"Dead!" I exclaimed; for however indifferent a person may be to us, perhaps in the circle of events nothing is more fearful than to seek the living and find the corpse; to expect joy, and tremble before despair. "Dead! When did she die? How did she die?" "Come up, and see for yourself," said the woman; "the room will explain every thing." And the men made way for me, and I followed up a rickety staircase to the third flat,--it was scarcely worth the name of a floor. As we drew near the top I saw two or three myrmidons of the police; they all, I observed, looked pale--almost alarmed: evidently some great catastrophe had occurred, but I had yet to learn the worst. The light which the old woman held in her hand shone upon something sparkling on the ground. I touched her arm to point it out to her, and then she threw the full blaze of light upon it, and I saw at once that it was blood. A cold, creeping sensation passed over me; that terrible conviction that in one moment we are going to be witnesses of the effects of a great crime almost paralyzed my senses; but, strange to say, at this moment of horror I felt as if I had witnessed the whole scene before. When we entered the room, and I saw the body of a young and lovely child lying on the floor, bathed in blood, I did not shrink even then, although destitution and crime were both presented to me in their most fearful aspect. My nerves appeared to have been braced for some great necessity. The police were standing by perfectly irresolute, and incapable of taking any decided course, when one of them picked up a handkerchief from the floor. "Rachel!" he exclaimed, looking at the corner. I started at the name, and then a sudden idea flashed across me: it was Flavio who had been here, and with that devilish spirit of revenge to which Rachel alluded, he had killed his own child. I took the chief of the police to one side, and asked him if he knew Flavio. "Well," he replied. "I was one of the band who were sent in pursuit of him for two or three months. We fell in with him several times, but never were able to take him." "You had better inquire about him," I said; "for I strongly suspect him of having committed this murder." He took my suggestion, and it appeared that a man, precisely resembling Flavio, had been seen leaving the house at the time of the murder. When once suspicion was directed into the right channel, numerous corroborative circumstances were cited. It appeared that Flavio came constantly to see the child: the only strange part of the case was that he appeared very fond of it, and as tender and considerate towards it as a man of his brutal nature could be. There clearly must have been some ground for this sudden and unprovoked attack,--if, indeed, he committed it; after exhausting every possible motive, we could not arrive at any definite conclusion.