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294 body in the room looked at one another triumphantly, and seemed to consider this concidence as the indisputable condemnation of the prisoner.

"The officers then continued to say, that they had found no one in the room but the gentleman in the bed, who had desired them instantly to pursue the assassin who had escaped by the window, which was open, and to fetch a surgeon; and concluded their evidence, by relating how they had found the prisoner hiding himself in a ditch.'

"'Hiding myself!' exclaimed Valentine indignantly'look at this swollen limb, and you'll have no difficulty in conceiving why I was found in a ditch.'

"'Sans doute,' rejoined Bontems, the clerk, 'c'etait un malheur; but for that you might have escaped altogether.'

"'C'etait la Providence,' said the priest. 'The guilty man caught in the Almighty's snare!' and he crossed himself devoutly at the idea of this signal instance of Divine intervention.

"'Now then, Monsieur Bruneau,' said the Justice turning to the wounded man, 'we shall be happy to hear your account of the affair. Imprimis, did you ever see the prisoner before?'