the next morning was about to have him taken back to the peasant
woman when she heard her husband ride into the court. She shut
the dog in a chest and went down to receive him. An hour or two
later, when she returned to her room, the puppy lay strangled on
her pillow. . .

After that she dared not make a pet of any other dog; and her
loneliness became almost unendurable. Sometimes, when she
crossed the court of the castle, and thought no one was looking,
she stopped to pat the old pointer at the gate. But one day as
she was caressing him her husband came out of the chapel; and the
next day the old dog was gone. . .

This curious narrative was not told in one sitting of the court,
or received without impatience and incredulous comment. It was
plain that the Judges were surprised by its puerility, and that
it did not help the accused in the eyes of the public. It was an
odd tale, certainly; but what did it prove? That Yves de
Cornault disliked dogs, and that his wife, to gratify her own
fancy, persistently ignored this dislike. As for pleading this
trivial disagreement as an excuse for her relations--whatever
their nature--with her supposed accomplice, the argument was so
absurd that her own lawyer manifestly regretted having let her
make use of it, and tried several times to cut short her story.
But she went on to the end, with a kind of hypnotized insistence,
as though the scenes she evoked were so real to her that she had
forgotten where she was and imagined herself to be re-living
them.

At length the Judge who had previously shown a certain kindness