A LOOSE END AND OTHER STORIES

by

S. ELIZABETH HALL

Author of _The Interloper_

London:Simpkin, Marshall Hamilton, Kent & Co. , Ltd. London: Truslove and Bray, Printers, West Norwood, S. E. 

CONTENTS. 

 A LOOSE END

 IN A BRETON VILLAGE

 TWICE A CHILD

 THE ROAD BY THE SEA

 THE HALTING STEP

 TABITHA'S AUNT

A LOOSE END. 

CHAPTER I. 

One September morning, many years ago, when the Channel Islands seemedfurther off than they do now, and for some of them communication withthe outer world hardly existed, some two hours after the sun had risenout of the sea, and while the grass and the low-growing bushes werestill fresh with the morning dew, a young girl tripped lightly along theridge of a headland which formed the south side of a cove on the coastof one of the smaller islands in the group. The ridge ascended graduallytill it reached a point on which stood a ruined building, that was saidto have been once a mill, and from which on the right-hand side the pathbegan to descend to a narrow landing-place in the cove. The girl stoodstill for a moment when she reached the highest point, and shading hereyes looked out to sea. On the opposite side of the cove a huge rock, formed into an island by a narrow shaft of water, which in the strife ofages had cleared its way between it and the rocky coast, frowned darkand solemn in the shadow, its steep and clear-cut sides giving it acharacter of power and imperturbability that crowned it a king amongislands. The sea beyond was glittering in the morning sun, but there wasdeep purple shadow in the cove, and under the rocks of the projectingheadlands, which in fantastic succession on either side threw out theirweird arms into the sea; while just around the edge of the shore, wherethe water was shallow over rocks and weed, was a girdle of lightest, loveliest green. Guernsey, idealized in the morning mist, lay like adream on the horizon. Here and there a fishing-boat, whose sail flashedorange when the sun touched it, was tossing on the waves; nearer in aboat with furled sail was cautiously making for the narrow passage--theDevil's Drift, as the fishermen called it--between the island and themainland, a passage only traversed with oars, the oarsmen facingforwards; while the two occupants of another were just taking down theirsail preparatory to rowing direct for the landing-place. 

The moment the girl caught sight of this last boat she began rapidly todescend the 300 feet of cliff which separated her from the cove below. The path began in easy zig-zags, which, however, got gradually steeper, and the last thirty feet of the descent consisted of a sheer face ofrock, in which were fixed two or three iron stanchions with a roperunning from one to the other to serve as a handrail; and the climbermust depend for other assistance on the natural irregularities of therock, which provided here and there an insecure foothold. The girl, however, sprang down the dangerous path, without the slightesthesitation, though her skilful balance and dexterity of hand and footshowed that her security was the result of practice. 

By the time she had reached the narrow strip of beach, one of the fewand difficult landing-places which the island offered, the two fishermenwere already out of the boat, which they were mooring to an iron ringfastened in the rock. One of the men was young; the other might be, fromhis appearance, between sixty and seventy. A strange jerking gait, whichwas disclosed as soon as he began to move on his own feet, suggested theidea that his natural habitat was the sea, and that he was as little atease on land as some kinds of waterfowl appear to be when walking. Hecould not hold himself upright when on one foot, so that his wholeperson turned first to one side and then to the other as he walked. 

"Marie!" he called to the girl as she alighted at the bottom of thecliff, and he shouted something briefly which the strange jargon inwhich it was spoken and the gruff, wind-roughened voice of the speaker, would have made unintelligible to any but a native of the islands. 

The girl, without replying, took the basket of fish which he handed her, slung it on her back by a rope passed over one shoulder, and stationedherself at the foot of the path, waiting for him to begin the ascent:the younger man, who was busy with the tackle of the boat, apparentlyintending to stay behind. 

When the old man had placed himself in position to begin the ascent, with both hands on the rope, and all his weight on one leg, the girlstooped down, and placing her lithe hands round his great wetfisherman's boot, deftly lifted the other foot and placed it in theright position on the first ledge of rock. 

"Now, Daddy, hoist away!" she cried in her clear, piping voice, using, like her father, the island dialect; and he dragged himself up to thefirst iron hold, wriggling his large, awkward form into strangecontortions, till he found a secure position and could wait till hisyoung assistant was beside him once more. She sprang up like a cat andbalanced herself safely within reach of him. It was odd to see theimplicit confidence with which he let her lift and place his feet;having now to support herself by the rope she had only one hand tospare; but the feat was accomplished each time with the same precisionand skill, till the precipitous part of the ascent was passed and theyhad commenced the zigzag path. 

Then Marie took her daddy's arm under hers, and carefully steadied thedifficult, ricketty gait, supporting the heavy figure with a practisedskill which took the place of strength in her slight frame. Her featureswere formed after the same pattern as his, the definite profile, tensespreading nostril, and firm lips, being repeated with merely femininemodifications; and as her clear, merry eyes, freshened by thesea-breeze, flashed with fun at the stumblings and uncertainties oftheir course, they met the same expression of mirth in his hard-set, rocky face. 

"You've got a rare job, child!" said he, as they stood still for breathat a turning in the path, "a basket of fish to lug up, as well as yourold daddy. He'd ought to have brought them as far as the turning foryou. "

"I'd sooner have their company than his, any day, " with a little _moue_in the direction of the cove. "I just wish you wouldn't take him outfishing with you, Daddy, that I do!"

"Why not, girl?"

"It's he as works for himself and cares for himself and for no one else, does Pierre, " said the girl. "Comin' a moonin' round and pretending he'safter courting me, when all he wants, with takin' the fish round andthat, is to get the custom into his own hands, and tells folks, if _he_had the ordering of it, there'd be no fear about them getting their fishpunctual. "

"Tells 'em that, does he?" said the father, his sea-blue eyes suddenlyclouding over. 

"That he does; and says he'd take up the inshore fishing, if he'd themoney to spend: and they should be supplied regular with crabs andshrimps and such; and then drops a word that poor André he's gettin'old, and what with being lame, and one thing and another, what can youexpect, and such blathers!"

"Diable! Do you know that for certain, child?" said André, stopping inthe path, and turning round upon her with a face ablaze with anger. "Ishould like to hear him sayin' that, I should. "

"Now, Daddy, " she cried with a sudden change of tone, "don't you begetting into one of your tantrums with him. Don't, there's a dear Daddy!I only told you, so you shouldn't be putting too much into his hands. But he'd be the one that would come best out of a quarrel. He's onlylooking for a chance of doin' you a mischief, it's my belief. "

"H'm! 'Poor André a gettin' old, ' is he?" grunted her father, somewhatcalmed. "Poor André won't be takin' _him_ out with him again just yetawhile--that's a certain thing. Paul Nevin would suit me a deal betterin many ways, only I' bin keepin' Pierre on out o' charity, his porefather havin' bin a pal o' mine. But he's a deal stronger in the arms, is Paul. "

They reached the cottage, which stood on the first piece of level groundon the way to the mainland. There was no other building within sight;and with its bleak boulders and rocks of strangest form, in perpetualdeath-struggle with the mighty force of ocean, resounding night and daywith the rush and tramp of the wild sea-horses, as they flung themselvesin despair on their rocky adversary, and with the many voices of thewinds, which scarcely ever ceased blowing in that exposed spot, whilethe weird notes of the sea-fowl floated in the air, like the cries ofwandering spirits, the solitary headland seemed indeed as if it might bethe world's end. 

The cottage consisted of one room, and a lean-to. Nearly half the roomwas taken up with a big bed, and on the other side were the fire-placeand cooking utensils. Opposite the door was a box-sofa, on which Mariehad slept since she was a child, and which with a small table, twochairs and a stool, completed the furniture of the room; the only lightwas that admitted by the doorway, the door nearly always standing open;the lean-to was little more than a dog-kennel, being formed in fact outof a great heap of stones and rubbish, which had been piled up as aprotection to the cottage on the windward side; and three dogs and twohens were enjoying themselves in front of the fire. 

It was here that Marie had lived, ever since she could remember, inclose and contented companionship with her father: whom indeed, especially since he had the fever which crippled him three years before, she had fed, clothed, nursed and guarded with a care almost moremotherly than filial. 

CHAPTER II. 

Marie was leaning over the low wall of a cottage garden in the'village, ' as a clump of small houses at the meeting of four cross-roadswas called, and waiting for the kail which she had come to buy for theevening's soup from Mrs. Nevin, who cultivated a little plot of groundwith fruit and vegetables. The back-door of the cottage, which opened onthe garden, was ajar, and she could hear some one enter from the frontwith a heavy tread, and call out in a big, jovial voice, "Hullo, Mother, we're in luck to-day! You'd never guess who's goin' to take me on. LameAndré, he's goin' to give Pierre the sack, and says he'll have me for atime or two to try. Says I'm strong in the shoulders, and he guesses Ican do him more good than Pierre. I should think I easy could too, apinch-faced whipper-snapper like that!"

"And high time it is too that André had his eyes opened, " rejoined Mrs. Nevin; "often it is I've told Marie, as there she stands, that herfather don't ought to trust the fish-sellin' too much to that Pierre: alad as could rob his own grandmother the moment the life was out o' herbody. "

"Well, Mother, you've often told me about that five franc piece, butnobody can't say that she hadn't given it him before she died, as hesaid--"

"Given it him, I should think so, when she never would have aught to sayto him for all his wheedling ways, and his brother Jacques was herfavourite; and poor old lady if she'd a known that Pierre was goin' tobe alone with her, when she went off suddint in a fit, I guess she'd alocked up her purse first, I do. "

"Well, I must say he turned a queer colour when he heard André say hedidn't want him no more: and you should have seen the look he gave him, sort of squintin' out of his eyes at him, when he went away. He ain't aman I would like to meet unawares in a dark lane, if I'd a quarrel withhim. "

"Hullo, where's Marie?" cried Mrs. Nevin, coming out of the door withthe kail ready washed in her hand. "She never took offence at what wewas sayin', think you? Folks did say, to be sure, that she and Pierrewas sweet on one another some time since. Well, she's gone, any way, "and the good woman stood for a few minutes in some dismay, shading hereyes as she looked down the road. 

Marie's slight, girlish figure vanished quickly round the turning in thelane, and Mrs. Nevin could not see her pass swiftly by her own cottage, and up the ridge to the old mill. When she reached the point at whichthe path began to descend to the cove, she paused and looked down. Thekeen glance and alert figure, poised on guard, suggested the idea of amother bird watching her nest from afar. The tide had gone outsufficiently for the boats to be drawn up on the eight or ten feet ofthe shelving shore, which was thus laid bare, and the glowing light ofthe sunset touched in slanting rays the head and hands of an old manseated on a rock and bending over some fishing tackle, which he seemedto be repairing. 

Round the extreme point of the headland, which in a succession ofuncouth shapes dropped its rocky outline into the shadowy purple sea, there was visible, hastily clambering across pathless boulders, anotherman, of a young and lithe figure, and with something in the eager, forward thrust of the head, crouching gait, and swift, deft footing thatresembled an animal of the cat species when about to leap on its prey. He was evidently making for the cove, but would have to take the ropepath in order to reach it, as there was no way of approaching it on thatside except over the sheer face of rock. Marie was further from therope than he was, but her path was easier. The moment her eye caughtsight of the crouching, creeping figure, she sped like a hare down thepath, till she reached a point at which she was on a level with the man, at a distance of about a hundred feet. There she stood, uncertain amoment, then turned to meet him. He seemed too intent on his object inthe cove to notice her advance, till she was within speaking distance, when she suddenly called to him "Pierre!"

Her clear, defiant tone put the meaning of a whole discourse into theword. The man turned sharply round with an expression of vindictivemalice in his fox-like face. 

"Well, what do you want?"

"What are you doing here, please?"

"What's that to you, I should like to know?"

"Come nearer, then I can hear what you say. "

"I sha'n't come no nearer than I choose. "

"Don't be afraid. I ain't a-goin' to hurt you!"

The taunt seemed to have effect, for he leaped hurriedly along over therocky path, with an angry, threatening air that would have frightenedsome girls. Marie stood like the rock beneath her. 

"Now, Miss, I'll teach you to come interfering with business that's noneo' yourn. What, you thought you'd come after me, did yer? because youwas tired o' waitin' for me to come after you again, I suppose. "

"What is that you're carryin' in your belt?" she demanded calmly. Ahandle was seen sticking up under his fisherman's blouse. "You believeits safer to climb the rocks with a butcher's knife in your pocket, doyou? You think in case of an accident it would make you fall a bitsofter, hey?"

"It don't matter to you what I've got in my pocket, " he rejoined, buthis tone was uncertain. "I brought it to cut the tackle--we've got a jobof mending to do. "

"I don't know whether you think me an idiot, " she replied; "but if youwant me to believe your stories you'd better invent 'em more reasonable. Now, Pierre, this is what you've got to do before you leave this spot. You've got to promise me solemnly not to go near Daddy, nor threaten himas you once threatened me on a day you may remember, nor try tointimidate him into takin' you back. Neither down in the cove, noranything else: neither now, nor at any other time. "

Her girlish figure as she stood with one arm clasping the rock besideher, looked a slight enough obstacle in the path. 

