And perhaps, after all, that love was not so strong nor so worthy as he had thought. Fortuné was very little used to introspection, and the thought shook him how easy it was, evidently, to delude oneself. Ought he not, at any rate, to put an end to the situation before it went farther, and, as a man of honour, offer to release Raymonde from the promise which a moment of compassion had wrung from her? . . . The idea was agony, but the wound to his pride was agony too. . . . And at that very moment Raymonde came along the pebbled path that led from the door of the farmhouse. Her cloak was over her arm, a little basket in her hand; she turned her head and smiled at the old woman and the two children who watched her from the low doorway. And at the sight of her, at the movement of her head, her smile, the thought of releasing her left him as swiftly as it had come to him. He could not do it; he wanted her too much. If she had taken him out of pity or gratitude, so be it!--on whatever terms, so only she were his! Something of the sudden conflict that had rent him must have been visible in his air, for as he held the gate open for her, and she had thanked him by a smile, she said quickly: "Qu'avez-vous, mon ami? Was the sun too hot here?" "I have been thinking over my good fortune," said her lover gravely. "Give me your cloak." "I am glad that I have it with me," she remarked, as she complied. "I think there is a storm coming up." La Vireville looked round. She was right; and he, used as he was to scanning the horizon in sailor fashion, had been too much absorbed to notice it. A continent of cloud was rising out of the sea to the north-east. "I think it will pass over," pronounced the Chouan, looking at it. "But in any case we ought to hasten." And soon they were making their way over the short turf of the down that runs to the head of the tiny Baie des Eperqueries, where Fortuné had left his boat, the only one riding in that small and solitary harbourage. A rusty culverin of Elizabethan days lay embedded in the short grass at the top. It was nearly low tide; down beneath the cove was tapestried with seaweed, green and purple and spotted, fan-shaped or ribbon-fashioned, and a pair of puffins, from their breeding-place at the other side of the island, sat solemnly side by side, like parrots, on a crag. "I told the boatman to wait for me here," remarked La Vireville, as they made their way down the zigzag path. "I do not see him anywhere; ah, there he is!" A jerseyed figure was, in fact, lying on its face about half-way down the slope. "Come, wake up!" said the émigré, bending over him when they reached him. There being no response to this invitation, he shook the sleeper vigorously. "Ma foi, this is a very sound sleep!" He stooped and picked up something. "And this is its cause!" He held out to Raymonde an empty brandy flask. "Cognac from our native land! He is dead drunk. What are we to do? Sail without him?"