“Kept she much money, Bigot?”
“None that I know of. She asked for none, poor girl! I gave her none, though I would have given her the King's treasury had she wished for it.”
“But she might have had money when she came, Bigot,” continued Cadet, not doubting but robbery had been the motive for the murder.
“It may be, I never questioned her,” replied Bigot; “she never spoke of money; alas! all the money in the world was as dross in her estimation. Other things than money occupied her pure thoughts.”
“Well, it looks like robbers: they have ransacked the drawers and carried off all she had, were it much or little,” remarked Cadet, still continuing his search.
“But why kill her? Oh, Cadet, why kill the gentle girl, who would have given every jewel in her possession for the bare asking?”
“Nay, I cannot guess,” said Cadet. “It looks like robbers, but the mystery is beyond my wit to explain. What are you doing, Bigot?”
Bigot had knelt down by the side of Caroline; he lifted her hand first to his lips, then towards Cadet, to show him the stalk of a rose from which the flower had been broken, and which she held with a grip so hard that it could not be loosened from her dead fingers.
The two men looked long and earnestly at it, but failed to make a conjecture even why the flower had been plucked from that broken stalk and carried away, for it was not to be seen in the room.
The fragment of a letter lay under a chair. It was a part of that which La Corriveau had torn up and missed to gather up again with the rest. Cadet picked it up and thrust it into his pocket.