CHAPTER VIII--OLD AND YOUNG.
She stayed three days with him, three happy days, though over them hung a dark and ominous forecast; one might as well call them three days of respite.
At last she was forced to return to Ploubazlanec, for she had come to the end of her little savings, and Sylvestre was to embark the day afterward.

The sailors are always inexorably kept in barracks the day before foreign cruises (a custom that seems rather barbarous at first, but which is a necessary precaution against the "flings" they would have before leaving definitely).
Oh that last day! She had done her very best to hatch up some more funny stories in her head, to tell her boy just at the parting; but she had remembered nothing--no; only tears had welled up, and at every moment sobs choked her.

Hanging on his arm, she reminded him of a thousand things he was not to forget to do, and he also tried hard to repress his tears.

They had ended by going into a church to say their prayers together.
It was by the night train that she went.

To save a few pence, they had gone on foot to the station; he carrying her box, and holding her on his strong arm, upon which she weighed heavily.
She was so very, very tired--poor old lady! She had scarcely any strength left after the exertion of the last three or four days.