"Intimidate him! A parcel o' rubbish; who's goin' to intimidate him asyou call it. Get out o' the way, and don't go meddling in men's concernsthat you know nothing about. "

He seized her wrist roughly, and with her precarious footing theposition was dangerous enough: but she clung with her other arm like alimpit to the rock. He attempted to dislodge her, when she suddenlyturned and fled back on her own accord. He hastened after her, and itwas not till he had gone some yards that, putting his hand to his belt, he found that the knife had gone. 

"The jade, " he muttered, "she did it on purpose, " and even with hishatred and malice was mingled a gleam of admiration at the clevernessthat had outwitted him. He hurried on towards the cliff path, but thesunset light was already fading into dusk, and he had to choose hisfooting more carefully. When he reached the point where the rope began, Marie had already gone down and was leaning on the rock beside herfather. Had he been near he might have noticed a strange expression inher eyes, as she furtively watched the precipitous descent. The purpleshadows now filled both sky and sea, and the island opposite reared itsgrand outline solemnly in the twilight depths, as though sitting ineternal judgment on the transient ways of men. The evening star shonesoftly above the sea. Suddenly a crash, followed by one sharp cry, washeard; then all was still. 

"Good God! That's some one fallen down the path--why don't you go andsee, child?" but Marie seemed as if she could not stir. Old André slowlydragged himself on to his feet, and took her arm, and they wenttogether. At the foot of the path they found the body of Pierre, dead, his head having struck against a rock. 

"He must have missed his footing in the dark, " said André, when they hadrowed round to the fishing village to carry the news, and the solitaryconstable had bustled forth, and was endeavouring to collect informationabout the accident from the only two witnesses, of whom the girl seemedto have lost the power of speech. 

"He must have missed his footing in the dark; and then the rope brokewith his weight and the clutch he give it. It lies there all loose onthe ground. "

"It shouldn't have broken, " said the constable. "But I always did saywe'd ought to have an iron chain down there. "

CHAPTER III. 

Fifty years had passed, with all their seasons' changes, and thechanging life of nature both by land and sea, and had made as littleimpression on the island as the ceaseless dashing of the waves againstits coast. The cliffs, the caves and the sea-beaten boulders were thesame; the colours of the bracken on the September hills, and of the seaanemones in their green, pellucid pools, were the same, and thefishermen's path down to the cove was the same. No iron chain had beenput there, but the rope had never broken again. 

A violent south-west gale was blowing, driving scud and sea-foam beforeit, while ever new armies of rain-clouds advanced threateningly acrossthe shadowy waters--mighty, moving mists, whose grey-winged squadrons, swift and irresistible, enveloped and almost blotted from sight thelittle rock-bound island, against which the forces of nature seemed tobe for ever spending themselves in vain. From time to time through a gapin the shifting cloud-ranks there shone a sudden dazzling gleam ofsunlight on the white crests of the sea-horses far away. 

The good French pastor, who struggled to discharge the offices ofreligion in that impoverished and for the most part socially abandonedspot, had just allowed himself to be persuaded by his wife that it wasunnecessary to visit his sick parishioner at the other end of the islandthat afternoon, when a loud rat-tat was heard in the midst of a shriekof wind, through a grudged inch of open door-way. The hurricane burstinto the house while a dripping, breathless girl panted forth hermessage, that "old Marie" had been suddenly taken bad, and was dying, and wanted but one thing in the world, to see the Vicar. 

"I wonder what it is she has got to say, " said the Vicar, as his wifebuttoned his mackintosh up to his throat. "I always did think there wassomething strange about old Marie. "

A mile of bitter, breathless battling with the storm, then a closecottage-room, with rain-flooded floor, the one small window carefullydarkened, and on a pillow in the furthest corner, shaded by heavybed-curtains, a wrinkled old woman's face, pinched and colourless, onwhich the hand of Death lay visibly. 

But in the eagerness with which she signed to the pastor to come close, and in the keen glance she cast round the room to see that no one elsewas near, the vigour of life still asserted itself. 

"I've somewhat to tell you, Father, " she began in a rapid undertone, inthe island dialect. "I can't carry it to the grave with me, tho' I'veborne it in my conscience all my life. When I was a young lass ithappened, when things was different, and the men were rougher than now, and strange deeds might be done from time to time, and never come underthe eye o' the law. And you must judge me, Father, by the way things wasthen, for that was what I had to think of when it all happened. 

"There was a young man that used to come a' courting me when I was alass o' nineteen, and he had a black heart for all he spoke so fair; butI didn't see it at the first, and he was that cliver and insinuatin', and had such a way o' talkin', and made so much o' me, I couldn't butlisten to him for a while. And he used to go out fishin' wi' my father, and Daddy, he was lame, so Pierre used to take the fish round and dojobs with the boats for him, and this and that, so as Daddy thought arare lot o' him; and when he seed we was thinkin' o' each other, he sorto' thought he'd leave the business to him and me, and we'd be able tokeep him when he got too old to go out any more. And all was goin'right, when one day Pierre says to me, would I go out in the boat androw with him to the village, as he'd got a creel of crabs to take round, so I got in and we rowed: and we went through the Devil's Drift, and hesays to me sudden like, 'When we're man and wife, Marie, what'll yourfather do to keep hisself?' 'Keep hisself, ' I said, 'why ain't we agoin'to keep him?' And then he began such a palaver about a man bein' boundto keep his wife but not his father-in-law, and it not bein' fit forthree grown people to live in one room, as if my father and mother andhis father afore him and all his brothers and sisters hadn't lived inthis very room that now I lie a-dyin' in; and I said 'well, as I see it, if you take Daddy's custom off of him, you're bound to keep Daddy. ' Andhe said that wasn't his way o' lookin' at it, and I went into a suddenanger, and declared I wouldn't have nought to do with a man that couldtreat my Daddy so, and he was just turning the boat round to go into theDrift, and there came such an evil look in his eyes so as it seemed togo through my bones like a knife, and he said 'You shall repent this oneday--you and your daddy too, ' and I said not another word and he beganto row forwards through the Devil's Drift. And somehow bein' there alonewith him in that fearsome place, when a foot's error one side or theother may mean instant death, as he sat facin' me I seemed to see theblack heart of him, as I'd never seen it before, and there was summatcame over me and made me feel my life was in his hands, in the hands ofmy enemy. 

"Well, I said no more to him, not one word good or bad, the rest of thatevenin's row, and I never went out with him no more. But now, Father, this is what I want to say--for my breath is a goin' from me everyminute--my Daddy, he was like my child to me, me that have never had achild of my own. I had watched him and cared for him as if I was hismother, 'stead of his bein' my father, and a hurt to him was like a hurtto me: and when that man talked o' leavin' him to fend for himself inhis old age, the thought seemed as if it would break my heart: and nowI knew he had an enemy, and a pitiless enemy: and I tried to stop himgoin' out alone with Pierre, and I wanted him to get rid o' him out ofthe fishing business altogether, and father he took it up so, when Itold him Pierre said he was gettin' too old to manage for hisself, thathe up and dismissed him that very day: and then I heard Lisette Nevinand Paul talkin' and savin' how ill Pierre had taken it, and I seemed tosee his face with the evil look on it; and something seemed to say in myheart that Daddy was in danger, and I couldn't stop a moment; I wentflying to the cove where I knew he'd gone by hisself, and there from thetop of the path I saw the other one creeping, closer and closer, like acruel beast of prey as he was: and I went down and I met him, and he'd aknife in his belt, and of one thing I was certain, he might have beenonly goin' to frighten Daddy, but he meant him no good. "

She lowered her voice, and spoke in a hoarse whisper. 

"Father, do you understand? Here was a man without ruth or pity, andwith a sore grudge in his black heart. Was I to trust my Daddy to hishands, and him old and lame?" She paused another moment, then drew theVicar close to her and whispered in his ear, "I cut the rope. I knew hewas followin' me. I let myself halfway down, then clung to the iron holdand cut the rope, with the knife I'd taken from him. It was at the riskof my life I did it. And he followed me, and he fell and was killed. Father, will God punish me for it? It has blighted my life. I havenever been like other women. I never was wed, for how could I tendlittle children with blood on my hands? And the children shrank from me, or I thought they did. But it was for Daddy's sake. He had a happy oldage, and he gave me his blessing when he died. Father"--her voice becamealmost inaudible--"when I stand before God's throne--will Godremember--it was for Daddy's sake?"

The failing eye was fixed on the pastor's face, as if it would searchhis soul for the truth. The fellow-being, on whom she laid so great aburden, for one moment, quailed: then spoke assuring words of the mercyof that God to whom all hearts are open: but already the ebbingstrength, too severely strained in the effort of disclosure, was passingaway, and the words of comfort were spoken to ears that were closed indeath. 

 * * * * *

Under the South wall of the island burying-ground is a nameless grave:where in the summer days fragments of toys and nose-gays are often to beseen scattered about; for the sunny corner is a favourite play-place, and the voices of children sound there; and they trample with theirlittle feet the grass above Marie's grave, and strew wild flowers on it. 

IN A BRETON VILLAGE. 

PART I. 

In a wild and little-known part of the coast of Brittany, where, inplace of sandy beach or cliff, huge granite boulders lie strewn alongthe shore, like the ruins of some Titan city, and assuming, here thefeatures of some uncouth monster, there the outline of some giganticfortress, present an aspect of mingled farce and solemnity, and give thewhole region the air of some connection with the under-world, --on thiscoast, and low down among the boulders out to sea, stands a littlefishing village. 

The granite cottages with their thatched roofs--bits of warm colouramong the bare rocks--lie on a tongue of land between the two inlets ofthe sea, which, when the tides run high, nearly cut them off from themainland. Opposite the village on the other side of the little inlandsea, is a second cluster of piled-up rocks thrust forth, like the fistof a giant, to defy the onslaught of Neptune, and on a plateau near thesummit, is the skeleton of a house, built for a summer residence by aRussian Prince, who had a fancy for solitude and sea air, but abandonedfor some reason before the interior was completed. Solitary andlifeless, summer and winter, it looks silently down like a wall-eyedghost over the waste of rocks and sea. 

Below the house and close down by the seashore, is a low, thatchedcottage, built against the rock, which forms its back wall, and on towhich the rough granite blocks of which the cottage is constructed arerudely cemented with earth and clay; the floor also consists of theliving rock, not levelled, but just as the foot of the wanderer hadtrodden it under the winds of heaven for ages before the cottage wasbuilt. In this primitive dwelling--which was not, however, more rudethan many of the fishermen's cottages along the coast--there lived, afew years since, three persons: old Aimée Kaudren, aged seventy, whowith her snow-white cap and sabots, and her keen clear-cut face, mighthave been seen any day in or near the cottage, cutting the gorse-bushesthat grew about the rocks for firing, leading the cow home from herscanty bit of grazing, kneeling on the stone edge of the pond by thewell, to wash the clothes, or within doors cooking the soup in the hugecauldron that stood on the granite hearth. A sight indeed it was to seethe aged dame bending over the tripod, with the dried gorse blazingbeneath it, while its glow illumined the dark, cavernous chimney above, was flashed back from the polished doors of the great oak chest, withits burnished brass handles, and from the spotless copper saucepanshanging on the walls; and brightened the red curtains of the cosybox-bedstead in the corner by the fire. 

The second inhabitant of the cottage was Aimée's son, Jean, thefisherman, with his blue blouse, and his swarthy, rough-hewn face, beaten by wind and weather into an odd sort of resemblance to the rocksamong which he passed his life--the hardy and primitive life to which hehad been born, and to which all his ideas were limited, a life ofcontinual struggle with the elements for the satisfaction of primaryneeds, and which was directed by the movements of nature, by the tides, the winds, and the rising and setting of the sun and the moon. 

And thirdly there was Jean's nephew, Antoine. 

The day before Antoine was born, his father had been drowned in a stormwhich had wrecked many of the fishing-boats along the coast, and hismother, from the shock of the news, gave premature birth to her babe, and died a few hours after. His grandmother had brought up the child, and his silent, rough-handed uncle had adopted him, and worked for him, as if he were his own. So the little Antoine, with his blond head, andhis little bare feet, grew up in the rock-hewn cottage, like a brightgorse-flower among the boulders, and spent an untaught childhood, pattering about the granite floor, or clambering over the rough rocks, and dabbling in the salt water, where he would watch the beautiful greenanemones, that had so many fingers but no hands, and which he nevertouched, because, if he did, they spoilt themselves directly, packingtheir fingers up very quickly, so that they went into nowhere: or theprawns, that he always thought were the spirits of the other fish, forthey looked as if they were made of nothing, and they lay so still undera stone, as if they were not there, and then darted so quickly acrossthe pool that you could not see them go. 

Antoine knew a great deal about the spirits: how there were evil ones, such as that which dwelt in the great mushroom stone out yonder to sea, which was very powerful and wicked, so that the stone, being in fear, always trembled, yet could not fall, because the evil spirit would notlet it: and then there were others which haunted the little valleybeyond Esquinel Point, where you must not go after dark, for the spiritstook the form of Little Men, who had the power to send astray the witsof any that met them. Antoine feared those spirits more than any of theothers: they were so cunning and wanted to do you harm on purpose: andwhen he went with his grandmother to pray in the little chapel on theshore, he used to trot away from her side, as she knelt on her chairwith clasped hands and devoutly murmuring lips; and he would wander overthe rugged stone floor, till he found the niche in the wall where St. Nicholas stood, wearing a blue cloak with a pink border, and having suchlovely pink cheeks: the kind St. Nicholas that took care of littlechildren, and that had three little boys without any clothes on alwayswith him, in the kind of little boat he stood in. And Antoine wouldpray a childish prayer to St. Nicholas to protect him from the evilspirits of the valley. 

Antoine grew up very tall and strong. He accompanied Jean on his fishingexpeditions from the time he was twelve years old, and his uncle used tosay that he was of more use than many a grown man. He knew every rockand even-current along that dangerous coast: he could trim the boat tothe wind through narrow channels in weather in which Jean would hardlyventure to do it himself: and the way in which the fish took his baitmade Jean sometimes cross himself, as he counted over the shiningboat-load of bream and cod, and mutter in his guttural Breton speech, "'Tis the blessed St. Yvon aids him. " Everybody liked him in thevillage, and he took a kind of lead among the other lads, but, whetherit was the grave gaze of his blue eyes, or his earnest, outright speech, or some other quality about him less easy to define, they all had thesame kind of feeling in regard to him that his uncle had. He wasdifferent from themselves. There were indeed some among them in whomthis acknowledged superiority inspired envy and ill-will, and one inparticular, a lad that went lame with a club foot, but who had abeautiful countenance, with dark, glowing eyes and finely-cut features, never lost an opportunity of saying an ill word of, or doing an ill turnto Antoine. Geoffroi Le Cocq seemed never far off, wherever Antoinemight be. He would lounge in the doorway of the café, watching for him, and sing a mocking song as he passed down the road. He would mimic hissayings among the other lads, who were not, however, very ready to joinin deriding him. And once he contrived to poison the Kaudrens' bait, just when weather and season were at their best for fishing, so thatAntoine brought not a single fish home. Jean, with the quick-blazinganger of his race, declared that if he could find the man who had doneit, he would "break his skull. " But Antoine, though he knew well enoughwho had done it, held his peace. Geoffroi was quicker of speech thanAntoine, and on the Sunday, when the whole village trooped out of thelittle chapel after mass, and streamed down the winding village road, the women in their white coiffes and black shawls, and the men in theirround Breton hats with buckles and streaming ribbons, while knots beganto collect about the doors of the village cafés, and laughter, gossipand the sound of the fiddle arose on the sunny air, Geoffroi wouldgather a circle round him to hear his quips and odd stories, and to joinin the fun that he would mercilessly make of others less quick thanhimself at repartee. It was extraordinary on these occasions howGeoffroi, like a spider in his web on the watch for a fly, wouldcontrive to draw Antoine into his circle, sometimes as though it weremerely to show off his cleverness before him, at other times adroitlylighting on some quaint habit or saying of Antoine's, holding it up toridicule, now in one light, now in another, with a versatility thatwould have made his fortune as a comedian, and returning to the chargeagain and again, in the hope, as it seemed, of provoking Antoine'sseldom-stirred anger: but in this entirely failing, for Antoine wouldgenerally join heartily in the laugh himself. Only once did a convulsionof anger seize him, and he strode forward in the throng and gaveGeoffroi the lie to his face, when the latter had said that MariePierrés kissed him in the Valley of Dwarfs, the evening before. He knewthat Geoffroi only said it to spite him; for Marie--the daughter ofJean's partner--was his fiancée, and was as true as gold: but the imagethe words called up convulsed his brain; a blind impulse sprang upwithin him to strike and crush that beautiful face of Geoffroi's. Heclenched his fist and dared him to repeat the words. Geoffroi would onlyreply, in his venomous way, "Come to-night to the Valley and see if Ilie. " And the same instant the keen, strident voice was silenced by onestraight blow from Antoine's fist. 

In the confused clamour of harsh Breton speech that arose, as neighboursrushed to separate the two and friends took one side or the other, Antoine strode away with a brain on fire and a mind intent on oneobject--to prove the lie at once. 

To go to the Valley of Dwarfs in order to spy on Marie and Geoffroi wasimpossible to him. But he marched straight off to Marie's cottage. Heknew she would deny the charge, and her word was as good as the BlessedGospel: but he longed to hear the denial from her lips. He pictured heras she would look when she spoke: the hurt, innocent expression of hercandid eyes: her rosy cheeks flushing a deeper red under her demuresnow-white cap: her child-like lips uttering earnest and indignantprotestation. When he reached the cottage, he found the door locked; noone was about; he leaned his elbows on the low, stone wall in front andwaited. 

Presently clattering sabots were heard coming down the road, and heperceived old Jeanne Le Gall trudging along, her back nearly bent doubleunder a large bundle of dried sea-weed. She and her goat lived in thelow, rubble-built hovel, that adjoined the Pierrés' cottage, and fromher lonely, eccentric habits, and uncanny appearance, she had thereputation of being a sorceress. Antoine called to her to know whereMarie was. 

"Gone to the widow Conan's, " mumbled the old woman, her strange eyesgleaming under the sprays of sea-weed, "she and her father and mother, all of them. "

She deposited her load, and hobbled off again, fixing her eyes onAntoine as she turned away, but saying nothing more. 

Antoine strolled a little down the lane, seated himself on the steps ofthe cross at the corner, and waited--evening was drawing on and theywere sure to return before dark. 

Presently the cluck, cluck of the sabots was heard again, and old Jeanneslowly approached him from behind. She said something in her toothless, mumbling way, and held out a crumpled bit of paper in her shaking hand. He opened it and read, scrawled as if in haste, in ill-spelt Breton:

"I go to a baptism at St. Jean-du-Pied, and cannot return beforesun-down. Meet me at the cross on the hill-side at six o'clock, as Ifear to pass through the valley alone in the dark. Marie. "

As he studied the writing, the old woman's mumblings became morearticulate. She was saying, "'Twas the child Conan should have broughtit an hour ago. But he is ever good-for-nothing, and forgot it. "

Antoine looked at the sun, which was already westering, and perceivedthat he must set out to meet Marie in half-an-hour. He got up and walkedslowly towards the sandy shore of the little inlet, wide and wet at lowtide, on the other side of which lay his own home. He walked slowly, buthe felt as if he were hurrying at a headlong pace. The thought keptgoing round and round in his brain like a little torturing wheel, whichnothing would stop, that after all Marie _was_ going to the Dwarf'sValley this evening, just as Geoffroi had said. Geoffroi's words werestill sounding in his ears, and his right hand was clenched, as he hadclenched it when the whirlwind of anger first convulsed him. 

He entered his own cottage, hardly knowing what he did. 

Old Aimée was bending over the cauldron, cutting up cabbage for thesoup. 

"Good-bye, Grandmother, " he said. "I am going to the Dwarf's Valley. "

Aimée looked up at him out of her keen old eyes. 

"And why are you going there in the dark?" she said, "'Tis an evilmeeting place after the sun has set. "

"Why do you say meeting place, Grandmother Whom do you think I am goingto meet there?"

"The blessed Saints protect you, " she replied, "less you should meetWhom you would not. "

Antoine strode out again, without saying more. He fancied he was in theValley of Dwarfs already, about to meet Marie. He saw the weird, gnarledtrunks of trees on either hand, that grew among--sometimes writhedaround--the huge fantastic boulders: the dark cave-like recesses, formedstrangely between and under them where the dwarfs lay hidden to emergeat dusk: the sides of the ravine towering up stern and gloomy on eitherhand: and high above all against the sky, the grey stone cross at whichhe was to meet Marie. He saw it all as if he were there, and the groundbeneath him, as he tramped on, seemed unreal. Twilight was alreadyfalling over the rocks and the grey sea: there were no lights in thevillage, except such as shone here and there in a cottage window: thedistant roar of the sea was heard, as it dashed over a long line ofrocks two or three miles out, but there was hardly any other sound: theplace indeed seemed God-abandoned, like some long-forgotten strand of adead world, with the skeleton house on the rock above for its forsakencitadel. 

It was already dark in the ravine when Antoine arrived there, and anyonenot knowing how instinctive is the feeling for the ways of his motherearth in a son of the soil, would have thought his straightforwardstride, in such a chaos of rocks and pitfalls, reckless, till theyobserved with what certainty each step was taken where alone it waspossible and safe. He was making his way through the valley to the crossabove, where the light still lingered, and it yet wanted some fifteenminutes to the time of _rendez-vous_, when he suddenly stopped in alistening attitude; he had reached a part of the valley to whichsuperstition had attached the most dangerous character. A particularrock called "The Black Stone, " which towered over him on the left, andslightly bending towards the centre of the valley, seemed like somethreatening monster about to swoop upon the traveller, was especiallyregarded as the haunt of evil spirits. It was in this direction that henow heard a slight sound, which his practised ear discerned at once asnot being one of the sounds of nature. Immediately afterwards the shadowof the rock beside him seemed to move and enlarge, and out of it theresprang the figure of a man, and stood straight in Antoine's path. Antoine's whole frame became rigid, like that of a beast of prey on thepoint of springing, even before the shadow revealed its limping foot. 

Geoffroi was the first to speak. 

"You gave me the lie this afternoon. Take it back now and see what youthink of the taste of it. Would you like to see Marie?"

"What are you saying? What is it to you when I see Marie?"

"It is this--that I have arranged a nice little meeting for you. Hein?Are you not obliged to me?"

Antoine's voice sounded hollow and muffled as he replied, "Stand out ofthe path. You have nought to do between her and me. "

"You think so? Then you shall learn what I have to do. You think you aregoing to meet her at the cross at six o'clock. But you will not, youwill meet her sooner than that. It was I that sent you that message, andI have advanced the time by half an hour. Am I not kind?"

Antoine's hand was on his collar like an iron vice. 

"What have you done with her? Where is she?"

Geoffroi writhed himself free with movements lithe like those of apanther. "Will you take back the lie, " he said, "or will you see theproof with your own eyes?"

He was turning with a mocking sign to Antoine to follow, when from theleft of the rock beside which they stood, there darted forward thewhite-coiffed figure of a girl, who with extended arms and agonizedface, rushed up to Geoffroi, crying, "Take me away--I have seen Them!Take me away. "

She clung to Geoffroi's arm, and screamed when Antoine would havetouched her. Antoine stood for a moment as if turned to stone. Marieseemed half fainting and clung hysterically to Geoffroi, apparentlyhardly conscious of what she was doing. Geoffroi took her in his armsand kissed her. The act was so loathsome in its deliberate effrontery, that Antoine felt as if he was merely crushing a serpent when he struckhim to the ground and tore Marie from his hold. But he was dealing withsomething which he did not understand for Marie, finding herself in hisgrasp, opened her eyes on his face with a look of speechless terror, andbreaking from him, fled down the ravine, springing from rock to rockwith the security of recklessness. 

Antoine followed her, stumbling through the darkness, but his speed wasno match for the madness of fear, and his steps were still to be heardcrashing through the furze bushes and loose stones, when the whitecoiffe had flitted, like some bird of night, round the projectingboulders of the sea-coast, and disappeared. 

PART II. 

Old Jeanne Le Gall was leaning on her stick in her solitary way besidethe arched wellhead at the top of the lane, when she heard flying stepsalong the pathway of rock that bordered the sea, and peered through thetwilight with her cunning old eyes, alert for something uncanny, orperchance out of which she could make some profit for herself. Alreadythat day, she had earned a sou by carrying a bit of a letter, andtelling one or two little lies. As the steps came nearer, a kind ofmoaning and sobbing was heard, and the old woman, muttering toherself--"It is the voice of Marie. What has the devil's imp been doingto her?"--hobbled as fast as she could to the turning that led to thesea, and just as the flying figure appeared, put out her skinny hand toarrest it. There was a sudden scream, a fall, and Marie lay in the road, like one dead. 

The cry brought to their doors, one after another, the occupants of theneighbouring cottages; and as the dark-shawled, free-stepping Bretonwomen gathered round, for the clattering of sabots and of tongues, itmight have been a group of black sea-fowl clamouring over some'trouvaille' of the sea, thrown up among their rocks. 

