In his fortitude, he had not even thought of this
supreme piety; and he flung his arms round the old woman's neck. Then
the three set out down the beaten path, and the stone staircase, and
so to Tours, without turning their heads.
"Mamma used to come there!" Marie said when they reached the bridge.
Annette had a relative, a retired dressmaker, who lived in the Rue de
la Guerche. She took the two children to this cousin's house, meaning
that they should live together thenceforth. But Louis told her of his
plans, gave Marie's certificate of birth and the ten thousand francs
into her keeping, and the two went the next morning to take Marie to
school.
Louis very briefly explained his position to the headmaster, and went.
Marie came with him as far as the gateway. There Louis gave solemn
parting words of the tenderest counsel, telling Marie that he would
now be left alone in the world. He looked at his brother for a moment,
and put his arms about him, took one more long look, brushed a tear
from his eyes, and went, turning again and again till the very last to
see his brother standing there in the gateway of the school.
A month later Louis-Gaston, now an apprentice on board a man-of-war,
left the harbor of Rochefort. Leaning over the bulwarks of the
corvette Iris, he watched the coast of France receding swiftly till it
became indistinguishable from the faint blue horizon line.
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