People wondered at his despondency. He never went out, saw no one, refused even to visit his patients. Then they said “he shut himself up to drink.”

Sometimes, however, some curious person climbed on to the garden hedge, and saw with amazement this long-bearded, shabbily clothed, wild man, who wept aloud as he walked up and down.

In the evening in summer he took his little girl with him and led her to the cemetery. They came back at nightfall, when the only light left in the Place was that in Binet’s window.

The voluptuousness of his grief was, however, incomplete, for he had no one near him to share it, and he paid visits to Madame Lefrançois to be able to speak of her . But the landlady only listened with half an ear, having troubles like himself. For Lheureux had at last established the “Favorites du Commerce,” and Hivert, who enjoyed a great reputation for doing errands, insisted on a rise of wages, and was threatening to go over “to the opposition shop.”