Christine mounted her mule, in obedience to her brother’s desire, quietly, and without remonstrance; but her death-like countenance and fixed eye betrayed the violence of the shock she had received.  During the whole of the ride to the convent she spoke not, and, as those around her felt for, and understood, her distress, the little cavalcade could not have been more melancholy and silent had it borne with it the body of the slain.  In an hour they reached the long sought for and so anxiously desired place of rest.

While this disposition of the feebler portion of the party was making, a different scene had taken place near what have been already so well called the houses of the living and the dead.  As there existed no human habitation within several leagues of the abode of the Augustines on either side of the mountain, and as the paths were much frequented in the summer, the monks exercised a species of civil jurisdiction in such cases as required a prompt exercise of justice, or a necessary respect for those forms that might be important in its ad ministration hereafter before the more regular authorities.  It was no sooner known, therefore, that there was reason to suspect an act of violence had been committed, than the good clavier set seriously about taking the necessary steps to authenticate all those circumstances that could be accurately ascertained.

The identity of the body as that of Jacques Colis, a small but substantial proprietor of the country of Vaud, was quickly established.  To this fact not only several of the travellers could testify, but he was also known to one of the muleteers, of whom he had engaged a beast to be left at Aoste and, it will also be remembered, he had been seen by Pierre at Martigny, while making his arrangements to puss the mountain.  Of the mule there were no other traces than a few natural signs around the building, but which might equally be attributed to the beasts that still awaited the leisure of the travellers.  The manner in which the unhappy man had come by his death admitted of no dispute.  There were several wounds in the body, and a knife, of the sort then much used by travellers of an ordinary class, was left sticking in his back in a position to render it impossible to attribute the end of the sufferer to suicide.  The clothes, too, exhibited proofs of a struggle, for they were torn and soiled, but nothing had been taken away.  A little gold was found in the pockets, and though in no great plenty still enough to weaken the first impression that there had also been a robbery.

“This is wonderful!” observed the good clavier as he noted the last circumstance; “the dross which leads so many souls to damnation has been neglected while Christian blood has been shed!  This seems an act of vengeance rather than of cupidity.  Let us now examine if any proofs are to be found of the scene of this tragedy.”