God be thanked for fresh air! The three greatest blessings in the world are fresh air, pure water, and a clean life. Not even the ruin behind us nor the dead at my feet could make stale the sweetness of the breath that filled my lungs. A dozen steps from the door, Martin had laid her on the grass, and for a moment we stood one on either side of her, motionless. Then Martin went down on one knee and deliberately began fumbling at the loose ends of the bow that knotted-in the kirtle at the throat. Everywhere in the dress there were marks of Solignac's disaster, powdered ash, jagged dents with frayed edges, blotches of charcoal, smouldered holes even, but the stern hard face with the set teeth and wide-open angry eyes was unbruised. It was only when he had the two upper couple of tags unfastened that I guessed at his purpose and it revolted me. "Leave her alone!" I cried, leaning across her to push him back. "What does it matter how she died?" "It matters much," he answered. "D'you think it was for pure love and pity that I grovelled in the heat yonder? Wait and see." To his unaccustomed fingers--Martin knew as little of women or women's gear as I did, and that was nothing--the knots were hard to unravel; but at length he had enough undone to satisfy him, and he looked up. "That," and he laid his hand upon a brown stain that stretched above the ribs to the left, "is why I do it. You must see all Jan Meert's work, Monsieur Gaspard, or how can you hope to pay all?" Loosening the kirtle slightly, but no more than showed the withered muscles and cordy sinews of the neck, he pushed his hand slowly, reverently beneath it. "Aye! I thought so!" and again he looked up at me, sucking in his breath with a gasp as we all do when we are hurt. "Not even her grey head could save her. See here, Monsieur Gaspard!" Drawing the edge of the stuff aside an inch or two he showed what I have seen many times since, but never before, the smooth straight lips of a sword wound. In the dry heat the skin had shrunk aside, and the red flesh looked broadly out of the cut. "Murdered! Babette murdered?"