"Is he much hurt?" he asked in an undertone, slowly, with a calmness that surprised and frightened her. "No, I have been to the doctor for the dressing. He says that it will not leave a mark. He did not cry at all." They remained there, silent, one before the other, he still sitting near the little cradle, she standing, white-faced and trembling. There was no ill-will between them now; perhaps they loved each other still; but now the irreparable was accomplished and it was too late. She looked at the clothes he wore, which she had never seen him in before: a black woollen jersey and a cloth cap. Why these clothes? And this little parcel near him on the floor, out of which the end of a blue collar peeped? It seemed to contain his sailor's effects, put aside for ever, as if the real Yves was dead. She found courage to ask: "The other day, did you return to the ship?" There was silence again. She was conscious of a growing anxiety. "During the last three days, you have not returned?" "No!" Then she did not dare to speak again, fearing to hear the dreadful truth; trying to prolong the minutes, even these minutes compact of uncertainty and anguish, because he was still there, before her, perhaps for the last time. At last the poignant question fell from her lips: "What are you going to do then?" And he, in a low voice, simply, with the calmness of an unalterable resolve, let fall the fatal word: "Desert!" Desert! . . . Yes, she had divined it only too well in the last few moments, when she saw his altered clothing, and this little parcel of sailor's kit carefully folded in a handkerchief. She recoiled under the weight of the word, supporting herself with her hands against the wall behind her, almost choking. Deserter! Yves! lost! The thought of Goulven, his brother, passed through her mind, and of distant seas from which sailors never return. And, feeling her helplessness against this fate which crushed her, she remained silent, utterly overwhelmed. Yves began to speak to her very kindly, pointing with sorrowful calm to the little parcel which he had brought. "I want you, my poor Marie, to-morrow, when my ship has left, to send that on board, you understand. You never can tell! . . . If I am caught . . . It is always more serious to take away the property of the State! And this is the advance payment they have given me. . . . You will return to Toulven. . . . Oh! I will send you money, all I earn; you know, I shall not want much myself. We shall not see each other again, but you will not be too unfortunate . . . as long as I live."