As a proof that the slave-trade was repugnant to his nature, he left the slaver the moment he possessed a little capital with which to enter some honest business.

But he was no longer the high-minded, pure-hearted Gaston, who had so devotedly loved and perilled his life for the little fairy of La Verberie.

It is useless to deny that evil examples are pernicious to morals.  The most upright characters are unconsciously influenced by bad surroundings.  As the exposure to rain, sun, and sea-air first darkened and then hardened his skin, so did wicked associates first shock and then destroy the refinement and purity of Gaston’s mind.  His heart had become as hard and coarse as his sailor hands.  He still remembered Valentine, and sighed for her presence; but she was no longer the sole object of affection, the one woman in the world to him.  Contact with sin had lowered his standard of women.

The three years, after which he had pledged himself to return, had passed; perhaps Valentine was expecting him.  Before deciding on any definite project, he wrote to an intimate friend at Beaucaire to learn what had happened during his long absence.  He expressed great anxiety about his family and neighbors.

He also wrote to his father, asking why he had never answered the many letters which he had sent to him by returning sailors, who would have safely forwarded the replies.

At the end of a year, he received an answer from his friend.

The letter almost drove him mad.

It told him that his father was dead; that his brother had left France, Valentine was lately married, and that he, Gaston, had been sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for murder.

Henceforth he was alone in the world; with no country, no family, no home, and disgraced by a public sentence.

Valentine was married, and he had no object in life!  He would hereafter have faith in no one, since she, Valentine, had cast him off, forgotten him.  What could he expect of others, when she had broken her troth, had lacked the courage to keep her promise and wait for him?—­she, whom he had so trusted.

In his despair, he almost regretted the Tom Jones.  Yes, he sighed for the wicked slaver crew, his life of excitement and peril.  The dangers and triumphs of those bold pirates whose only care was to heap up money would have been preferable to his present wretchedness.

But Gaston was not a man to be long cast down.

“Money is the cause of it all!” he said with rage.  “If the lack of money can bring such misery, its possession must bestow intense happiness.  Henceforth I will devote all my energies to getting money.”

He set to work with a greedy activity, which increased each day.  He tried all the many speculations open to adventurers.  Alternately he traded in furs, worked in a mine, and cultivated lands.

Five times he went to bed rich, and waked up ruined; five times, with the patience of the castor, whose hut is swept away by each returning tide, he recommenced the foundation of his fortune.