M. Hautot's son."

She gave a start, turned pale, and stammered out as If she had known him
for a long time:

"Monsieur Cesar?"

"Yes."

"And what next?"

"I have come to speak to you on the part of my father."

She articulated:

"Oh my God!"

She then drew back so that he might enter. He shut the door and followed
her into the interior. Then he saw a little boy of four or five years
playing with a cat, seated on a floor in front of a stove, from which
rose the steam of dishes which were being kept hot.

"Take a seat," she said.

He sat down.

She asked:

"Well?"

He no longer ventured to speak, keeping his eyes fixed on the table
which stood in the center of the room, with three covers laid on it,
one of which was for a child. He glanced at the chair which had its back
turned to the fire. They had been expecting him. That was his bread
which he saw, and which he recognized near the fork, for the crust had
been removed on account of Hautot's bad teeth. Then, raising his eyes,
he noticed on the wall his father's portrait, the large photograph taken
at Paris the year of the exhibition, the same as that which hung above
the bed in the sleeping apartment at Ainville.

The young woman again asked:

"Well, Monsieur Cesar?"

He kept staring at her. Her face was livid with anguish; and she waited,
her hands trembling with fear.

Then he took courage.

"Well, Mam'zelle, papa died on Sunday last just after he had opened the
shooting."

She was so much overwhelmed that she did not move. After a silence of a
few seconds, she faltered in an almost inaudible tone:

"Oh! it is not possible!"

Then, on a sudden, tears showed themselves in her eyes, and covering her
face with her hands, she burst out sobbing.

At that point the little boy turned round, and, seeing his mother
weeping, began to howl. Then, realizing that this sudden trouble was
brought about by the stranger, he rushed at Cesar, caught hold of his
breeches with one hand, and with the other hit him with all his strength
on the thigh. And Cesar remained agitated, deeply affected, with this
woman mourning for his father at one side of him, and the little boy
defending his mother at the other. He felt their emotion taking
possession of himself, and his eyes were beginning to brim over with the
same sorrow; so, to recover her self-command, he began to talk:

"Yes," he said, "the accident occurred on Sunday, at eight o'clock--."

And he told,