“He must have climbed over the wall.  You can see his footprints.”

They looked at each other, terrified beyond measure.

“It was the letter!” thought Planus.

Evidently that letter from his wife must have made some extraordinary revelation to Risler; and, in order not to disturb his hosts, he had made his escape noiselessly through the window, like a burglar.  Why?  With what aim in view?

“You will see, sister,” said poor Planus, as he dressed with all haste, “you will see that that hussy has played him still another trick.”  And when his sister tried to encourage him, he recurred to his favorite refrain: 

“I haf no gonfidence!”

As soon as he was dressed, he darted out of the house.

Risler’s footprints could be distinguished on the wet ground as far as the gate of the little garden.  He must have gone before daylight, for the beds of vegetables and flowers were trampled down at random by deep footprints with long spaces between; there were marks of heels on the garden-wall and the mortar was crumbled slightly on top.  The brother and sister went out on the road skirting the fortifications.  There it was impossible to follow the footprints.  They could tell nothing more than that Risler had gone in the direction of the Orleans road.

“After all,” Mademoiselle Planus ventured to say, “we are very foolish to torment ourselves about him; perhaps he has simply gone back to the factory.”

Sigismond shook his head.  Ah! if he had said all that he thought!

“Return to the house, sister.  I will go and see.”

And with the old “I haf no gonfidence” he rushed away like a hurricane, his white mane standing even more erect than usual.

At that hour, on the road near the fortifications, was an endless procession of soldiers and market-gardeners, guard-mounting, officers’ horses out for exercise, sutlers with their paraphernalia, all the bustle and activity that is seen in the morning in the neighborhood of forts.  Planus was striding along amid the tumult, when suddenly he stopped.  At the foot of the bank, on the left, in front of a small, square building, with the inscription.

City of Paris,
entrance to the quarries,

On the rough plaster, he saw a crowd assembled, and soldiers’ and custom-house officers’ uniforms, mingled with the shabby, dirty blouses of barracks-loafers.  The old man instinctively approached.  A customs officer, seated on the stone step below a round postern with iron bars, was talking with many gestures, as if he were acting out his narrative.

“He was where I am,” he said.  “He had hanged himself sitting, by pulling with all his strength on the rope!  It’s clear that he had made up his mind to die, for he had a razor in his pocket that he would have used in case the rope had broken.”

A voice in the crowd exclaimed:  “Poor devil!” Then another, a tremulous voice, choking with emotion, asked timidly: