It was strange to see the conflict between superstition and natural affection in the face of Aimee.  Her thoughts seemed to be rapidly scanning the past, and there was fear as well as anger in her look.  Could it be that this child, flung into her arms, as it were, from the shipwreck, born before his time of sorrow, the very offspring of death,—­that had always lived apart from the other lads, with strange, quiet ways of his own—­that had astonished her by his wise sayings as a child—­and that, growing up had brought unnatural prosperity to the home, as though some higher hand were upon him—­could it be that there was something in him more than of this earth?  Her hand trembled so that it shook the stick on which she leant:  she made one or two attempts to speak, then dropped the two halfpence on the table, as if they burnt her, and went out.

When Marie was a little better, they sent her away to her married sister’s at Cherbourg, for the doctor said that the only chance of recovering her balance of mind, lay in removing her from everything that would remind her of her fright, or of Antoine.  News travels slowly in those parts, especially among the poor and illiterate, and for months Antoine heard nothing of her, except for an occasional message brought by some chance traveller from Cherbourg, to the effect that she was still ill:  while his own troubles at home grew and gathered as time went on.  For since that night in the ravine everything seemed to have gone wrong.  A superstitious fear had associated itself with the idea of Antoine in the minds of the other villagers.  The Kaudrens’ cottage was more and more avoided, and the fishing business was injured, for people chose rather to buy their fish of those of whom no evil things were hinted.  The Pierres themselves were infected with this feeling, and Marie’s father would go partner with Jean no longer.  Jean could not support a fishing smack by himself, and gave up the distant voyages, confining himself to the long-shore fishing, and disposing of his oysters, crayfish and prawns as best he could in the more remote villages.  Meanwhile, old Aimee, getting older and more feeble, would sit knitting in the cottage by a cheerless hearth, and as the supply of potatoes, chestnuts and black bread grew scantier and scantier, would furtively watch Antoine, with anxious, awe-struck glances, and then would sometimes cross herself, and wipe a tear away unseen.

It was on a wild, stormy morning of January, that a letter at length arrived for Antoine from Cherbourg.  The news was blurted out with tactless plainness.  ‘La pauvre petite’ was no more.  In proportion as she grew calmer in mind, it appeared, Marie had grown weaker in body:  and a cold she had contracted soon after her arrival in Cherbourg, had settled on her lungs, which were always delicate.  For weeks she had not risen from her bed, but had gradually pined away.  There was a message for Antoine.  “Tell him,” she had said, in one of her last intervals of consciousness, “that I cannot bear to think of how I acted towards him.  Tell him I did not know what I was doing.  Ask him to come—­to come quick.  For I cannot die in peace, unless he forgives me.”  But she had died before the message could be sent.