."

The farmer was speechless. He understood at last. They accused him
of having had the pocketbook brought back by an accomplice, by a
confederate.

He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.

He could not finish his dinner, and went away amid a chorus of jeers.

He went home indignant, choking with rage, with confusion, the more cast
down since with his Norman craftiness he was, perhaps, capable of having
done what they accused him of and even of boasting of it as a good
trick. He was dimly conscious that it was impossible to prove his
innocence, his craftiness being so well known. He felt himself struck to
the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.

He began anew to tell his tale, lengthening his recital every day,
each day adding new proofs, more energetic declarations and more sacred
oaths, which he thought of, which he prepared in his hours of solitude,
for his mind was entirely occupied with the story of the string. The
more he denied it, the more artful his arguments, the less he was
believed.

"Those are liars proofs," they said behind his back.

He felt this. It preyed upon him and he exhausted himself in useless
efforts.

He was visibly wasting away.

Jokers would make him tell the story of "the piece of string" to amuse
them, just as you make a soldier who has been on a campaign tell his
story of the battle. His mind kept growing weaker and about the end of
December he took to his bed.

He passed away early in January, and, in the ravings of death agony, he
protested his innocence, repeating:

"A little bit of string--a little bit of string. See, here it is, M'sieu
le Maire."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Original Short Stories of Maupassant,
Volume 8, by Guy de Maupassant

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAUPASSANT SHORT STORIES ***

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