They raised her painfully, with kind but ungentle hands, wept and calledon the saints, availing little in any way, till the heavy tramp of afisherman's nailed boots was heard on the rocks, and Antoine thrust thethrong aside, and bending over, took her up in his arms, as a mothermight her child, and without a word bore her along the road towards herhome. 

But he had scarcely placed her on the settle beside the bed, when hereyes opened, and as they rested on him, again the look of terror cameinto them: she flung herself away from him with a scream, and sobbingand uttering strange sounds of fear and aversion, was hardly to be heldby the other women. 

"She has lost her wits!" they cried. "Our Blessed Lady help her!"

White with fear themselves, and half believing it to be somesupernatural visitation, they clung round her, supporting her till thefit had passed, and she lay back on the bed exhausted and halfunconscious: her fresh, young lips drawn with an unnatural expression ofsuffering, and her frank, blue eyes heavy and lifeless. Antoine wasturned out of the cottage, lest the sight of him should excite heragain, and he marched away across the low rocks to his own home on thesolitary foreland. As he passed the chapel on the shore, he saw throughthe open door, a single taper burning before the shrine of St. Nicholas, and just serving to show the gloom and emptiness of the place; and itseemed to him as though the Saints had deserted it. 

He never saw Marie again. Once during her illness, the kind, clever oldAimée, wrung by the sight of her boy's haggard face, as he went to andfro about the boats, without food or sleep, took her way to the Pierrés'cottage, with the present of a fine fresh "dorade" for the invalid; andwhen she had stood for a minute by the bedside leaning on her stick, andlooking on the face of the half-unconscious girl, she began with hernatty old hand to pat Marie's shoulder, and with coaxing words to gether to say that she would see Antoine. But at the first sound of thename, the limp figure started up from the pillows, and from theinnocent, childish lips came a stream of strange, eager speech, as shepoured forth her conviction, like a cherished secret, that Antoine waspossessed of the Evil One: for Jeanne, the sorceress, had told her so:that he was one of _Them_, and by night in the valley you could see himin his own shape. Then she grew more wild, crying out that Antoinewould kill her: that he had bewitched her, and she must die. 

Anyone unaware of the hold which superstition has over the Breton mind, would perhaps hardly believe that the women stood round awe-struck atthis revelation, seeing nothing improbable in it. In spite of herdangerous state of excitement, they eagerly pressed her with questionsas to what she had seen, and what Jeanne had said, but she had becometoo incoherent to satisfy them, and only flung herself wildly about, crying, "Let me go--he will kill me--let me go:" till she suddenly sankdown motionless on the pillow, was silent for a few moments, and thenbegan to murmur over and over in an awe-struck, eager whisper, "Go tothe Black Stone this night, and you shall see. Go to the Black Stonethis night, and you shall see. "

While the old cronies shook their heads, muttering that it was true, there had always been something uncanny about Antoine: and see the wayhe would draw the fish into his net, against their own better sense: itwas plain there was something in Antoine they dared not resist:--oldAimée hobbled out with her stick and sabots, without saying a word, wentround to the open door of the next cottage, and peered round the roughwooden partition that screened off the inner half of the room. On asettle beside the hearth, where a cauldron was boiling, sat Jeanne, thesorceress, with her absorbed, concentrated air, as though her thoughtswere fixed on something which she could communicate to no one: sheturned her strange, bright eyes on the figure in the entrance, withoutchange of expression, and waited for Aimée to speak. 

Aimée's face was like a cut diamond, so keen and bright was it, asleaning on her stick, which she struck on the floor from time to timewith the emphasis of her speech, she said in her shrill Breton tones:--

"Mademoiselle Jeanne, I have come to ask of you what evil lie it is thatyou have told to the child Marie, that lies on her death-bed yonder. Come. You have been bribed by Geoffroi, that I know, and a son willpurchase snuff, and for that you will sell your soul. Good--It is foryou to do what you will with your own affairs: but when you cause aninjury to my belle-fille, so that she becomes like a mad woman and dies, I come to ask you for an account of what you have done, Mademoiselle:that you may undo what you have done, while there is yet time, Mademoiselle. "

Jeanne's thin, stern lips trembled, almost as if in fear, as shelistened to Aimée. She turned her shaking head slowly towards her, thenfixed her deep eyes on hers, and said:

"I have warned your belle-fille, that she may be saved. It was my lovefor her. Let her have nought to do with Them that dwell in the rocks andthe trunks of the great trees. "

Old Aimée shook her stick on the floor with rage. 

"Impious and wicked woman! Confess, I say, or I will tell the good curé, who knows your tricks, and he will not give you absolution; and thenthe Evil Ones will have their way with you yourself, for what shallsave you from them?"

The thin lips in the strange face trembled more. "The old sorceressdwells alone, abandoned of all, " she murmured. "If she take not a souwhen one or another will give it her, how shall she contrive to live?"

"What is it, " demanded Aimée, with increasing shrillness, "that you havetold the child Marie about my grandson?"

A look of cunning suddenly drove away the expression of conscious guiltin Jeanne's face. She dropped her eyes on the floor, mumbledinarticulately a moment, and then said shiftily, "You have perhaps a fewsous in your pocket, Madame, to show good-will to the sorceress; forwithout good-will she cannot tell you what you seek to know. "

Aimée's keen eyes flashed, as drawing forth two sous from her pocket, she said in a tone of incisive contempt, "You shall have these, Mademoiselle, but not till you have told me the whole truth, as youwould to the curé at confession. Come then--say. "

The sorceress began with shuffling tones and glances, which grew moresure as she went on:

"I watched for the little one returning on the afternoon of Sunday--_he_told me to do so. I was to give her the message that Antoine desired tomeet with her at the entrance of the Dwarf's Valley: I had but to givethe message: it was not my fault. I am but a poor old woman that doesthe bidding of others. "

"Well, well, " said Aimée, impatiently, "what else did you tell her?"

Jeanne looked at her interlocutor again, and a strange expression grewin her eyes. 

"It is Jeanne that knows the Evil Ones, that knows their shape and theirspeech. She knows them when they walk among men, and she knows them intheir homes in the dark valley. "

"Chut, chut, " cried Aimée, the more irritably that her maternal feelingshad to overcome her natural inclination to superstition. "It is only onething you have to tell--how did you frighten Marie so that she is readyto go out of her wits at the sight of Antoine?"

"Nay, it was Geoffroi that frightened her, as they went up the ravinetogether. I had but told her not to go alone, for that They were abroadthat night. " The old woman broke into a curious chuckle. "How sheshivered, like a chicken in the wind! H'ch, h'ch! Then _he_ took hold ofher arm and led her away, for I had told her _he_ was a safe protectoragainst the spirits, not like some that wear the face of man and go upand down in the village, saying that the people should not believe inJeanne the sorceress, for that she tells that which is untrue--whilethey themselves have dealings such as none can know with the Evil Ones. "

Aimée looked at her keenly for some moments with a curious expression onher tightly-folded lips. 

"You would have me believe that Marie went into the ravine when she knewthe spirits were about, and went on the arm of Geoffroi?"

"I tell you, Grandmère, that she did so. It was Jeanne that compelledher. For Jeanne knows when a man is in league with Them, and she said toMarie, 'Thou wilt wed Antoine, but thou knowest not what he is; go tothe Black Stone to-night, and thou shalt see. ' H'ch! Jeanne knowsnothing, does she? But Marie went, for she knew that Jeanne was wise. And what she saw, she saw. "

It was strange to see the conflict between superstition and naturalaffection in the face of Aimée. Her thoughts seemed to be rapidlyscanning the past, and there was fear as well as anger in her look. Could it be that this child, flung into her arms, as it were, from theshipwreck, born before his time of sorrow, the very offspring ofdeath, --that had always lived apart from the other lads, with strange, quiet ways of his own--that had astonished her by his wise sayings as achild--and that, growing up had brought unnatural prosperity to thehome, as though some higher hand were upon him--could it be that therewas something in him more than of this earth? Her hand trembled so thatit shook the stick on which she leant: she made one or two attempts tospeak, then dropped the two halfpence on the table, as if they burnther, and went out. 

When Marie was a little better, they sent her away to her marriedsister's at Cherbourg, for the doctor said that the only chance ofrecovering her balance of mind, lay in removing her from everything thatwould remind her of her fright, or of Antoine. News travels slowly inthose parts, especially among the poor and illiterate, and for monthsAntoine heard nothing of her, except for an occasional message broughtby some chance traveller from Cherbourg, to the effect that she wasstill ill: while his own troubles at home grew and gathered as time wenton. For since that night in the ravine everything seemed to have gonewrong. A superstitious fear had associated itself with the idea ofAntoine in the minds of the other villagers. The Kaudrens' cottage wasmore and more avoided, and the fishing business was injured, for peoplechose rather to buy their fish of those of whom no evil things werehinted. The Pierrés themselves were infected with this feeling, andMarie's father would go partner with Jean no longer. Jean could notsupport a fishing smack by himself, and gave up the distant voyages, confining himself to the long-shore fishing, and disposing of hisoysters, crayfish and prawns as best he could in the more remotevillages. Meanwhile, old Aimée, getting older and more feeble, would sitknitting in the cottage by a cheerless hearth, and as the supply ofpotatoes, chestnuts and black bread grew scantier and scantier, wouldfurtively watch Antoine, with anxious, awe-struck glances, and thenwould sometimes cross herself, and wipe a tear away unseen. 

It was on a wild, stormy morning of January, that a letter at lengtharrived for Antoine from Cherbourg. The news was blurted out withtactless plainness. 'La pauvre petite' was no more. In proportion as shegrew calmer in mind, it appeared, Marie had grown weaker in body: and acold she had contracted soon after her arrival in Cherbourg, had settledon her lungs, which were always delicate. For weeks she had not risenfrom her bed, but had gradually pined away. There was a message forAntoine. "Tell him, " she had said, in one of her last intervals ofconsciousness, "that I cannot bear to think of how I acted towards him. Tell him I did not know what I was doing. Ask him to come--to comequick. For I cannot die in peace, unless he forgives me. " But she haddied before the message could be sent. 

Antoine read the letter, crushed it in his great, trembling hand, andlooked round him as though searching blankly for the hostile power, thathad thus entangled, baffled and overthrown him. That voice from thegrave seemed to call on him to claim again the rights that had beensnatched from him. She was his, and he would see her face once more: hewould go to Cherbourg, and look on her dead face, that he might know it, for she was his. 

He would be in time, if he caught the night train (the funeral was thefollowing day). He would have to walk to St. Jean-du-Pied, the nextvillage along the coast, from which a _diligence_ started in theafternoon to the nearest railway station. Old Aimée did up a littlepacket of necessaries for him, and borrowed money for the journey, saying nothing as she watched his face, full of the inarticulatesuffering of the untaught. Antoine scarcely said farewell, as he walkedstraight out of the cottage door towards the sea, to take the shortestroute to St. Jean-du-Pied by the coast. The rocks were white from thesea-foam, as if with driven snow, and the black sea was lashed tomadness by a gale from the North East. The bitter wind tore across thebleak country-side, scourging every rock, tree and living thing thatattempted to resist it, like the desolation of God descending injudgment on the land. Wild, torn clouds chased each other across thesky, and the deep roar of the sea among the rocks could be heard farinland. 

Antoine's thoughts meanwhile were whirling tumultuously round and roundone object--an object that had hovered fitfully before his mind for manyweeks--pressing closer and closer on it, till at length with triumphantrealization, they seized on it and made it the imperious necessity ofhis will. 

Ever since the night in the ravine, Antoine had been living in a strangeworld: he had not known himself: his hand had seemed against everyman's, and every man's hand against his. He never went to mass, for hefelt that the good God had abandoned him. 

Now he suddenly realised what it was he needed--the just punishment ofGeoffroi. The path of life would be straight again, and God on HisThrone in heaven, when Justice had been vindicated, and he had visitedhis crime on the evil-doer. That he must do it himself, was plain to him. 

He marched on, possessed with a feeling that it was Geoffroi whom hewas going to seek, towards the projecting foreland that shut in thevillage on the east. He was drenched by the waves, as they dashed madlyagainst the walls of rock, and to get round the boulders under suchcircumstances was a dangerous task even for a skilled climber: butAntoine seemed borne forward by a force stronger than himself, and wenton without pause, or doubt, till in a small inlet on the other side ofthe foreland, he discerned a figure clinging to a narrow ledge of rock, usually out of reach of the tide, but towards which the mighty waveswere now rolling up more and more threateningly each moment. There wasno mistaking the lithe, cringing movements, the particular turn of thehead looking backward over the shoulder in terror at the menacingwaters: even if Antoine had not known beforehand that he must findGeoffroi on that path, and that he had come to meet him. 

