"Pass me that paper, that I may read it with my own eyes." Cachelin handed him the document and the young man began to read. He had stopped on the footpath and, jostled by the passers-by, he stood there scanning the words with his piercing and practical eye. The two others waited a few steps in front, still silent.
Then he handed back the paper, saying:
"There is nothing to be done. She has tricked us beautifully."
Cachelin, who was irritated by the failure of his hopes, replied:
"It was for you to have a child, damn it! You knew well enough that she wanted it long ago."
Lesable shrugged his shoulders without answering.
On entering they found a crowd of people awaiting them, those whose calling brings them where a corpse is. Lesable went to his room, not wishing to be bothered, and César spoke roughly to all of them, crying out to them to leave him in peace, demanding that they get through with it as quickly as possible, thinking that they were very long in relieving him of the dead.
Cora, shut up in her room, made no sound, but after an hour Cachelin came and rapped on the door of his son-in-law.
"I come, my dear Léopold," said he, "to submit some reflections to you, for it is necessary to come to some understanding. My opinion is that we should give her a befitting funeral in order to give no hint at the Ministry of what has happened. We will arrange about the expense. Besides, nothing is lost. You have not been married very long, and it would be too great a misfortune if you had no children. You must set about it, that's all. And now to business. Will you drop in at the Ministry after a while? I am going to address the envelopes for the death announcements."
Lesable grudgingly agreed that his father-in-law was right, and they sat down face to face, each at an end of a long table, to fill in the black-bordered cards.