bitter discussion as to the nature of the dead man’s wounds. One of the surgeons called in had spoken of marks that looked like bites. The suggestion of witchcraft was revived, and the opposing lawyers hurled tomes of necromancy at each other. At last Anne de Cornault was brought back into court--at the instance of the same Judge--and asked if she knew where the dogs she spoke of could have come from. On the body of her Redeemer she swore that she did not. Then the Judge put his final question: “If the dogs you think you heard had been known to you, do you think you would have recognized them by their barking?” “Yes.” “Did you recognize them?” “Yes.” “What dogs do you take them to have been?” “My dead dogs,” she said in a whisper... She was taken out of court, not to reappear there again. There was some kind of ecclesiastical investigation, and the end of the business was that the Judges disagreed with each other, and with the ecclesiastical committee, and that Anne de Cornault was finally handed over to the keeping of her husband’s family, who shut her up in the keep of Kerfol, where she is said to have died many years later, a harmless madwoman.