Very well then, she would tell them, tell them he was unworthy of them. She was in revolt at last. She would leave him; he had gone too far, and he had no heart. CHAPTER LVI And yet, yes!--something told her that he had a heart, but that he was just a big boy whom the life of the sea had spoilt. And with a great tenderness she recalled his handsome, gentle face, his voice, his smile in those hours when he was sober. . . . Abandon him? . . . At the idea that he should go his ways alone, utterly lost then, and throwing care to the devil, delivered up to his vices and to the vices of others, to begin again his life of debauchery with other women, to sail distant seas, and then to grow old alone, forsaken, exhausted by alcohol! . . . Oh! at this idea of leaving him, she was seized with an anguish more terrible than all: she felt that she was bound to him now by a bond stronger than any reason, than any human will. She loved him passionately, without realizing the strength of her love. . . . No, rather than that, if she was not able to draw him back, she would let herself sink with him to the last degradation in order that she might still hold him in her arms, until the hour of death. CHAPTER LVII Little Pierre, for his part, did not like Brest at all. He found it a most uncomfortable place, ugly and dark. He had lived there only for four months, and already his round cheeks had paled a little under their bronze. Before, they were like those ripe nectarines of the south country which are of a warm golden colour, a red stained with sun. His eyes were black and shone with the sparkle of jet, like those of his mother, from between beautiful long eyelashes. In his little eyebrows there was already a suggestion of seriousness, which came from Yves. He would have made a pretty picture, with his thoughtful expression and the manly and forceful little air which he had already like a grown lad. Now and then he had still his moments of noisy gaiety; he jumped and skipped about the gloomy room, making a great commotion. But this did not happen so often as at Toulven. He missed, in his already vague baby memory, he missed the little playmates of the beech-bordered lane, and the petting of his grandparents, and the songs of his old great-grandmother. There, everybody took notice of him, while here he was nearly always alone. No, he did not like the town. And then he was always cold, in this bare room and on these old stone staircases. CHAPTER LVIII "You must forgive me; you can see that I am not myself."