She did the rooms as she had been accustomed to every morning; she swept and dusted, and, towards eight o’clock, prepared M. Lemonnier’s breakfast.

But she did not dare bring it to her master, knowing too well how she would be received; she waited for him to ring.  But he did not ring.  Nine o’clock, then ten o’clock went by.

Celeste, not knowing what to think, prepared her tray and started up with it, her heart beating fast.

She stopped before the door and listened.  Everything was still.  She knocked; no answer.  Then, gathering up all her courage, she opened the door and entered.  With a wild shriek, she dropped the breakfast tray which she had been holding in her hand.

In the middle of the room, M. Lemonnier was hanging by a rope from a ring in the ceiling.  His tongue was sticking out horribly.  His right slipper was lying on the ground, his left one still on his foot.  An upturned chair had rolled over to the bed.

Celeste, dazed, ran away shrieking.  All the neighbors crowded together.  The physician declared that he had died at about midnight.

A letter addressed to M. Duretdur was found on the table of the suicide.  It contained these words: 

“I leave and entrust the child to you!”

A COUNTRY EXCURSION

For five months they had been talking of going to take luncheon in one of the country suburbs of Paris on Madame Dufour’s birthday, and as they were looking forward very impatiently to the outing, they rose very early that morning.  Monsieur Dufour had borrowed the milkman’s wagon and drove himself.  It was a very tidy, two-wheeled conveyance, with a cover supported by four iron rods, with curtains that had been drawn up, except the one at the back, which floated out like a sail.  Madame Dufour, resplendent in a wonderful, cherry colored silk dress, sat by the side of her husband.

The old grandmother and a girl sat behind them on two chairs, and a boy with yellow hair was lying at the bottom of the wagon, with nothing to be seen of him except his head.

When they reached the bridge of Neuilly, Monsieur Dufour said:  “Here we are in the country at last!” and at that signal his wife grew sentimental about the beauties of nature.  When they got to the crossroads at Courbevoie they were seized with admiration for the distant landscape.  On the right was Argenteuil with its bell tower, and above it rose the hills of Sannois and the mill of Orgemont, while on the left the aqueduct of Marly stood out against the clear morning sky, and in the distance they could see the terrace of Saint-Germain; and opposite them, at the end of a low chain of hills, the new fort of Cormeilles.  Quite in the distance; a very long way off, beyond the plains and village, one could see the sombre green of the forests.

The sun was beginning to burn their faces, the dust got into their eyes, and on either side of the road there stretched an interminable tract of bare, ugly country with an unpleasant odor.  One might have thought that it had been ravaged by a pestilence, which had even attacked the buildings, for skeletons of dilapidated and deserted houses, or small cottages, which were left in an unfinished state, because the contractors had not been paid, reared their four roofless walls on each side.