Dominique exacted that Francoise should ascend to her chamber before he departed.  He clasped her in his arms and bade her a mute adieu.  Then he aided her to seize the ladder and clung to it in his turn.  But he refused to descend a single round until convinced that she was in her apartment.  When Francoise had entered her window she let fall in a voice as light as a breath: 

“Au revoir, my love!”

She leaned her elbows on the sill and strove to follow Dominique with her eyes.  The night was yet very dark.  She searched for the sentinel but could not see him; the willow alone made a pale stain in the midst of the gloom.  For an instant she heard the sound produced by Dominique’s body in passing along the ivy.  Then the wheel cracked, and there was a slight agitation in the water which told her that the young man had found the boat.  A moment afterward she distinguished the somber silhouette of the bateau on the gray surface of the Morelle.  Terrible anguish seized upon her.  Each instant she thought she heard the sentinel’s cry of alarm; the smallest sounds scattered through the gloom seemed to her the hurried tread of soldiers, the clatter of weapons, the charging of guns.  Nevertheless, the seconds elapsed and the country maintained its profound peace.  Dominique must have reached the other side of the river.  Francoise saw nothing more.  The silence was majestic.  She heard a shuffling of feet, a hoarse cry and the hollow fall of a body.  Afterward the silence grew deeper.  Then as if she had felt Death pass by, she stood, chilled through and through, staring into the thick night.

CHAPTER IV

A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE

At dawn a clamor of voices shook the mill.  Pere Merlier opened the door of Francoise’s chamber.  She went down into the courtyard, pale and very calm.  But there she could not repress a shiver as she saw the corpse of a Prussian soldier stretched out on a cloak beside the well.

Around the body troops gesticulated, uttering cries of fury.  Many of them shook their fists at the village.  Meanwhile the officer had summoned Pere Merlier as the mayor of the commune.

“Look!” he said to him in a voice almost choking with anger.  “There lies one of our men who was found assassinated upon the bank of the river.  We must make a terrible example, and I count on you to aid us in discovering the murderer.”

“As you choose,” answered the miller with his usual stoicism, “but you will find it no easy task.”

The officer stooped and drew aside a part of the cloak which hid the face of the dead man.  Then appeared a horrible wound.  The sentinel had been struck in the throat, and the weapon had remained in the cut.  It was a kitchen knife with a black handle.

“Examine that knife,” said the officer to Pere Merlier; “perhaps it will help us in our search.”

The old man gave a start but recovered control of himself immediately.  He replied without moving a muscle of his face: