Perhaps he would not come back; she was prepared for that as for everything else, and was surprised that she could think of it with so much calmness. In that case her plans were made; she would not return to Toulven, for fear of seeing their partly built house, for fear also of hearing the name of her husband execrated daily in the home of her parents, to which she would have to go. Not to Toulven; but to the country of Goëlo, where there was an old woman who resembled Yves, and whose features suddenly assumed for her an infinite kindliness. It was at her door she would knock. She would be indulgent to him, for she was his mother. They would be able to speak without hatred of the absent one; they would live there, the two deserted women, together, and watch over little Pierre, uniting their efforts to keep him, their last hope, with them, so that he at least should not be a sailor. And it seemed to her, too, that if one day, after many years perhaps, Yves, the deserter, should return seeking those who belonged to him it was to that little corner of the world, to Plouherzel, that he would come. The night before, she had had a strange dream of Yves' return; it seemed to her that many years had passed and that she was already old. Yves arrived at the cottage in Plouherzel in the evening; he too was old, altered, wretched. He came asking forgiveness. Behind him Goulven and Gildas entered, and _another Yves_, taller than them all, with hair quite white, trailing behind him long fringes of seaweed. The old mother received them with her stern face. In a voice infinitely sad she asked: "How comes it that they are all here? My husband was lost at sea more than sixty years ago. . . . Goulven is in America. . . . Gildas in his grave in the cemetery. . . . How comes it that they are all here?" Then Marie awoke in fear, understanding that she had been surrounded by the dead. But this evening Yves had returned alive and young; she had recognized in the darkness of the street his tall figure and active step. At the thought that she was going to see him again and to determine her lot, all her courage and all her plans had deserted her. She trembled more and more as she ascended the staircase. . . . Perhaps after all he had simply passed the last two days on board and was now returning in the ordinary way. Perhaps they would settle down once more. . . . She paused on the stairs and prayed God that this might be true, a quick, heartfelt prayer. When she opened the door, he was indeed there, sitting by the cradle and looking at his sleeping son. Poor little Pierre was sleeping peacefully, the bandage still on his forehead where the fire-iron had cut it. As soon as she entered, pale, her heart beating so violently as almost to hurt her, she saw at once that Yves had not been drinking: he raised his eyes to her and his gaze was clear; but he lowered them quickly again and remained bent over his son.