M. Jeannin let him go. He walked up and down the terrace for a little in the dark. Then he, too, went in. In the room his wife and the two children were sitting round the lamp. Antoinette was sewing a ribbon on to a blouse, talking and humming the while, to Olivier's obvious discomfort, for he was stopping his ears with his fists so as not to hear, while he pored over his book with knitted brows, and his elbows on the table. Madame Jeannin was mending stockings and talking to the old nurse, who was standing by her side and giving an account of her day's expenditure, and seizing the opportunity for a little gossip: she always had some amusing tale to tell in her extraordinary lingo, which used to make them roar with laughter, while Antoinette would try to imitate her. M. Jeannin watched them silently. No one noticed him. He wavered for a moment, sat down, took up a book, opened it at random, shut it again, got up: he could not sit still. He lit a candle and said good-night. He went up to the children and kissed them fondly: they returned his kiss absently without looking up at him,--Antoinette being absorbed in her work, and Olivier in his book. Olivier did not even take his hands from his ears, and grunted "Good-night," and went on reading:--(when he was reading even if one of his family had fallen into the fire, he would not have looked up).--M. Jeannin left the room. He lingered in the next room, for a moment. His wife came out soon, the old nurse having gone to arrange the linen-cupboard. She pretended not to see him. He hesitated, then came up to her, and said: "I beg your pardon. I was rather rude just now." She longed to say to him: "My dear, my dear, that is nothing: but, tell me, what is the matter with you? Tell me, what is hurting you so?" But she jumped at the opportunity of taking her revenge, and said: "Let me be! You have been behaving odiously. You treat me worse than you would a servant." And she went on in that strain, setting forth all her grievances volubly, shrilly, rancorously. He raised his hands wearily, smiled bitterly, and left her. * * * * * No one heard the report of the revolver. Only, next day, when it was known what had happened, a few of the neighbors remembered that, in the middle of the night, when the streets were quiet, they had noticed a sharp noise like the cracking of a whip. They did not pay any attention to it. The silence of the night fell once more upon the town, wrapping both living and dead about with its mystery.