The two female cousins asked: 

“Is he ever brutal to you?  Does he give you sharp answers?”

She replied: 

“No, never; he does everything I wish; he works hard:  he is steady; but I am so frightened that I care nothing for that.  He is planning something, I am certain of that—­quite certain.  I don’t care to remain all alone like that with him in the country.”

The relatives, astonished at her words, declared that people would be amazed, would not understand; and they advised her to keep silent about her fears and her plans, without, however, dissuading her from coming to reside in the city, hoping in that way that the entire inheritance would eventually fall into their hands.

They even promised to assist her in selling her house, and in finding another, near them.

Mademoiselle Source returned home.  But her mind was so much upset that she trembled at the slightest noise, and her hands shook whenever any trifling disturbance agitated her.

Twice she went again to consult her relatives, quite determined now not to remain any longer in this way in her lonely dwelling.  At last, she found a little cottage in the suburbs, which suited her, and she privately bought it.

The signature of the contract took place on a Tuesday morning, and Mademoiselle Source devoted the rest of the day to the preparations for her change of residence.

At eight o’clock in the evening she got into the diligence which passed within a few hundred yards of her house, and she told the conductor to put her down in the place where she usually alighted.  The man called out to her as he whipped his horses: 

“Good evening, Mademoiselle Source—­good night!”

She replied as she walked on: 

“Good evening, Pere Joseph.”  Next morning, at half-past seven, the postman who conveyed letters to the village noticed at the cross-road, not far from the high road, a large splash of blood not yet dry.  He said to himself:  “Hallo! some boozer must have had a nose bleed.”

But he perceived ten paces farther on a pocket handkerchief also stained with blood.  He picked it up.  The linen was fine, and the postman, in alarm, made his way over to the ditch, where he fancied he saw a strange object.

Mademoiselle Source was lying at the bottom on the grass, her throat cut with a knife.

An hour later, the gendarmes, the examining magistrate, and other authorities made an inquiry as to the cause of death.

The two female relatives, called as witnesses, told all about the old maid’s fears and her last plans.

The orphan was arrested.  After the death of the woman who had adopted him, he wept from morning till night, plunged, at least to all appearance, in the most violent grief.

He proved that he had spent the evening up to eleven o’clock in a cafe.  Ten persons had seen him, having remained there till his departure.