He stamped his foot and repeated again in a low voice: "Open! I tell you to open!" It was the first time she had attempted to retain him by force, and she saw that she was succeeding badly and she was strangely afraid. Without looking at him, she flung herself on her knees in a corner, and began to pray, out loud and very quickly, like one possessed. It seemed to her that she was approaching a terrible moment, that what was going to happen was more dreadful than anything that had happened before. And little Pierre, standing up, opened very wide his serious eyes, afraid also, but not understanding. "You won't? You won't open it for me? . . . I will break it, then! You will see!" There was a thud on the floor, then a heavy, horrible sound. Yves had fallen from his full height. The handle by which he had seized the door remained in his hand, broken, and he had been thrown backwards on his son, whose little head had struck against the corner of an iron fire-dog in the fireplace. And then there was a sudden change. Marie ceased her praying. She got up, her eyes dilated and wild, and snatched her little Pierre from the hands of Yves, who was attempting to raise him. He had fallen without a cry, overcome at being hurt by his father. Blood trickled from his forehead and he uttered no word. Marie pressed him close to her breast, took the key from her bodice, unlocked the door with one hand and threw it wide open. . . . Yves watched her, frightened in his turn; she shrank away from him, crying: "Go! Go! Go!" Poor Yves! He hesitated now to pass out! He was trying to understand what had happened. This door which had now been opened for him, he had no longer use for it; he had a vague notion that this threshold was going, in some way, to be a fatal one to cross. And then, this blood he saw on the face of his little son and on his little collar. . . . Yes he wanted to know what had happened, to come near to them. He passed his hand over his forehead, feeling that he was drunk, making a great effort to understand what the matter was . . . God! No, he could not; he understood nothing. Drink, the friends who were waiting for him below, that was all. She repeated once more, her son clasped close to her heart: "Go! Go, I tell you!" Then turning about he went downstairs and out. CHAPTER LXXIX "Hello! Is that you, Kermadec." "Yes, Monsieur Kerjean." "And on French leave, I bet?" "Yes, Monsieur Kerjean." So much indeed might have been guessed from his appearance. "And so, I understand you are married, Yves? Someone from Paimpol, that big fellow Lisbatz, I think, told me you were a family man." Yves shrugged his shoulders with a movement of bad-tempered carelessness, and said: "If you are looking for men. Monsieur Kerjean . . . it will suit me very well to join your ship."