But Chupin sullenly refused the money, gathered his belongings together,
and departed, shaking his clinched fist at the chateau, and vowing
vengeance on the Sairmeuse family. Then he went to his old home, where
his wife and his two boys still lived.
He seldom left the house, and then only to satisfy his passion for
hunting. At such times, instead of hiding and surrounding himself with
every precaution, as he had done, before shooting a squirrel or a few
partridges, in former times, he went boldly to the Sairmeuse or the
Courtornieu forests, shot his game, and brought it home openly, almost
defiantly.
The rest of the time he spent in a state of semi-intoxication, for he
drank constantly and more and more immoderately. When he had taken more
than usual, his wife and his sons generally attempted to obtain money
from him, and if persuasions failed they resorted to blows.
For he had never given them the reward of his treason. What had he done
with the twenty thousand francs in gold which had been paid him? No one
knew. His sons believed he had buried it somewhere; but they tried in
vain to wrest his secret from him.
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