"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.
Madame Jeannin was asleep, but woke up an hour or two later. Not seeing her husband by her side she got up and went anxiously through all the rooms, and downstairs to the offices of the bank, which were in an annex of the house: and there, sitting in his chair in his office, she found M. Jeannin huddled forward on his desk in a pool of blood, which was still dripping down on to the floor. She gave a scream, dropped her candle, and fainted. She was heard in the house. The servants came running, picked her up, took care of her, and laid the body of M. Jeannin on a bed. The door of the children's room was locked. Antoinette was sleeping happily. Olivier heard the sound of voices and footsteps: he wanted to go and see what it was all about: but he was afraid of waking his sister, and presently he went to sleep again.