The idea seemed to them not less absurd than it was
self-evident, viz., that the flax-crusher's key must have been used
for the robbery. The priest remained within doors so as to avoid
having to give utterance to the suspicion which obtruded itself upon
him. He had not as yet examined very closely the linen which had been
sent from the manor in place of his own. His eyes happened to
fall upon the initials, and he was too surprised to understand the
mysterious allusion of the two letters, being unable to follow the
strange hallucinations of an unhappy lunatic.
"While he was immersed in melancholy reflection, the flax-crusher
entered the room, with his figure as upright as ever but pale as
death. The old man stood up in front of the priest and burst into
tears, exclaiming: 'It is my miserable girl. I ought to have kept a
closer watch over her and have found out what her thoughts were
about, but with her constant melancholy she gave me the slip.' He then
revealed the secret, and within an hour the stolen linen was brought
back to the priest's house. The delinquent had hoped that the scandal
would soon be forgotten, and that she would revel in peace over the
success of her little plot, but the arrest of the clerk's wife and the
sensation which it caused spoilt the whole thing. If her moral sense
had not been entirely obliterated, her first thought would have been
to get the clerk's wife set at liberty, but she paid little or no
heed to that. She was plunged in a kind of stupor which had nothing
in common with remorse, and what so prostrated her was the evident
failure of her attempt to move the feelings of the priest.
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