And La Vireville stared at that sturdy thistle, with its sharp, glaucous leaves and its beautiful dream-blue flower, both misty now in the dim light, almost as if he saw it in a dream, for its harsh touch had carried him back in a flash to the little bay in the Côtes-du-Nord where all this, surely, had happened before--where, when he was crippled, that same hand had known the scratch of the sea-holly, even to blood, and Mme. de Guéfontaine's kiss. "She would not like to kiss that hand now!" he reflected, rather grimly. Yet suddenly he had the impression, as vivid as if she were there now, kneeling by him, near the sea-holly, as she had knelt that evening in the northern bay, that she, with her high courage and her ideals of devotion, would never counsel him to lie here like a coward till he was found and shot. She would have counselled him--did indeed seem to be counselling him now--to bestir himself, for the child's sake, for his own self-respect. But how was he to obey her? There was only one way--the way she had gone that evening. The waves to-night broke not much less gently on this shore of tragedy than they had done on that placid strand. Yes, there lay, as always of late in Fortuné's life, the call. But it had never been so hard to follow. Nevertheless he believed the English squadron to be cruising somewhere off the little isles of Houat and Hoedic, and the former of these could not be more than ten miles away. If Providence would but complete the miracle and put him in the way of coming by a boat--a possible but an unlikely occurrence--he would take it for an omen, and make an attempt to reach the fleet. And so, supporting his mangled arm again with the other, he began to get with difficulty to his feet, reflecting as he did so that even if there were a boat on the shore he could not launch it, injured as he was, and that in any case, if he showed himself near it, he would probably be fired on by some unseen sentry. Luckily the moon was near her setting. He must therefore look for this problematical boat before she set, but not attempt to embark till afterwards, when it would be much darker.