"Mother, you love Calabash and Nicholas, don't you?"
"Well, if I do, what then?"
"Suppose the children imitate them, and their crimes are detected?"
"Well, what then?"
"They will come to the scaffold, like my father."
"What then? What then?"
"And does not their probable fate make you tremble?"
"That fate will be mine, neither better nor worse. I rob, they rob; I kill, they kill. Whoever takes the mother will take the young ones; we will not leave each other. If our heads fall, theirs will fall in the same basket, and we shall all take leave at once! We will not retreat! You are the only coward in the family, and we drive you from us!"
"But the children,—the children!"
"The children will grow up, and, but for you, they would have been quite formed already. François is almost ready, and, when you are gone, Amandine will make up for lost time."