Geoffroi's position was (for him) extremely dangerous. A bold climbermight have extricated himself; but for a lame man to reach safety acrossthe sea-scourged rocks was almost impossible. Could he hold on longenough and the sea rose no higher, he might be saved: but there wouldyet be an hour before the turn of the tide, and already the waves wereracing over the ledge on which he stood. Antoine sprang over theintervening rocks, scrambling and wading through the water, as if notseeing what he did, till he set foot on the ledge, and stood face toface with his enemy. 

Geoffroi's face was white with fear. He knew his hour was come. In themighty strife of the elements, within an inch of death on every side, hewas at Antoine's mercy. 

"Don't kill me, " he cried abjectly. "Have mercy, for the love of God. "

Antoine grasped the writhing creature by the shoulder. The white face ofMarie rose up before him. Geoffroi shrieked. A huge, heaving billowadvanced, swept round the feet of both and sank boiling in the gulfbeneath. The next that came would leave neither of them there. Antoinestood with his hand on Geoffroi's shoulder, as if he would crush it. Somewhat higher, but within reach, was a narrow projection in the rock, to which there was room for one to cling, and only for one: and Geoffroiwith his lame foot could not reach it alone. 

"Let me go, " he shrieked. "I will confess all: but save me, save me!"

Suddenly another wave of feeling surged up in the soul of Antoine. Heseemed to see the cross on the hill side, as it stood in light thatevening when he was to have met Marie there. He saw the good God on thecross again, as he used to see Him in the chapel. He had a strange, deepfeeling that he was God, or that God was he. He seemed to be on thatcross himself. The great, green wave towered above them twenty feet inair. He grasped Geoffroi by both shoulders, and flung him up to theledge above with a kind of scorn. The next moment the rolling seadescended. Antoine clung with all his force to the rock, but he knewthat he should never see the light again. 

So was he drawn out into the great deep, in whose arms his father lay:and the fisher-folk, when they knew it, looked for no sign of him more, for they said he had gone back to the sea, from whence he came. For, though they never knew the true story of his death, they felt that aspirit of a different mould from theirs had passed from among them inhis own way. 

[Illustration:]

TWICE A CHILD. 

Halfway up the mountain-side, overlooking a ravine, through which astreamlet flowed to the lake, stood a woodman's cottage. In the room onwhich the front door opened were two persons--an infant in a woodencradle, in the corner between the fire-place and the window; and, seatedon a stool in the flood of sunlight that streamed through the doorway, an old man. His lips were moving slightly, and his face had the look ofone whose thoughts were far away. On the patch of floor in front of himlay cross-bars of sunlight, which flowed in through the casement window. The sky overhead was cloudless, while the murky belt on the horizon wasnot visible from the cottage door. In the windless calm no leaf seemedto stir in the forest around. The cottage clock in the corner ticked thepassing moments; the wild cry of the "curry fowl" was heard now andagain from the lake; there was no other sound in the summer afternoon, and the deep heart of nature seemed at rest. 

The old man's eyes rested on the bars of sunlight, but he saw anotherscene. On his face, in which the simplicity of childhood seemed to havereappeared, was a knowing, amused look, expressing infinite relish ofsome inward thought, the simple essence of mischief. Bars of sunlight, just like those, used to lie on the schoolroom floor when he was alittle boy, and was sent to Dame Gartney's school to be kept out ofharm's way, and to learn what he might. He saw himself, an urchin offive or six years, seated on a stool beside the Dame's great arm-chair. She was slowly, with dim eyes, threading a needle for the tiny maidenstanding before her, clutching in her hot little hand the unhemmedduster on which she was to learn to sew. The thread approached theneedle's eye; it was nearly in, when the arm-chair gave a very littleshake, apparently of its own accord; the old lady missed her aim, andthe needle and the thread were as far apart as ever, while the small impsitting quiet at her side was unsuspected. Not once nor twice only wasthis little game successfully played. It used to enliven the hot, sleepyafternoon, while the bars of light were crawling slowly--oh! soslowly--across the floor. He knew school would be over when the outeredge of sunlight touched the corner of the box-bed against the wall, where the little girl that lived there and called the dame "Granny" wasput to sleep of a night. 

His school experience was short, consisting, indeed, of but six brightsummer weeks, after which it had become his business to mind the baby, while his mother went out to work. But the most vivid of the impressionsof his childhood were connected with that brief school career. Distinctabove the rest stood out the memory of one afternoon, when sitting onhis low stool he had seen dark smudges of shadow come straying, curling, whirling across the squares of sunlight; when shouts had arisen in theyard, and just as the dame had made Effie May hold out her hand fordropping her thimble the third time, the back-door was burst open byEbenezer, the milkman, who cried out that the Dame's cow-house was onfire. He could see the old lady now, with the child's shrinking fingersfirmly gripped in hers, her horny old hand arrested in the act ofdescending on the little pink palm (which escaped scot-free in theconfusion) while she gazed for a moment, open-mouthed, at the speaker, as though she had come to a word which _she_ couldn't spell, then jumpedup with surprising quickness and hobbled across the floor without herstick, the point of her mob-cap nodding to every part of the room, whileshe moved the whole of herself first to one side and then to the otheras she walked, like one of the geese waddling across the common. 

"Goo back and mind yerr book!" cried the old lady to the sharp-eyedlittle boy, who was peeping round her skirts. But he did not go back. Who could, when they saw those tongues of flame shooting up, and thevolumes of smoke darkening the summer sky, as the wooden shed and thepalings near it caught and smoked and crackled, and heard the cries ofmen and boys shouting for water and more water, which old Jack Foster, and idiot Tom, and some women, with baskets hastily deposited by theroadside, and even boys not much bigger than himself, were toiling tobring as fast as possible in pails from the brook, before the flamesshould spread to the row of cottages so perilously near? No earthlypower could have kept the mite out of the fray. Before the old dame knewwhere he was, his little hands were clenched round the handle of a heavyiron pail, and he was struggling up the yard to where the men weretearing down the connecting fences, in a desperate endeavour to stay theonrush, of the flames. To and fro, to and fro, the child toiled, begrimed by falling blacks, scorched by the blaze, his whole mind intenton one thing--to stop the burning of that charred and tottering mass. 

It was done at last, and the cottages were saved. The rescue partydispersed, and the dirty, tired boy strayed slowly homeward down thevillage street. He could see himself now arriving soot-covered, andwell-nigh speechless with fatigue, at his mother's door, could hear thecries and exclamations that arose at the sight of him, could feel thetender hands that removed the clothes from his hot little body, andwashed him, and put him to bed. It took him several days to recover fromthe fever into which he had put himself, and it was then he had begun tomind the baby instead of going to school. Praise was liberally bestowedin the county paper on Mr. Ebenezer Rooke and his assistants, who bytheir energy and forethought had saved the village from destruction butno one had noticed the efforts of the tiny child, working beyond hisstrength; and, indeed, he himself had had no idea of being noticed. 

As he sat now on the stool in the sunny doorway, and looked up themountain-valley, to which he had been brought in his declining years toshare his married daughter's home, the detail in that tragedy of hischildhood, which pictured itself in his mind's eye more clearly than anyother, was the shadow of the spreading, coiling puffs of smoke, whichhad first caught his childish attention, blurring the bars of sunlighton the floor of the Dame's kitchen. Perhaps it was on account of thelikeness to the pattern now made by the sun, as it shone through thecasement between him and the baby's cradle. For the gentle, domestic oldman was often now, as in his docile childhood, charged to "mind thebaby, " and one of the quiet pleasures of his latter days was the sightof the little floweret, that grew so sweetly beside his sere andwithered life. An uncultured sense of beauty within him was appealed toby the rounded limbs, the silent, dimpled laugh, the tottering feetfeeling their unknown way, and all the sweet curves and softnesses, theinnocent surprises and _naïve_ desires, which made up for him the imageof "the baby. " He would have said she was "prutty, " implying much by theword. 

As he gazed at his precious charge, and watched the sunlight patternslowly but surely creeping towards the foot of the cradle, he had an oddfeeling that school would soon be over. A moment after he rubbed hiseyes and looked again. Was it true, or was he dreaming? Were thoseshadowy whirls of smoke, dimming the sunshine, a vision of the past, ordid he actually see them before him, as of old, coiling about and aroundthe bars of light on the floor? It was certainly there, the shadow ofsmoke, and came he could not tell whence; for in all the unpeopledvalley there were, of human beings, as far as he knew at that moment, only himself and the baby. To his mind, so full of the past, it seemedthe herald of another danger. 

He raised himself with difficulty from his stool, and moved his stifflimbs to the threshold. As he did so, he noticed that the smoke waswithin the room as well as without; it was festooning about the baby'scradle, it was filling the place, there was scarcely air to breathe. Hisfirst idea, as he smelt the soot, and saw the blacks showering on thehearth, was that the chimney was on fire. He went straight to the babyin its cradle, and, his limbs forgetting their stiffness, lifted her inhis arms to carry her to a place of safety; when that was done he wouldtake off the embers from the grate, and sprinkle salt on the hearth toquench the fire. 

Not till he reached the door did he notice a sound that filled thevalley. A strange, high-pitched note, like a hundred curry-fowl cryingat once--a wail, as of spirits in hell. Now from one direction, now fromanother; now rising, now falling, the weird, unearthly shriek seemedeverywhere at once, increasing each moment in force and shrillness. Asthe old man, holding the baby close to him, looked up and listened, fearstruck his lips with a sudden trembling. Opposite to him he saw astrange sight. Halfway up the mountain, on the other side of the valley, not a leaf on the trees was stirring: the lower slopes lay basking inthe sunshine, and the shadows of fleeting clouds only added to thepeaceful beauty of the scene; while the trees above were ragingbacchanals, whirling, swaying, tossing their long arms in futile agony, as though possessed by some unseen demoniacal power. 

In a moment the old man knew what had befallen him. The bewitched smoke, the shrieking spirits of the air, the motionless valley, and themaddened trees, of all these he had heard before, for he had listened totales of the tornado in the valley, and knew what it meant to thedefenceless dwellers on the upper slopes. The skirts of the fury weretouching him even now; a sudden gust swept by; to draw breath for themoment was impossible, and his unsteady balance would soon have beenoverthrown; he was forced to cling to the doorpost, still holding thebaby close. But the quiet, comprehending expression never left his face;he knew what was to be done, and he meant to do it; there might be time. 

He set down the baby in the cradle, took off his coat, grasped a spadein his shaking hand, and hobbled across the patch of open ground to aspot as far distant as possible both from the cottage and from theborders of the wood; the maddened wind was wailing itself away in thedistance, and happily for a few minutes there was a lull in the air. Hecould hear the baby crying, left alone in the cottage. He never lookedoff from his work, but went on digging a hole in the form of a littlegrave. The surface of the ground was hard, and the old man wasshort-winded; he could hardly gather enough force to drive the spade in. Before long, however, a few inches of the upper crust were removed froma space about three feet in length. The digging in the softer earthwould now be easier and more rapid. As he worked on, a few heavy dropsof rain fell. He looked up and saw the whole sky, lately full ofsunlight, a mass of driving, ink-black clouds, while the shriek of thehurricane was heard again in the distance. The baby's cry was drowned byit. The hole was as yet only half a foot deep. At the next thrust thespade struck on a slanting ledge of slaty rock. No further progresscould be made there; the trench must be dug in a different direction. Once more the old man, panting heavily, drove the spade into the hardground, and in two or three minutes had so far altered the position ofthe hole that the rock was avoided. The gale was increasing everymoment, and at times he could hardly keep his feet. 

Suddenly, through the roar of the wind, was heard another sound, arattling and rushing, as of loosened stones and of earth. All his senseson the alert, the old man glanced swiftly up, and saw a row of four tallfir trees, which stood out like sentinels, on a ridge of the mountain, in the very path of the storm, turn over like nine-pins, one after theother, and tearing up the soil with their roots, slip down themountain-side, dragging with them an avalanche of earth. His eye dartedto the cottage with a sudden fear. Even as he looked, the wind waslifting some of the slates on the roof, rattling them, loosening them, and in a few moments would scatter them around like chaff, chaff thatwould bring death to any on whom it should chance to light. With an odd, calculating look, the old man turned again to his digging, and, breathless as before, shovelled out the earth from the hole, with aspeed of which his stiff and feeble frame would have been thoughtincapable; while now and again, without ceasing his work, he darted abackward glance at the doomed cottage. It ought to stand until the holewas dug; and at least in the digging there was a chance of safety: ingoing back to fetch the baby now, there was none. 

After about five minutes, with a hideous yell, the demon tore in suchfury across the mountain-side, that the old man would have been carriedoff his feet in a moment, and swept with the rest of the _débris_ intothe valley, but that he threw himself on the ground, clutching tightlywith his fingers the edge of the hole he had dug. In the bottom of thehole a thistle-down lay unmoved. When the lull came, and he could raisehis head, having escaped injury or death from falling stocks and stones, he darted over his shoulder a glance of awful anxiety at the cottage--ofsuch anxiety as a strong man may reach to the depths of but once ortwice in his prime. The roof of the cottage was gone; there were nofragments, for the wind was a clean sweeper; it had bodily vanished. Thewalls stood. He dragged himself unsteadily to his feet, and lookedabout for his spade. It was nowhere to be seen; the besom of the galehad whirled it to some unknown limbo. 

