itself. Your brother could not find
a better."

He laughed aloud, a hard, satirical laugh:

"Ha! hah! Hah! Honesty itself! All wives are honesty itself--and all
husbands are--betrayed." And he shouted with laughter.

She made no reply, but rose, hastily went down the sloping beach, and
at the risk of tumbling into one of the rifts hidden by the sea-weed, of
breaking a leg or an arm, she hastened, almost running, plunging through
the pools without looking, straight to her other son.

Seeing her approach, Jean called out:

"Well, mother? So you have made the effort?"

Without a word she seized him by the arm, as if to say: "Save me,
protect me!"

He saw her agitation, and greatly surprised he said:

"How pale you are! What is the matter?"

She stammered out:

"I was nearly falling; I was frightened at the rocks."

So then Jean guided her, supported her, explained the sport to her that
she might take an interest in it. But as she scarcely heeded him, and as
he was bursting with the desire to confide in some one, he led her away
and in a low voice said to her:

"Guess what I have done!"

"But--what--I don't know."

"Guess."

"I cannot. I don't know."

"Well, I have told Mme. Rosemilly that I wish to marry her."

She did not answer, for her brain was buzzing, her mind in such distress
that she could scarcely take it in. She echoed: "Marry her?"

"Yes. Have I done well? She is charming, do not you think?"

"Yes, charming. You have done very well."

"Then you approve?"

"Yes, I approve."

"But how strangely you say so! I could fancy that--that you were not
glad."

"Yes, indeed, I am--very glad."

"Really and truly?"

"Really and truly."

And to prove it she threw her arms round him and kissed him heartily,
with warm motherly kisses. Then, when she had wiped her eyes, which
were full of tears, she observed upon the beach a man lying flat at full
length like a dead body, his face hidden against the stones; it was the
other one, Pierre, sunk in thought and desperation.

At this she led her little Jean farther away, quite to the edge of the
waves, and there they talked for a long time of this marriage on which
he had set his heart.

The rising tide drove them back to rejoin the fishers, and then they
all made their way to the shore. They roused Pierre, who pretended to
be sleeping; and then came a long dinner washed down with many kinds of
wine.

CHAPTER VII

In the break, on their wa