After that, time marked no definite passing for Jean. Occasionally he heard Marie-Louise's voice as she spoke to her uncle; and occasionally he heard the old fisherman reply—but that was all. In nearer the shore, where the current rushing through the narrows had lost its potency, he edged the boat across the heavy sea, gained the comparative calm under the lee of the headland, and began to work back to the upper end—it was easier that way, difficult and slow as the progress was, than to land and carry old Gaston along the beach. An hour? It might have been that—or two—or half an hour—when he and Marie-Louise, in the water beside him again, and close by where the lantern under the bluff still burned as he had left it, were dragging the boat free from the breakers and up upon the sand.
And then, while Marie-Louise ran for the lantern, Jean leaned over into the boat.
"Gaston!" he called. "See, we are back! Can you hear me?"
"Yes," Gaston answered feebly.
"Then put your arms around my neck, mon brave, and I will lift you up."
The arms rose slowly, clasped; and Jean, straightening up, was holding the other as a woman holds a child. Gaston's head fell on his shoulder, and the old fisherman whispered weakly in his ear.
"My side, Jean—hold me—lower—down."
"But, yes," Jean answered cheerily. "There—is that better. We shall get easily to the house like this, and Marie-Louise"—she was back again now—"will lead the way with the lantern."
Gaston's only answer was a slight pressure of his arm around Jean's neck—but now, as the lantern's rays for an instant fell upon the other's features, Jean's own face set like stone. The old fisherman's eyes were closed, and the skin, where it showed through the grizzled beard, wet and tangled now, was a deathly white—and Jean, motioning to Marie-Louise, started hurriedly forward.
Only once on the way to the house, as Jean followed Marie-Louise up the path from the beach, did Gaston speak again; and then it was as though he were talking to himself, his tones low and broken, almost like the sobbing of a child. Jean caught the words.