"That's the Comte de Bauge's Castor," cried one of the four boys. "She's on her way to Dieppe."
Two ladies and two gentlemen were lunching under an awning, Isabel bowed her head so as to hide her face.
This thoughtless movement displeased her; for, a moment later, she said (and all the words which they exchanged during these few minutes were to remain engraved on their memories):
"Simon, you really believe, don't you, that I was entitled to leave home?"
"Why," he exclaimed, in surprise, "don't we love each other?"
"Yes, we love each other," she murmured. "And then there's the life which I was leading with a woman whose one delight was to insult my mother. . . ."
She said no more. Simon had laid his hand on hers and nothing could reassure her more effectually than the fondness of that pressure.
The four boys, who had disappeared again, came running back:
"You can see the company's mail-boat that left Dieppe at the same time that we left Newhaven. She's called the Pays de Caux. We shall pass her in a quarter of an hour. So you see, mama, there's no danger."
"Yes, but it's afterwards, when we get closer to Dieppe."