From prudence Marc would express no positive opinion. 'Oh! I think nothing,' said he; 'it is for the law to seek and find the murderer. However, the bed has not been opened, the boy was certainly about to get into it, and this seems to show that, the crime must have been committed shortly after ten o'clock. Suppose that he busied himself for half an hour at the utmost with his pictures, and that he then saw a stranger spring into his room. In that case he would have raised a cry, which would certainly have been heard. You heard nothing, did you, mademoiselle?' 'No, nothing,' the schoolmistress replied. 'I myself went to bed about half-past ten. The neighbourhood was very quiet. The storm did not awaken me until about one o'clock this morning.' 'Very little of the candle has been burnt,' Mignot now observed. 'The murderer must have blown it out as he went off by the window, which he left wide open, as I found it just now.' These remarks, which lent some weight to the theory of a prowler springing into the room, ill-using and murdering the boy, increased the horror-fraught embarrassment of the bystanders. All wished to avoid being compromised, and therefore kept to themselves their thoughts respecting the impossibilities or improbabilities of the theory which had been propounded. After a pause, however, as the mayor and the gendarmes did not appear, Father Philibin inquired: 'Is not Monsieur Simon at Maillebois?' Mignot, who had not recovered from the shock of his discovery, gazed at the Jesuit with haggard eyes. To bring the assistant-master to his senses, Marc himself had to express his astonishment: 'But Simon is surely in his rooms! Has he not been told?' 'Why no!' the assistant answered, 'I must have lost my head. Monsieur Simon went to attend a banquet at Beaumont yesterday evening, but he certainly came home during the night. His wife is rather poorly; they must be still in bed.' It was now already half-past seven, but the stormy sky remained so dark and heavy that one might have thought dawn was only just appearing in that secluded corner of the square. However, the assistant-master made up his mind and ascended the stairs to fetch Simon. What a happy awakening it would be for the latter, he muttered sarcastically, and what an agreeable commission for himself was that which he had to fulfil with his chief!