The hole was still not quite a foot and a half deep, and would notpreserve the cradle, if placed therein, from the destroyer. He shuffledback to the cottage with awkward, hasty steps. The baby had cried itselfto sleep, and lay in its cradle in the corner, unconscious of the ruinof its home. The old man went to the hearth, on which the fire had beenblown out, and from under the ashes dragged out a battered fire-shovel, its edge worn away, its handle loose. It was the nearest approach to aspade that was left him. Just as he got back to the hole another blastcarried him off his feet, and he fell prostrate, this time clutching hissubstitute spade beneath him. He rose again, stepped into the hole, crouching down as low as possible, and rapidly raised out of it oneshovelful of earth after another; it was no sooner on the surface thanit was whisked away like dust. In the wood, a furlong to the right, somedozen trees were prostrated between one thrust of the shovel and thenext; dark straight firs and silver birches, that slipped downwards tothe valley like stiff, gleaming snakes. 

Meanwhile the shovel had struck on a layer of stones, the remains ofsome past landslip, since buried under flowering earth. With itsturned-back edge, it was hard to insert it below them, and again andagain it came up having raised nothing but a little gravel; but the oldman worked on still with his docile, child-like look, intent upon histask. Presently the infirm handle came off, and the shovel dropped intothe bottom of the hole. At the same moment, with a wilder shriek and afiercer on-rush, the fury came tearing again along the mountain side;the whole of the trees that yet remained in the patch of forest nearestto the cottage were swept away at once, and the slope was left bare. Theold man crouched down in his hole, with his anxious eye fixed on thefour walls within which the baby was sheltered; they still stood, theonly object which the demon had not yet swept from his path. And even asthe old man looked, he saw the upper part of the back wall begin toloosen, to totter, and give way. The baby was in the front room, but wasunder the windward wall. In the teeth of the gale the old man crawledout of the hole, extended his length on the ground, and began to draghis stiff and trembling frame, with hands, elbows and knees, across thefifty feet or so of barren soil that lay between the hole and thecottage. He heard the crash of bricks before he had accomplished halfthe distance; without pausing to look he crawled rapidly on till hecrossed the threshold, and saw the babe still sleeping safely in itswooden cradle. There were two large iron dogs in the grate; he drew themout and placed them--panting painfully with the effort, for they werealmost beyond his strength to lift--in the cradle, under the littlemattress, one at each end. The baby, disturbed in its slumber, stretchedits little limbs, smiled at him, and went to sleep again. He doubled asack over the coverlet, tied a rope round the cradle, fastened it by aslip-knot underneath, pulled out the end at the back, and tightened ittill it dragged against the hood. The cradle went on its wheels wellenough to the door. Then the old man summoned his remaining strength, and having knotted the rope round his waist, threw himself on the groundagain, and emerged with his precious charge into the roaring hurricane. Across the barren mountain slope, far above the ken of any fellow-being, in the teeth of death, the old man crept with the sleeping babe. Anotherthreatening of the deluge of rain, which would surely accompany thetornado, added to the misery of the painful journey; the sudden downpourof heavy drops drenched the grandfather to the skin, but the grandchildwas protected under the sacking. 

They reached the hole at length, and raising himself to his knees, thewind being somewhat less boisterous while the rain was falling, the oldman clutched the heavily-weighted cradle in both arms, and attempted toforce it into the haven of safety he had spent his strength in forming. Alas! there was not room. The cradle was wider across than he hadcalculated. To take the child out and place it with the bedding in thehole would be leaving it to drown. Should the expected deluge descend, the trench he had dug would but form a reservoir for water. He seizedthe shovel, working it as well as he could without a handle, andattempted to break down and widen the edges. Pushing, stamping, drivingwith his make-shift spade, now clutching at the edges with his fingersand loosening the stones, now forcing them in with his heel, hesucceeded in working through the hard upper surface; then breathless, dizzy, spent, with hands that could scarce grasp the shovel, andstumbling feet that each moment threatened to fail him, he spaded outthe softer earth below and scraped and tore at the sides, till the holewas wide enough to contain the cradle, and deep enough to ensure itssafety. 

The last shovelful was raised, and the old man was stooping down to liftthe cradle in, when the wildest war-cry yet uttered by the ragingelements rang round the mountain side; all the former blasts seemed tohave been but forerunners or skirmishers heralding the approach of theelemental forces; but now with awful ferocity and determination advancedthe very centre of the fiendish host; while the horns were blown frommountain to mountain, announcing utter destruction to whatsoever shouldventure to obstruct the path of the army of the winds. In the shriekingsolitude it seemed as if chaos and the end of the world were come. Thepoor old man crouched down, keeping his body between the gale and thebaby's cradle, while the last remaining wall of the cottage fell flatbefore his eyes. But he felt himself being urged slowly but surely awayfrom the refuge of the trench, downwards, downwards. The cradle, inspite of its iron ballast, was just overturning, when, with the strengthof despair, he threw his body across it, digging his feet into theground, and once more knotted the loose end of rope around his waist. The downward slip was stayed. Pushing the cradle with knees and arms, clutching the soil with hands and feet, he crept with his preciouscharge nearer and nearer the widened hole. Once over the edge the babywould be safe. The windy fiend seemed to be pursuing him with vindictivehate. It shrieked and tore around that bare strip of mountain side, asthough the whole purpose of its fury was to destroy the old man and thebabe. With a superhuman effort he grasped the cradle in both arms andlifted it in, then fell senseless across the opening. 

Gradually the demon horns ceased to blow, the great guns died intosilence, and the army of the air dispersed. The rain fell in torrents, but the old man never moved. 

When the storm was over, and anxious steps hastened up the mountainpath, and horror-stricken faces gazed at the ruined home and the havocall around, there was broken-hearted lamentation for the old man and thechild, supposed to have perished in the tornado. At last the mother'ssearching eye discerned in the sunshine that lay across the stillmountain-side an unfamiliar object; and hastening towards it with thelingering hope of learning some news of her darling, she perceived theold man lying in his last sleep, with the eternal Peace in hischild-like face, still stretched as if in protection across a trench, inwhich the baby lay safe in its cradle, sleeping as peacefully as he. 

THE ROAD BY THE SEA. 

PART I. 

From East to West there stretched a long, straight road, glimmeringwhite across the grey evening landscape: silently conscious, it seemed, of the countless human feet, that for ages had trodden it and gone theirway--their way for good, or their way for evil, while the road remained. Coming as an alien from unknown scenes, the one thing in the countrythat spoke of change, yet itself more lasting than any, it seemed to beever pursuing some secret purpose: persistent, relentless: a veryNemesis of a road. 

On either side of it were barren "dunes, " grudgingly covered bystraggling heather and gorse, and to the South, at a little distance, rolled the dark-blue sea. 

On the edge of the dune, near to a cluster of sweet-scented pines, stoodtwo or three cottages built of grey stone, after the Breton manner, withhigh-pitched roofs of dove-coloured slate, and arched stone doorways, around which scratched pigs and hens, on equal terms with barefootedchildren. One of the cottages had "Buvette" inscribed over it in large, white letters, and a bench outside under a little awning; and oppositeto this, a rough pathway led out of the road over the waste land to ahamlet on the dune, of which the grey, clustering cottages, crowning arising ground about half a mile off, stood distinct against the opal skyof early evening. 

Framed in the stone doorway of the Buvette, was the figure of a girl ina snow-white coiffe, of which the lappets waved in the wind, a shortblue skirt, and sabots. She had a curious, inexpressive face, with thepatient look of a dumb creature, and an odd little curl in her upperlip, which, with her mute expression, made her seem to be continuallydeprecating disapproval. She stood shading her eyes from the slantingsunbeams, as she looked up the road to the West. A little before her, out on the road, stood two other women, elderly, both white-capped, oneleaning on a stick: they addressed brief sentences to one another nowand again, in the disconnected manner of those who are expectingsomething: and they also stood looking up the road to the West. 

And not they only, but a group of peasants belonging to the hamlet onthe hill; free-stepping, strong-limbed Breton women, returning from thecliffs with bundles of dried sea-weed on their backs: a woman and twoyoung lads from the furthermost cottage, with hoes in their hands, whohad stepped out on to the road from their work of weeding the sorrypiece of ground they had fenced in from the dune, and which yielded, atthe best, more stones than vegetables: a couple of fishermen, who weretramping along the road with a basket of mackerel: and even old lameJacques, who had risen from the bench on which he usually sat as thoughhe had taken root there, and leant tottering on his stick, as hestrained his blear eyes against the sunbeams: all stopped as if by oneimpulse: all seemed absorbed by one expectation, and stood gazing up thelong, white road to the West. 

The road was like a sensitive thing to ears long familiar with itsvarious sounds, and vibrated at a mile's distance with the gallop ofunwonted hoofs, or the haste of a rider that told of strange news. Moreover, all hearts were open to the touch of fear that Octoberevening, when at any hour word might be brought of the fishing fleetthat should now be returning from its long absence in distant seas: andone dare hardly think whether Jean and Pierre and little André would allbe restored safely to the vacant places around the cottage fire: onedared not think: one could only pray to the Saints, and wait. 

The girl with the mute, patient face had been the first to catch thesounds of galloping hoofs. She had from birth been almost speechless, with a paralysed tongue, but as if to compensate for this, her senses oftouch and hearing were extraordinarily acute. The daughter of theaubergiste, she knew all who came and went along the road: the sightsand sounds of the road were her interest the life of it was her life. She had heard in the faint, faint distance the galloping hoofs to theWest: off the great rocks to the West the fleet should first besighted: towards the West all one's senses seemed strained, on the alertfor signals of danger, or hope: and at the sound, the heart withinAnnette's breast leaped with a sudden certainty of disaster. 

Annette had never thought of love and marriage as possible for herself, but Paul Gignol had gone with the fleet for the first time this summer, and, for Annette, danger to the fleet meant danger to Paul. Paul andAnnette were kin on her mother's side, and he being an orphan andadopted by her father, they had been brought up together like brotherand sister. This summer had separated them for the first time, and whenhe bade her good-bye and sailed away, Annette felt like an uprootedpiece of heather cast loose on the roadside, and belonging nowhere. Andthe first faint sounds of the hoofs on the road had struck on her ear asa signal from Paul. She made no sign, only stood still with a beatingheart. And when the neighbours saw the dumb girl listening, they toocame out into the road, and heard the galloping, now growing more andmore distinct; and waited for the rider to appear on the ridge of thehill, which, some half mile off, raised its purple outline against thewestern sky. 

They came out when they saw the dumb girl listening: for the keenness ofthe perceptions with which her fragile body was endowed, was well knownamong them, and was attributed to the direct agency of the unseenpowers; with whom indeed she had been acknowledged from her birth tohave closer relations than is the lot of ordinary mortals. For therecould be no doubt that Annette's mother had received an intimation ofsome sort from the other world, the night before her child was born. Shehad been found lying senseless in the moonlight on the hill-top, and hadnever spoken from that hour till her death a week afterwards. As to whatshe had met or seen, there were various rumours: some of the shrewdergossips declaring that it was nothing but old Marie Gourdon, thesorceress, who had frightened her by predicting in her mysteriouswisdom, which not the shrewdest of them dared altogether disregard, thatsome strange calamity would attend the life of the child she was aboutto bring forth; a child that had indeed turned out speechless, and of sosickly a constitution that from year to year one hardly expected her tolive. Moreover, was it not the ill-omened figure of the old witch-woman, that had hobbled into the auberge with the news that Christine Lerouxwas lying like one dead by the roadside? On the other hand, however, itwas asserted with equal assurance, that she had seen in the moonlight, with her own eyes, the evil spirit of the dunes: him of whom alltravellers by night must beware; for it was his pleasure to delude themby showing lights as if of cottage windows on the waste land, where nocottage was: while twice within living memory, he had kindled falsefires on the great rock out at sea, which they called Le Géant, luringmariners to their death: and woe betide the solitary wayfarer whose pathhe crossed!

Annette's father knew what his wife had seen: and one winter eveningbeside the peat-fire, as Annette was busy with her distaff, and he satsmoking and watching the glowing embers, he told her her mother's story. She and Paul's father, the elder Paul Gignol, had been betrothed intheir youth; but his fishing-smack had struck on the rocks one foggynight, and gone down, and with it all his worldly wealth. AndChristine's father had broken off the match; for he had never beenfavourable to it, and how was Paul to keep her now with nothing to lookto, but what might be picked up in the harbour? And Paul was like onemad, and threatened to do her a bodily mischief, so that she was afraidto walk out at night by herself: and her father offered him money to goaway: and he refused the money: but he went off at last, hiring himselfout on a cargo-boat, and declaring as he went, that one day yet, hewould meet Christine in the way, and have his revenge. And he was abroadfor years, and wedded some English woman in one of the British sea-porttowns, and at last was lost at sea on the very night on which Annettewas born. 

