“Dear me!” cried Clagny, “of the ten or twelve startling crimes that are annually committed in France, quite half are mixed up with circumstances at least as extraordinary as these, and often outdoing them in romantic details.  Indeed, is not this proved by the reports in the Gazette des Tribunaux—­the Police news—­in my opinion, one of the worst abuses of the Press?  This newspaper, which was started only in 1826 or ’27, was not in existence when I began my professional career, and the facts of the crime I am about to speak of were not known beyond the limits of the department where it was committed.

“In the quarter of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps at Tours a woman whose husband had disappeared at the time when the army of the Loire was disbanded, and who had mourned him deeply, was conspicuous for her excess of devotion.  When the mission priests went through all the provinces to restore the crosses that had been destroyed and to efface the traces of revolutionary impiety, this widow was one of their most zealous proselytes, she carried a cross and nailed to it a silver heart pierced by an arrow; and, for a long time after, she went every evening to pray at the foot of the cross which was erected behind the Cathedral apse.

“At last, overwhelmed by remorse, she confessed to a horrible crime.  She had killed her husband, as Fualdes was murdered, by bleeding him; she had salted the body and packed it in pieces into old casks, exactly as if it have been pork; and for a long time she had taken a piece every morning and thrown it into the Loire.  Her confessor consulted his superiors, and told her that it would be his duty to inform the public prosecutor.  The woman awaited the action of the Law.  The public prosecutor and the examining judge, on examining the cellar, found the husband’s head still in pickle in one of the casks.  —­’Wretched woman,’ said the judge to the accused, ’since you were so barbarous as to throw your husband’s body into the river, why did you not get rid of the head?  Then there would have been no proof.’

“‘I often tried, monsieur,’ said she, ‘but it was too heavy.’”

“Well, and what became of the woman?” asked the two Parisians.

“She was sentenced and executed at Tours,” replied the lawyer; “but her repentance and piety had attracted interest in spite of her monstrous crime.”

“And do you suppose, said Bianchon, “that we know all the tragedies that are played out behind the curtain of private life that the public never lifts?—­It seems to me that human justice is ill adapted to judge of crimes as between husband and wife.  It has every right to intervene as the police; but in equity it knows nothing of the heart of the matter.”

“The victim has in many cases been for so long the tormentor,” said Madame de la Baudraye guilelessly, “that the crime would sometimes seem almost excusable if the accused could tell all.”

This reply, led up to by Bianchon and by the story which Clagny had told, left the two Parisians excessively puzzled as to Dinah’s position.