already on the garden gate.
Thereupon she hastily went back upstairs and barricaded herself in the conjugal apartment.
She waited five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour. A wild panic attacked her. Without any doubt they had killed him, had seized him, garrotted him, and strangled him. She would have preferred to hear the six revolver shots ring out, to know that he was fighting, defending himself. But the utter silence, the terrifying silence of the country was too much for her.
She rang for Céleste. Céleste did not come, did not reply. She rang again, swooning, on the point of losing consciousness. The entire house remained dumb.
She pressed her burning brow against the windowpane, trying to penetrate the darkness outside. She could make out nothing but the blacker shadows of the copses beside the grey lines of the paths.
A clock struck half past twelve. Her husband had been gone three-quarters of an hour. She would never see him again! She would certainly never see him again! She fell on her knees, sobbing.
Two faint knocks on the door of the room made her leap up. M. Lerebour was calling:
“Open the door, Palmyre, it’s me.”
She ran to it and opened it, then stood in front of him, her hands on her hips, her eyes still filled with tears.
“Where have you been, you beast! Leaving me like this to die of fear all by myself! You take no more thought for me than if I didn’t exist. …”
He had closed the door, and was laughing, laughing like a madman, his two cheeks split by his wide-open mouth, his hands on his paunch, his eyes moist.
Mme. Lerebour, utterly bewildered, was silent.
He faltered:
“It was … it was … Céleste, who had a … a … an appointment in the greenhouse. … If you only knew what … what … what I saw …”
She had gone white, choking with indignation:
“What? … You mean to say … Céleste … in my house … my … my … my house … in my … my … in my greenhouse! And you never killed the man, her accomplice! You had a revolver and never killed him. … In my house … my house. …”
She sat down, at the end of her strength.
He cut a caper, snapped his fingers, clicked his tongue, and stammered, still laughing:
“If you knew … if you knew …”
Suddenly, he kissed her.
She pushed him away, and, in a voice strangled with rage, said:
“I will not have that girl stay another day in the house, do you hear? Not one day … not one hour. When she comes in, we’ll throw her out. …”
M. Lerebour had grasped his wife by the waist and was planting rows of kisses on her neck, noisy kisses, as in the past. She fell silent again, dumbfounded and bewildered. And, holding her in his arms, he led her gently to the bed. …
At about half past nine next morning, Céleste, surprised at not having yet seen her master and mistress, who always rose early, came and knocked gently at their door.
They were in bed, and were chatting gaily side by side. She stood still in amazement, and asked:
“Madame, the coffee.”
“Bring it here, my girl,” said Mme. Lerebour in a very gentle voice; “we are rather tired; we slept very badly.”
The maid had barely withdrawn when M. Lerebour burst out laughing again, tickling his wife and repeating:
“If you knew! Oh! if you knew!”
But she took his hands:
“Now do keep quiet, darling; if you laugh as much as that, you’ll do yourself harm.”
And she kissed him, gently, on the eyes.
Mme. Lerebour has no more bad tempers. Sometimes, on clear nights, the two of them creep furtively past the thickets and flowerbeds to the little greenhouse at the far end of the garden. And they stay there, huddled close together against the panes as though they were gazing at some strange, absorbing thing inside.
They have raised Céleste’s wages.
M. Lerebour has grown thinner.
Denis
Monsieur Marambot opened the letter which his servant Denis gave him and smiled.
For twenty years Denis had been a servant in this house. He was a short, stout, jovial man, who was known throughout the countryside as a model servant. He asked:
“Is monsieur pleased? Has monsieur received good news?”
M. Marambot was not rich. He was an old village chemist, a bachelor, who lived on an income acquired with difficulty by selling drugs to the farmers. He answered:
“Yes, my boy. Old man Malois is afraid of the lawsuit with which I am threatening him. I shall get my money tomorrow. Five thousand francs will not hurt the account of an old bachelor.”
M. Marambot rubbed his hands with satisfaction. He was a man of quiet temperament, more sad than gay, incapable of any prolonged effort, careless in business.
He could undoubtedly have amassed a greater income had he taken advantage of the deaths of colleagues established in more important centres, by taking their places and carrying on their business. But the trouble of moving and the thought of all the preparations had always stopped him. After thinking the matter over for a few days, he would just say:
“Bah! I’ll wait until the next time. I’ll not lose anything by the delay. I may even find something better.”
Denis, on the contrary, was always urging his master to new enterprises. Of an energetic temperament, he would continually repeat:
“Oh! If I had only had the capital to start out with, I could have made a fortune! One thousand francs would do me.”
M. Marambot would smile without answering and would go out in his little garden, where, his hands behind his back, he would walk about dreaming.
All day long, Denis sang the joyful refrains of the folk-songs of the district. He even showed an unusual activity, for he cleaned all the windows of the house, energetically rubbing the glass, and singing at the top of his voice.
M. Marambot, surprised at his zeal, said to him several times, smiling:
“My boy, if you work like that there will be nothing left for you to do tomorrow.”
The following day, at about nine o’clock in the morning, the postman gave Denis four letters for his master, one of them very heavy. M. Marambot immediately shut
