The parlour of the convent would not open until morning, and surely a
delay would annoy Madame, so, in spite of her desire to see the other
child, she went home. The maids of the inn were just arising when she
reached Pont-l'Eveque.

So the poor boy would be on the ocean for months! His previous trips
had not alarmed her. One can come back from England and Brittany; but
America, the colonies, the islands, were all lost in an uncertain region
at the very end of the world.

From that time on, Felicite thought solely of her nephew. On warm days
she feared he would suffer from thirst, and when it stormed, she was
afraid he would be struck by lightning. When she harkened to the wind
that rattled in the chimney and dislodged the tiles on the roof, she
imagined that he was being buffeted by the same storm, perched on top
of a shattered mast, with his whole body bend backward and covered with
sea-foam; or,--these were recollections of the engraved geography--he
was being devoured by savages, or captured in a forest by apes, or dying
on some lonely coast. She never mentioned her anxieties, however.

Madame Aubain worried about her daughter.

The sisters thought that Virginia was affectionate but delicate. The
slightest emotion enervated her. She had to give up her piano lessons.
Her mother insisted upon regular letters from the convent. One morning,
when the postman failed to come, she grew impatient and began to pace to
and fro, from her chair to the window. It was really extraordinary! No
news since four days!