"Yes, Monsieur keeper. I have been able to get up but three times,
to go to pray to Sainte-Genevieve, our good patroness, and the rest
of the time I have been lying on my bed. There was no one to care
for me but the Bete du bon Dieu!"
"Did she not leave you?"
"Neither by day nor by night."
"Are you sure of that?"
"As I am of Paradise."
"Then how was it, Madame Angenoux, that all through the night of
the murder nothing but the cry of the Bete du bon Dieu was heard?"
Mother Angenoux planted herself in front of the forest-keeper and
struck the floor with her stick.
"I don't know anything about it," she said. "But shall I tell you
something? There are no two cats in the world that cry like that.
Well, on the night of the murder I also heard the cry of the Bete
du bon Dieu outside; and yet she was on my knees, and did not mew
once, I swear. I crossed myself when I heard that, as if I had
heard the devil."
I looked at the keeper when he put the last question, and I am much
mistaken if I did not detect an evil smile on his lips.
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