"And his spirit it was, Annette, that appeared to your mother in theroad that night, the very hour that he died. For it was borne in on methat he had met her in the way, as he had said, and I asked her, as shelay a-dying, if it was Paul that she had seen; and she looked at me witheyes that spoke as plain as the speech that she had lost: and said thatit was he. "

Jules was ordinarily a silent man: he told the story slowly, with longpauses between the sentences: and when he had once told it, he neverspoke of it again. 

Now Annette thought of many things in her quiet, clear-sighted way. Sheknew that her mother had been found senseless at the foot of the menhir, which they called Jean of Kerdual, just beyond the crest of the hill:and she had often noticed the shadow which the great, weird stone threwacross the road, and thought how like it was (especially by moonlight)to the figure of a fisherman with his peaked cap and blouse. Shebelieved there was more in this than a chance resemblance; for to aBreton girl the supernatural world is very real: and she had no doubtthat the spirit of Paul's father haunted the stone that was so like hisbodily form, and that on the night when he was drowned, the dumb menhirhad found voice, and had spoken to her mother in his name. Annettealways avoided Jean of Kerdual, if it was possible to do so, and wouldnever let his shadow fall upon her. She felt that the solemn, world-oldstone was in some way hostile to her, and attributed her dumbness to itsinfluence. 

She often wished that she and her father did not live so near the stone. It had come to be like a nightmare to her. She would dream that it stoodthreateningly over her, enveloping her in its shadow: that she wasstruggling to speak, and that it reached forth a hand, heavy as stone, and laid it on her mouth, stifling utterance. Then the paralysis thathad fettered her tongue from her birth, would creep over the rest of hersenses and over all her limbs, till she lay motionless and helplessunder the hand of the menhir, like a stone herself, only alive andconscious. This dream had come more frequently since Paul had been away, and Annette would often look up and down the road--that road which washer only link with the world beyond--in the vague hope that it might oneday bring her some deliverance. 

And now, as she stood listening to the galloping hoofs, she had an oddfeeling that Jean of Kerdual was threatening once more to render herpowerless, but that this time he would not prevail: for that somethingwas coming along the road, nearer--nearer--with every gallop, to freeher from him for ever. Then suddenly the sounds changed: the horsemanwas ascending the hill on the other side, and the galloping grewlaboured and slower. Would he never come into sight? It seemed toAnnette that she could bear it no longer: she set off and ran along theroad and up the hill, to meet the unseen rider. The slow-thoughted, simple-minded peasants looked after her, wondering. She had nearlyreached the top, when, silhouetted against the sky on the crest of thehill, appeared the figure of a man on horse-back, his Breton tunic andlong hat-ribbons flying loose in the wind, as he reined in his chafingsteed. He rose a moment in his stirrups, pointed out to sea with hiswhip, and shouted something inaudible: at the same instant his horseshied violently, as it seemed, at some object by the roadside, andthrew his rider to the ground. 

The man, the bringer of tidings, lay motionless in the road, the horsegalloped wildly on: the dumb girl stood, half way up the hill: the dumbgirl, who alone had heard the message. The next moment she threw herarms convulsively above her head, turned towards the group below, andcried in a loud, clear voice, "Le Géant brûle!"

The words fell on the ears of the listening crowd as if with an electricshock. As they repeated them to each other with fear and amazement, andscattered hither and thither to saddle a horse, or to catch the runawaysteed, that they might carry the news in time over the two miles thatlay between them and the harbour, the fact that the dumb had spoken, seemed for the moment hardly noticed by them. For might not thefishing-fleet even now be rounding the point, with darkness coming on, and the misleading light burning on the giant rock to lure them todestruction? A light which, as they knew too well, was not visible fromthe harbour, and which might be shewing its fatal signal unguessed thewhole night through, unless as now, by favour of the saints, anddoubtless by the quick eyes of some fisherman of the neighbouringvillage, who had chanced to be far enough out to sea at the time, itwere perceived before darkness should fall. 

The girl turned back again, and went up to the top of the hill to tendthe fallen rider. The sun was sinking, and threw the shadow of themenhir, enlarged to a monstrous size, across her path. A few yardsfurther on lay the senseless form of the Breton horseman, and it wasclear to Annette that Jean of Kerdual had purposely stayed the rider bythrowing the shadow across the road to startle his horse. 

But a new exhilaration had taken possession of Annette's whole body andmind. She feared the menhir no longer: its power over her was gone. Shekept repeating the words that had come to her at the crisis, the firstshe had spoken articulately all her life, "Le Géant brûle--Le Géantbrûle, " with a confidence in herself and the future, which was like newwine to her. The fleet would come safe home now, and by her means: forthe Saints had helped her: the Saints were on her side. 

PART II. 

When Annette brought the fallen man (who was already recoveringconsciousness when she reached him) safe back in the cart to theauberge, she found a little crowd of peasants, men and women, gatheredthere, talking loud and eagerly over the news, who looked at her with areverent curiosity as she entered. The injured man was assisted to abed, but none spoke to Annette: only silent, awe-struck glances wereturned on her: for they had gradually realized the fact that a voice hadbeen given to the dumb girl, and Annette's quiet, familiar presence hadbecome charged with mystery for them. They had no doubt that theblessed St. Yvon, the patron saint of mariners, had himself uttered thewarning through her, at the moment when the safety of the fishing fleetdepended on a spoken word: and the miracle now occupied their attentionalmost to the exclusion of the false lights and the return of the boats. 

But Annette observed their whisperings and glances with a slight touchof contempt: she knew that her own voice had been restored to her, andthat she was now like any of the other women in the village; which, inher own simple presentment of things, must be interpreted as meaningthat she might look to have a husband and a home of her own. It was asthough she had for the first time become a real woman. She saddled thehorse and rode off to fetch a doctor to attend to the sick man, thinkingall the while that the fleet would be in before morning, that Paul wouldcome home, and that he would hear her voice. She made little childishplans of pretending to be still dumb when she first saw him, so that shemight surprise him the more when she should speak. 

Darkness was fast gathering now, but the old horse knew every stone inthe road: he carried her with his steady jog-trot safely enough over thetwo miles that lay between the auberge and the fishing village where thedoctor lived, in a house overlooking the _rade_ and the harbour. As shepassed along, the dark quays were full of moving lights and figures;active women with short skirts and sabots, mingling in the groups offishermen; while a buzz of harsh Breton speech resounded on all sides. She caught words about a gang of wreckers that had lately infested thecoast: and the names of one or two "_mauvais sujets_" in the village, who were supposed to be their confederates. She saw a moving light atthe mouth of the harbour, and from a low-breathed murmur that ran belowthe noisier speech of the crowd, she gathered that it was a boat's crewgoing out in the darkness, to scale the precipitous rock, and extinguishthe light. 

All her faculties seemed quickened, and she kept repeating aloud toherself the words she heard in the crowd, to make sure that she couldarticulate as clearly as she had done in the first moment that her voicewas given to her. 

When she arrived at the doctor's gate, and dismounted to pull the greatiron bell-rope that hung outside, she was trembling violently, and couldhardly steady her hands to tie up the horse. Jeanne, the cook's sister, took her into the kitchen, while some one fetched the doctor, and shewas so anxious that her speech should seem plain to them, that for thefew first moments, from sheer nervousness, she could not utter a word. Then the doctor entered, a tall, well-built man, with stiff, iron-greyhair and imperial, and an expression of genial contentment with himselfand the rest of the world. 

"Mais, Mademoiselle Annette, " he exclaimed the moment he saw her, "Whatare you doing then? You must return home and go to bed at once. Why didyou not send me word before, instead of putting it off till you got soill?"

He did not wait for her to reply, believing her to be speechless asusual, but placed her in a chair and began to feel her pulse. She wastrying to speak all the time, but from excitement and a strangedizziness that had come over her, she could not at once use her newfaculty. At last she got out the words, that it was not for herself shehad come; that a _fermier_ who had ridden fast from the village of St. Jean, further up the coast, to bring the news of the false light on theGéant, had been thrown from his horse--but before she had finished thesentence, the doctor, still absorbed in the contemplation of her owncase, interrupted her, exclaiming with astonishment at her new power ofspeech, and demanding to know by what means it had come, and how longshe had possessed it. 

But to recall the experience of that moment on the hill, when at thethought of the danger menacing the fishing boats, her tongue had beenloosened, and the unaccustomed words had come forth, was too much forAnnette. She trembled so, and made such painful efforts to speak, thatit seemed as though she were again losing the power of utterance; andthe doctor bade her remain perfectly quiet, gave her some soothingmedicine, and directed a bed to be prepared for her in the kitchen, ashe said she was not fit to return home that night: then he himself tookthe old horse from the gate where he stood, and set off for the aubergewith what haste he might. 

For three or four minutes after he was gone, Annette remainedmotionless in her seat, wearing her patient, deprecatory expression, while her eyes rested on the window, without apparently seeing thelights and dimly outlined figures that were visible on the _rade_outside. Then her glance seemed to concentrate itself on something: thenervous, trembling lips closed rigidly, and before they saw what she wasabout to do, she had risen from her chair, and darted from the room andout into the night. 

"Our Lady guard her! It was the boats she caught sight of, " saidVictorine, the cook. "There are the lights off the bay. Go, stop her, Jeanne! Monsieur will be angry with us if anything befall her. "

"Dame! I will not go, " said her sister. "Can you not see that Annette isbewitched? If she must go, she must. I will have nought to do with it. "

Victorine, however, scouted her younger sister's reasoning, and hurriedout across the small court-yard, through the gate and on to the road. 

The whole village seemed gathered at the harbour-side; children and oldmen, lads and women, eager, yet with the patient quietness that is theway with the Breton folk. Here a demure group of white-coiffed girlsstood waiting with scarce a word passing among them, waiting at thequay-side for the fathers, brothers, or sweethearts, that for months hadbeen facing the perils of the northern seas. There a dark-eyed, loose-limbed Breton peasant, the wildness of whose look bewrayed thegentleness of his nature, was arguing with a white-haired patriarchabout the probable value of this year's haul: while quaint-lookingchildren in little tight-fitting bonnets and clattering sabots clungpatiently to their mother's skirts, their mothers, who could remembermany a home-coming of the boats, and knew that it would be well if tosome of those now waiting at the harbour, grief were not brought insteadof joy. 

The vanguard of the fleet had been sighted some half-hour ago, and thetwo or three boats whose lights could now be seen approaching, one ofwhich was recognized as Paul Gignol's "Annette, " would, if all was well, anchor in the harbour that night: for the tide was high, so that theharbour basin was full; and the light of the torches and lanterns thatwere carried to and fro among the crowd, was reflected from its surfacein distorted and broken flashes; while the regular plashing of the wateragainst the quay-side accompanied the low murmur of the crowd. 

Victorine sought in vain for Annette in the darkness, dressed, as shewas, like all the other peasant girls; but her eye lighted on the tall, powerful figure of Jules Leroux, Annette's father, standing at the doorof the _bureau du port_, where he and some others were discussing thesignals. 

Victorine approached the group, and announced in her emphatic way thatAnnette was ill, very ill, and had gone out alone into the crowd, whenthe doctor had bidden her not leave her bed. Jules, who had been down atthe harbour since midday, and had heard nothing of Annette's recoveredvoice, or of her riding to the village, started off without waiting formore, along the quay and on to the very end of the mole, where the lightguarded the entrance to the harbour, saying to himself, "It is there shewill be--if she have feet to carry her--it is there she will be--whenthe boat comes in. "

Victorine looked after him, murmuring, "Surely the child Annette is theapple of her father's eye. "

The outline of the foremost fishing-smack was growing more and moredistinct on the water, as he reached the end of the quay. Moving figureson board flashed into uncertain light for a moment, then disappearedinto darkness again. A girl darted out from the crowd as he approached, and clung to his arm. "Annette, my little one, " said Jules, "never fear. The Saints will bring him safe home. "

"He is there: it is the 'Annette' that comes. I have seen him!" shecried. 

Her father drew back almost in alarm. "What! Thy tongue is loosened, mychild?"

She drew down his head, and whispered eagerly in his ear. "The blessedSt. Yvon made me speak. I will tell you afterwards: it was to save Paul. Is it not true now that he is mine?"

At that moment a clamour of welcome ran along the quay-side, as the boatglided silently through the harbour mouth, and into the light of thetorches that flashed from the quay. 

Women's voices called upon Paul and his mate Jean, and the name of the'Annette' (the vessel that had been christened after his foster-father'sdumb child) was passed from mouth to mouth, while the fishermen silentlygot out the boat that was to carry the mooring cable to the shore. 

