This time the master completely lost his temper and said angrily to Francois:  “If you don’t throw this beast into the water before—­to-morrow morning, I’ll put you out, do you hear?”

The man was dumbfounded, and he returned to his room to pack his trunk, preferring to leave the place.  Then he bethought himself that he could find no other situation as long as he dragged this animal about with him.  He thought of his good position, where he was well paid and well fed, and he decided that a dog was really not worth all that.  At last he decided to rid himself of Cocotte at daybreak.

He slept badly.  He rose at dawn, and taking a strong rope, went to get the dog.  She stood up slowly, shook herself, stretched and came to welcome her master.

Then his courage forsook him, and he began to pet her affectionately, stroking her long ears, kissing her muzzle and calling her tender names.

But a neighboring clock struck six.  He could no longer hesitate.  He opened the door, calling:  “Come!” The beast wagged her tail, understanding that she was to be taken out.

They reached the beach, and he chose a place where the water seemed deep.  Then he knotted the rope round the leather collar and tied a heavy stone to the other end.  He seized Cocotte in his arms and kissed her madly, as though he were taking leave of some human being.  He held her to his breast, rocked her and called her “my dear little Cocotte, my sweet little Cocotte,” and she grunted with pleasure.

Ten times he tried to throw her into the water and each time he lost courage.

But suddenly he made up his mind and threw her as far from him as he could.  At first she tried to swim, as she did when he gave her a bath, but her head, dragged down by the stone, kept going under, and she looked at her master with wild, human glances as she struggled like a drowning person.  Then the front part of her body sank, while her hind legs waved wildly out of the water.  Finally those also disappeared.

Then, for five minutes, bubbles rose to the surface as though the river were boiling, and Francois, haggard, his heart beating, thought that he saw Cocotte struggling in the mud, and, with the simplicity of a peasant, he kept saying to himself:  “What does the poor beast think of me now?”

He almost lost his mind.  He was ill for a month and every night he dreamed of his dog.  He could feel her licking his hands and hear her barking.  It was necessary to call in a physician.  At last he recovered, and toward the 2nd of June his employers took him to their estate at Biesard, near Rouen.

There again he was near the Seine.  He began to take baths.  Each morning he would go down with the groom and they would swim across the river.

One day, as they were disporting themselves in the water, Francois suddenly cried to his companion:  “Look what’s coming!  I’m going to give you a chop!”