"You saw--?"
Still no reply came from the old friar's lips. He writhed his body
in the bed, and the manifestation of his agony became more and more
intense. The eager impatient air of the Commissary changed itself
into one of persistent dogged determination; and he quietly drew
from his pocket a note-book and the means of writing in it.
"Now, father, you will be able to tell us what you saw?" said the
lawyer in a soothing coaxing voice.
"I saw," said the old friar at length, speaking with his eyes again
closed--"I saw the dead body of the woman who had passed the church
towards the Pineta in the morning, brought back by six men from the
forest. They passed by the western front of the church, and I saw
that the body was the body of the woman I speak of."
The Commissary shut up his note-book with a gesture of provoked
disappointment, and shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
"If that is all you have to tell us, frate, you need not have made
so much difficulty about it," he said; "we knew all that before, and
need not have come here to be told it. Plenty of people saw the
bringing in from the forest of the body of the murdered woman, and
would give evidence to the fact without making so much ado about it.
Is that all you saw?"
"Did you not see," said the lawyer, again motioning his companion to
be patient; "did you not see another young woman in the forest
yesterday morning?"
"Not in the forest," replied the friar without any difficulty.
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