carefully, the whole region combed, beaten, scoured. The Jewess
did not seem to have left any trace of her passage.

The General, who had been notified, ordered to hush the matter up
so as not to give a bad example in the Army, and he disciplined
the Commander who, in turn, punished his subordinates. The General
had said: "We do not go to war to indulge in orgies and caress
prostitutes." And exasperated Graf Farlsberg resolved to take
revenge on the country.

As he needed a pretext to take drastic measures without constraint,
he summoned the Priest and ordered him to ring the Church bell at
the burial of Markgraf von Eyrik.

Contrary to general expectation, the priest showed himself docile,
humble, full of attention. And when the body of Mademoiselle Fifi,
carried by soldiers, preceded, surrounded and followed by soldiers,
who marched with loaded rifles, left the Chateau d'Urville, on the
way to the cemetery, for the first time the bell sounded the knell
in a gay tone, as if a friendly hand had been fondling it.

It rang also in the evening, and the next day and every day;
it chimed as much as they wanted. Sometimes also, in the dead of
night, it would ring all alone and throw two or three notes in the
darkness, seized by a singular mirth, awakened one knew not why.
All the peasants in the neighborhood then thought that the bell had
been bewitched; and no one except the Priest and the Sexton came
near the bell-tower.

A poor girl was living up there, in fear and solitude, secretly