court, that she had made the maids search for the necklet--they
all believed the dog had lost it in the park. . .

Her husband made no comment, and that evening at supper he was in
his usual mood, between good and bad: you could never tell which.
He talked a good deal, describing what he had seen and done at
Rennes; but now and then he stopped and looked hard at her; and
when she went to bed she found her little dog strangled on her
pillow. The little thing was dead, but still warm; she stooped
to lift it, and her distress turned to horror when she discovered
that it had been strangled by twisting twice round its throat the
necklet she had given to Lanrivain.

The next morning at dawn she buried the dog in the garden, and
hid the necklet in her breast. She said nothing to her husband,
then or later, and he said nothing to her; but that day he had a
peasant hanged for stealing a faggot in the park, and the next
day he nearly beat to death a young horse he was breaking.

Winter set in, and the short days passed, and the long nights,
one by one; and she heard nothing of Herve de Lanrivain. It
might be that her husband had killed him; or merely that he had
been robbed of the necklet. Day after day by the hearth among
the spinning maids, night after night alone on her bed, she
wondered and trembled. Sometimes at table her husband looked
across at her and smiled; and then she felt sure that Lanrivain
was dead. She dared not try to get news of him, for she was sure
her husband would find out if she did: she had an idea that he
could find out anything. Even when a witch-woman who was a noted
seer, and could show you the whole world in her crystal, came to