"You swear you will not?"
"Yes, mamma."
"You want to stay here, don't you?"
"Yes, mamma."
"Jeanne, you have no right to dispose of his life in that way," said the baron, sternly. "Such conduct is cowardly—almost criminal. You are sacrificing your child to your own personal happiness."
Jeanne hid her face in her hands, while her sobs came in quick succession.
"I have been so unhappy—so unhappy," she murmured, through her tears. "And now my son has brought peace and rest into my life, you want to take him from me. What will become of me—if I am left—all alone now?"
Her father went and sat down by her side. "And am I no one, Jeanne?" he asked, taking her in his arms. She threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him fondly. Then in a voice still choked with tears and sobs:
"Yes, perhaps you are right papa, dear," she answered; "and I was foolish; but I have had so much sorrow. I am quite willing for him to go to college now."
Then Poulet, who hardly understood what was going to be done with him, began to cry too, and his three mothers kissed and coaxed him and told him to be brave. They all went up to bed with heavy hearts, and even the baron wept when he was alone in his own room, though he had controlled his emotion downstairs. It was resolved to send Paul to the college at Havre at the beginning of the next term, and during the summer he was more spoilt than ever. His mother moaned as she thought of the approaching separation and she got ready as many clothes for the boy as if he had been about to start on a ten years' journey.