“Her name is Mademoiselle Faillot.” “Ah, and what sort of a person is she?” “I do not know exactly, but there are plenty who do. I would recommend you, among others, to go to a certain Andoche Grignon, a blacksmith by trade. He is generally drunk; but when he is sober, as he is to-day, he is not wanting in good sense.” “You must point him out.” While these words were being exchanged Léocadia was circulating the report that most likely Catherine would be arrested before long. “Any one must be blind,” said she, “not to see that she is guilty. The other person who committed the deed was but the instrument. She planned it, you may be sure.” Everybody knew that Léocadia hated the Barraus. Especially against Savin she had cherished an irrepressible hatred. Now he was dead, and the sum total of her hatred fell upon Catherine. If Léocadia was possessed of a peculiar physiognomy, her moral qualities were equally peculiar. By all she was considered an evil genius. Unmarried and unloved, she had for more than a quarter of a century stirred up strife among the villagers whenever occasion permitted. It seemed as though she were the very incarnation of discord. Turning hot or cold according to will, she influenced the mayor against the curate, the curate against the community, the community against the bishopric. Malicious, hypocritical, and treacherous, she was one day at peace and the next day at war with her neighbors. Evilly disposed and disagreeable, she yet practised a sort of ostensible good will, which led people to say: “Well, perhaps she is like the devil--not so black as she’s painted.” In the present case, as in all others, she put herself to the front because it was her nature to embroil her acquaintances in rows. Whenever any such occasion as this one presented itself, she had always pushed herself into prominence. She was always ready to advise strange things, and many feared her as a dangerous woman. By her insinuations she hoped to secure Catherine’s arrest. The examining magistrate would demand her presence at Auxerre, and, in her own mind, she would be regarded as of great importance. Moreover, Catherine d’Angerolles was too handsome to come out of this affair unscathed. According to Léocadia, it would require a volume to relate Catherine’s coquetries; and as she was the daughter of an assassin, and had lived unhappily with her husband immediately prior to his death, was it not reasonable to implicate her? And, in any event, Catherine should suffer if Léocadia could bring it about. And so in less than an hour Mademoiselle Faillot had persuaded nearly every one into her way of thinking; and Catherine, the daughter of D’Angerolles, and not universally popular, was but feebly defended. “If Firmin had been unable to prove an alibi, she most likely would have been arrested with him,” declared Léocadia.