He was once more silent.  I asked:  “Why did she never marry?”

He answered, not to me, but to the word “marry” which had caught his ear:  “Why? why?  She never would—­she never would!  She had a dowry of thirty thousand francs, and she received several offers—­but she never would!  She seemed sad at that time.  That was when I married my cousin, little Charlotte, my wife, to whom I had been engaged for six years.”

I looked at M. Chantal, and it seemed to me that I was looking into his very soul, and I was suddenly witnessing one of those humble and cruel tragedies of honest, straightforward, blameless hearts, one of those secret tragedies known to no one, not even the silent and resigned victims.  A rash curiosity suddenly impelled me to exclaim: 

“You should have married her, Monsieur Chantal!”

He started, looked at me, and said: 

“I?  Marry whom?”

“Mademoiselle Pearl.”

“Why?”

“Because you loved her more than your cousin.”

He stared at me with strange, round, bewildered eyes and stammered: 

“I loved her—­I?  How?  Who told you that?”

“Why, anyone can see that—­and it’s even on account of her that you delayed for so long your marriage to your cousin who had been waiting for you for six years.”

He dropped the ball which he was holding in his left hand, and, seizing the chalk rag in both hands, he buried his face in it and began to sob.  He was weeping with his eyes, nose and mouth in a heartbreaking yet ridiculous manner, like a sponge which one squeezes.  He was coughing, spitting and blowing his nose in the chalk rag, wiping his eyes and sneezing; then the tears would again begin to flow down the wrinkles on his face and he would make a strange gurgling noise in his throat.  I felt bewildered, ashamed; I wanted to run away, and I no longer knew what to say, do, or attempt.

Suddenly Madame Chantal’s voice sounded on the stairs.  “Haven’t you men almost finished smoking your cigars?”

I opened the door and cried:  “Yes, madame, we are coming right down.”

Then I rushed to her husband, and, seizing him by the shoulders, I cried:  “Monsieur Chantal, my friend Chantal, listen to me; your wife is calling; pull yourself together, we must go downstairs.”

He stammered:  “Yes—­yes—­I am coming—­poor girl!  I am
coming—­tell her that I am coming.”

He began conscientiously to wipe his face on the cloth which, for the last two or three years, had been used for marking off the chalk from the slate; then he appeared, half white and half red, his forehead, nose, cheeks and chin covered with chalk, and his eyes swollen, still full of tears.

I caught him by the hands and dragged him into his bedroom, muttering:  “I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon, Monsieur Chantal, for having caused you such sorrow—­but—­I did not know—­you—­you understand.”