“Listen, La Roque, it is necessary, in order to find out who killed her. Without this, we could not find out. We must make a search for the man in order to punish him. When we have found him we'll give her up to you. I promise you this.”
This explanation bewildered the woman, and a feeling of hatred manifested itself in her distracted glance.
“So then they'll arrest him?”
“Yes, I promise you that.”
She rose up, deciding to let them do as they liked, but when the captain remarked:
“It is surprising that her clothes were not found,” a new idea, which she had not previously thought of, abruptly entered her mind, and she asked:
“Where are her clothes? They're mine. I want them. Where have they been put?”
They explained to her that they had not been found. Then she demanded them persistently, crying and moaning.
“They're mine—I want them. Where are they? I want them!”
The more they tried to calm her the more she sobbed and persisted in her demands. She no longer wanted the body, she insisted on having the clothes, as much perhaps through the unconscious cupidity of a wretched being to whom a piece of silver represents a fortune as through maternal tenderness.