She then related that, by the permission of Elizabeth, she had
passed the evening of the night on which the murder had been
[committed,] <committed> at the house of
an aunt at Chêne, a village situated at about a league from
Geneva. On her return, at about nine o'clock, she met a man, who
asked her if she had seen any thing of the child who was lost.
She was alarmed by this account, and passed several hours in
looking for him, when the gates of Geneva were shut, and she was
forced to remain several hours of the night in a barn belonging
to a cottage, being unwilling to call up the inhabitants, to
whom she was well known. [Unable to rest or sleep,]
<Most of the night she spent here watching; towards
morning she believed that she slept for a few minutes; some
steps disturbed her, and she awoke. It was dawn, and>
she quitted her [asylum early,] <asylum,>
that she might again endeavour to find my brother. If she had
gone near the spot where his body lay, it was without her
knowledge. That she had been bewildered when questioned by the
[market-woman,] <market-woman> was not
surprising, since she had passed a sleepless night, and the fate
of poor William was yet uncertain. Concerning the picture she
could give no account.
"I know," continued the unhappy victim, "how heavily and fatally
this one circumstance weighs against me, but I have no power of
explaining it; and when I have expressed my utter ignorance, I
am only left to conjecture concerning the probabilities by which
it might have been placed in my pocket. But here also I am
checked. I believe that I have no enemy on earth, and none
surely would have been so wicked as to destroy me wantonly. Did
the murderer place it there? I know of no opportunity afforded
him for so doing; [or] <or,> if I had, why
should he have stolen the jewel, to part with it again so
soon?