"That unhappy young lady has gone mad," he said, with a sad smile; "mad, completely mad. See what she told me:—
"'She had been in bed,' she said, 'for some moments with the curtains drawn, when the bedroom door opened and someone came in.' Now Madam Alphonse lay on the side of the bed, with her face turned to the wall. She did not stir, supposing it to be her husband. In a second the bed creaked as though it were burdened with an enormous weight. She was terribly frightened, but dared not turn round. Five minutes, or perhaps ten—she could not tell how long—passed. Then she made an involuntary movement, or else the other person who was in the bed made one, and she felt the touch of something as cold as ice—these are her very words. She sat up in the bed, trembling in every limb. Shortly after the door opened again, and someone entered, who said, 'Good night, my little wife,' and soon after the curtains were drawn. She heard a stifled cry. The person who was in bed by her side sat up, and seemed to stretch out its arms in front. Then she turned her head round ... and saw, so she says, her husband on his knees by the bed, with his head as high as the pillow, in the arms of a green-looking giant who was strangling him with all its might. She said—and she repeated it to me over and over twenty times, poor lady!—she said that she recognised ... Can you guess? The bronze statue of Venus belonging to M. de Peyrehorade.... Since it came into the country everybody dreams of it, but I will proceed with the story of the unhappy mad girl. She lost consciousness at this sight, and probably for some time her reason. She cannot in any way tell how long she remained in a faint. When she came to she saw the phantom again—or the statue, as she persists in calling it—motionless, its legs and the lower half of the body in the bed, the bust and arms stretched out before it, and between its arms her lifeless husband. A cock crew, and then the statue got out of the bed, dropped the dead body, and went out. Madam Alphonse hung on to the bell, and you know the rest."
They brought in the Spaniard; he was calm, and defended himself with much coolness and presence of mind. He did not attempt to deny the remark I heard; he explained it by pretending that he meant nothing by it, but that on the following day, when he was more rested, he would have won a tennis match against his victor. I remember that he had added—
"A native of Aragon does not wait for his revenge till to-morrow when he is insulted. Had I thought M. Alphonse meant to insult me, I should have immediately stabbed him with my knife to the heart."
His shoes were compared with the footmarks in the garden; but his shoes were much larger than the marks.
Finally, the innkeeper with whom the man had lodged averred that he had spent the whole of that night in rubbing and doctoring one of his sick mules.
Moreover, this man from Aragon was quite noted and well known in the countryside, to which he came annually to trade. He was therefore released with many apologies.
I had forgotten the deposition of a servant who had been the last to see M. Alphonse alive. He saw him go upstairs to his wife, and he had called the man and asked him in an anxious manner if he knew where I was. Then M. Alphonse heaved a sigh, and stood for a moment in silence, adding afterwards—
"Well, the devil must have carried him off too!"
I asked this man if M. Alphonse had his diamond ring on when he spoke to him. The servant hesitated before he replied; then he said that he thought not, that at all events it had not attracted his attention. "If he had worn that ring," he added, correcting himself, "I should certainly have noticed it, because I believed that he had given it to Madam Alphonse."