He tried to protest. The whole table started to laugh.
He could not finish his meal, and took his leave amidst their mocking and derision.
He returned to his home, ashamed and indignant, stifled with rage, with confusion; all the more dejected because, with his Norman cunning, he was capable of having done what they accused him of, and even of bragging of it as a good trick. His innocence vaguely appeared to him as impossible to prove; his roguery was too well known. And he felt struck to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.
Again he commenced to tell of his adventure; every day its recital lengthened, each time containing new proofs, more energetic protestations, and more solemn oaths which he prepared in his solitary hours. His mind was altogether occupied by the story of the piece of string. He was believed all the less as his defense grew more complicated and his arguments more artful.
"Now, those are the proofs of a liar," they said behind his back.
He felt this. It consumed his strength. He exhausted himself in useless efforts.
He went into a visible decline.
The jokers now made him detail the story of "The Piece of String" to amuse them, just as you persuade a soldier who has come through a campaign to tell his version of a battle. At last his mind began to give way.
Near the end of December he took to his bed.
He died the first week in January, and, in the delirium of the throes of death he protested his innocence, repeating, "A little piece of string—little piece of string—see, here it is, your worship."