Annette clung convulsively to her father during the few minutes' delay, and once, as he saw the light flash on her face, he suddenly rememberedsomething Victorine had said about the doctor. He watched her with apang of alarm, and at the same time felt that she was stringing herselfup for some effort. Everyone was greeting Jean, the first of the boat'screw that appeared, as he clambered up the quay-side, but Annette didnot stir; then the second dark, sea-beaten figure emerged from below, and Annette darted forward. She clasped both Paul's hands and gazed intohis face, while she seemed to be struggling with herself for something aspasm passed over her face, which was as white as her coiffe: her fatherand the others gathered round, but some instinct bade them be silent. Annette's lips opened more than once as if she were about to speak, butno sound came forth: then she turned to her father with a look ofdespairing entreaty, and at the same moment tottered and would havefallen, had he not darted forward and caught her in his arms. 

"She is dead! God help me, " he cried. 

"Chut! Chut!" said the voice of Victorine in the crowd. "It is but thenerves. Did not you see she was striving to say the word of greeting, and it was a cruel blow to find her speech had gone from her again. Surely it is but a crisis of the nerves. "

But Jules, bending his tangled beard over her, groaned "The hand of Godis heavy on me. "

He and Paul raised her between them, and carried her to the doctor's, stepping softly for fear of doing her a mischief: while the story of herrecovered speech, and the danger which had threatened the fleet, wastold to the returned fisherman in breathless, awe-struck accents. Helistened, full of wonder, and as he saw her safely tucked into herbox-bed in the doctor's kitchen, said in his light-hearted Celtic way, that it was not for nothing she had got her voice back, and no fear butshe would soon be well, and would speak to him in the morning. 

But her father, who sat watching her unconscious face, and holding herhand in both his, as though he feared she would slip away from him, shook his head and said, "She will not see another dawn. "

They tried their utmost to restore her consciousness, but with thatignorance of the simplest remedies which is sometimes found among theBreton peasants, they had so far failed: and though someone had beensent to fetch back the doctor from the auberge, Victorine and the otherwomen shook their heads, as Jules had done, and said to each other, "Itis in vain; she will never waken more. "

But when the fainting fit had lasted nearly an hour, and in the wildeyes of Paul, who stood leaning on the foot of the bed, a gleam of fearwas beginning to show itself; there was a stir in the lifeless form, astruggle of the breath, a flicker of the eyelids: they opened, and aglance, in which all Annette's pure and loving spirit seemed to shineforth, fell direct on Paul's face at the end of the bed. She smiledbrightly, and said distinctly "Au revoir:" then turned on her side, anddied. 

Jules and Paul, in their simple peasant fashion, went about seeing towhat had to be done before morning; but Annette's father spoke not aword. Paul, to cheer him, told him of the wife he had wedded on theother side of the sea, and who would come home to be a daughter to him:and Jules nodded silently, without betraying a shadow of surprise:having art enough, in the midst of his grief, to keep Annette's secretloyally. 

Along the straight, white road there came, in the early dawn, a littlesilent procession: the silent road, that was ever bringing tidings, goodor evil, to the auberge: though now no white-coiffed girl with a patientface was waiting at the door. All the road was deserted, for thevillagers were still asleep, as the little procession wound its wayalong: wrapped in the same silence in which Annette's own young life hadbeen passed. A cart with a plain coffin in it, was drawn by the oldhorse that had carried Annette to the harbour the night before, and whostepped as though he knew what burden he was bringing: Paul led thehorse; and beside the cart, with his head bowed on his breast, walkedAnnette's father. 

After the funeral rites were over, the smooth current of existence bythe roadside and the harbour flowed on, apparently in complete oblivionof the fragile blossom of a girl's life, that had appeared for a littlewhile on its surface, and then been swept away for ever. 

[Illustration:]

THE HALTING STEP. 

CHAPTER I. 

On the Western coast of one of the islands in the Channel group is alevel reach of salt marshes, to which the sea rises only at the highestspring tides, and which at other times extends as far as the eye cansee, a dreary waste of salt pools, low rocks, and stretches of sand, yielding its meagre product of shell-fish, samphire, and sea-weed to thepatient toil of the fisher-folk that dwell in scattered huts along theshore. One arm of the bay, at the time of which I am writing, extendedinland to the left, being nearly cut off from the sea by a rockyheadland, behind which it had spread itself, so as almost to present theappearance of an isolated pond or lake, encircled by low black rocks, within which the water rose and sank at regular intervals, as if underthe influence of some strange, unknown power. On the borders of the lakestood a low, one-roomed cabin, such as the island fishermen in thewilder districts inhabit; and in the plot of ground beside the cabin, one September evening, in the mellow, westering light, a woman mighthave been seen busying herself by tying up into bundles the sea-weedthat had been spread out to dry in the sun. She wore a shade bonnet witha large projecting peak and an enveloping curtain round the neck, quiteconcealing her face, as she bent over her work. Presently, although nosound had been heard, she looked up, with that apparently intuitivesense of what is happening at sea, which sea-folk seem to possess, andperceived an orange-sailed fishing boat just rounding the headland andmaking for the open sea. The face that appeared under the bonnet, as shelooked up, had the colourless and haggard look frequently seen amongfisher-women, and which is perhaps due to too much sea-air, added tohard living. But one was prevented from noticing the rest of the face bythe expression of the two grey eyes, peering out from under the shade ofthe bonnet-peak; they were eyes that seemed always expecting: theyseemed to have nothing to do with the pallid face, and the sea-weed, andthe hut: they belonged to a different life. As she looked out over thesea, their glance was almost stern, as though demanding something whichthe sea did not give. But she only remarked to herself, in the islandpatois:--"I suppose the fish have gone over to the south-west again, andhe'll make a night of it. Mackerel is such an aggravating fish, one dayhere, t'other there--you never know where you'll find them. "

Presently, as it grew dark, she warmed up some herb-broth for hersupper, and when she had finished it, and had fastened up the dog andthe donkey, knowing that her husband would not return till the morning, she put out the glimmering oil-lamp, and was just going to bed, when asound struck her ear. For two miles round the cabin not anotherhuman-being lived, and it was the rarest thing for any one to come inthat direction after dark, as the rocks were slippery and dangerous, anda solitary bit of open country had to be crossed between the cabin andthe nearest houses inland. Yet this sound was distinctly that of a humanfootstep, which halted in its gait. 

The woman started up and listened: there was silence for a minute: thenthe limping step was heard again: again it ceased. The woman went to thedoor and looked out. Over the sandy, wind-swept common to the left thedarkness brooded, the outlines of a broken bit of sea-wall, and of somegiant boulders, said to be remains of a dolmen, emerging dimly therefromlike threatening phantoms; to the right moaned the long, grey sea, andin front was the waste of salt marshes and rocks, with the windlass of aship once wrecked in the bay, projecting its huge outline among theuncertain shadows. Not a living thing was visible. She stood for severalminutes peering out into the darkness and listening; no sound was to beheard but the lapping of the waves, and the sigh of the wind through thebent-grass on the common. 

Suddenly Josef, the dog, started up in his corner, and barked. He was alarge mastiff, with a dangerous temper, who was chained up at night inthe rough lean-to that was built against the side of the cabin. Hebarked again furiously, dragging at his chain with all his might, andquivering in every nerve of his body. The woman lighted a torch at thedying embers on the hearth, and unfastening the dog, waited to see whatwould happen. He dashed forward furiously a few steps, then suddenlystopped, sniffed the air, made one or two uncertain darts hither andthither, and stood still, evidently puzzled. She called to him toencourage him, but he dropped his tail and returned to his shed, wherehe curled himself up in a comfortable corner, like a dog that was notgoing to be troubled by womanish fancies. The woman went round thecabin, and the pig-stye, and the patch of meagre gooseberry-bushes, throwing the uncertain torch-light on every dark hole or corner; but noone was to be seen. She was none the less convinced that someone hadapproached the cottage, for the dog was not likely to have been deceivedas well as herself; so she kept the light burning, called Josef to liedown at the foot of the bed, barred the door, and went to sleep. 

The sun was high the next morning when the fisherman returned. He stoodin the stream of light in the open doorway, in his blue, knitted jerseyand jack-boots; and with the beaming smile which overspread his wholecountenance, and his big, powerful limbs, he might well have been takenfor an impersonation of the sun shining in his strength. 

It was as great a pleasure to him to greet his Louise now, as it hadbeen in the days of their early courtship; for he had courted her twice, his sunny boyhood's lovemaking having been overclouded by the advent ofa stranger from the mainland, who, with his smooth tongue andnew-fangled ways, had gained such an influence over Louise during a fourmonths' absence of Peter's on a fishing cruise, that she forgot herfirst love, and wedded this new settler; who took her to the town a fewmiles inland, where he carried on a retail fishmonger's business, knowing but little of fishing himself, either deep-sea or along-shore. But Providence had not blessed their union, for not a child had beenborn to them, and after but three years of married life, when Fauchon, the husband, was out one day in a fishing smack, which he had justbought to carry on business for himself with men under him, the boatcapsized in a sudden squall, and neither he nor the two other men wereever seen or heard of again. Then to Louise, in her sudden poverty anddespair (for all the savings had been put into the fishing smack) camePeter once more, and with his frank, whole-hearted love, and hisstrength and confidence, fairly carried her off her feet, making herhappy with or without her own consent, in such shelter and comfort ashis fisherman's home could supply. They had been married seven yearsnow, and had on the whole been happy together; and as she answered his"Well, my child, how goes it with thee to-day?" her own face lighted upwith a reflection of the beam on his. 

After she had heard of the haul of mackerel, and had got Peter hisbreakfast, she stood with her arms akimbo looking at him, as he gulpeddown his bouillon with huge satisfaction. 

The expectant look had not left her eyes, as, fixing them upon his, shesaid, "I had a fright last night, my friend. "

"Hein! How was that?" said he, with the spoon in his mouth. 

"I heard a step outside, and Josef heard it too and barked; and we wentall round with a torch, but there was nobody. "

"Ho! ho!" cried Peter, with his hearty laugh, "she will always hear astep, or the wing of a sea-swallow flying overhead, or perhaps a crabcrawling in the bay, if Peter is not at home to take care of her. "

"But indeed, " said Louise, "it is the truth I am telling thee: it wasthe step of a man, and of one that halted in his gait. "

"Did Josef hear it--this step that halted?"

"Yes, he barked till I set him free: then all in a moment he stopped, and would not search. "

"Pou-ouf, " crowed Peter, in jovial scorn. "Surely it was Josefthat was the wisest. " Then, as she still seemed unsatisfied, headded, "May-be 'twas the water in the smuggler's cave. Many'sthe time that I've thought somebody was coming along, sort oflimping--cluck--chu--cluck--chu--when the tide was half-way up in thecave over there. And the wind was blowing west last night: 'tis with awest wind it sounds the plainest. "

"May-be 'twas that, my friend, " said the woman, taking up the pail tofetch the water from the well across the common. But she kept lookingaround her, with a half-frightened, half-expectant glance, all the way. 

CHAPTER II. 

For several days the halting step was not heard again, and Louise hadnearly forgotten her fright, when one morning, about six o'clock, whenPeter was out getting up his lobster pots, Louise, with her head stillburied in the bed-clothes, suddenly heard--or thought she heard--thesound again. She started up and listened: there could be no doubt aboutit; someone was approaching the cottage at the back--some one who waslame. She hurried on some clothes and looked out of the door (the cabinhad no window). In the glittering morning light, the expanse of levelshore and common was as desolate as ever. She turned the corner of thecottage to the left, where Jenny and the pigs were. There was no onethere; then she went round to the right, and, as she did so, distinctlyperceived a shadow vanishing swiftly round the corner of the stack ofsea-weed. She uttered a cry, and for a moment seemed like one paralysed;then moved forward hastily a few steps; stopped again, listening with astrange expression on her countenance to the sound of the limp, as itgrew fainter and fainter; then advanced, as if unwillingly, to the backof the cottage, whence no one was visible. A corner of rock, round whichwound the path that ascended to the top of the cliff, projected at nogreat distance from the cottage. She stood and looked at the rock, halfas if it were a threatening, monster, half as if it were the door ofhope: then she went slowly back to the cottage. 

She did not tell Peter this time about the step. 

A week or two afterwards, when Peter Girard was returning from the rockswith a basketful of crabs, he was joined on the way by his mate, Mesurier. 

The two fishermen trudged along in silence for some time, one a littlein front of the other, after the manner of their kind; then Mesurierremarked, "We shall be wanting some new line before we go out formackerel again. " (Mackerel are caught by lines in those parts, where thesea-bottom is too rocky for trawling). 

Peter turned round and stood still to consider the question. 

"I've got some strands knotted, if you and I set to work we can plait itbefore night. "

"I must go up to Jean's for some bait first; there won't be more thanthree hours left before dark, and how are we to get it done in thattime? I'd better get some in the village when I'm up there. "

"Hout, man! pay eight shillings for a line, " said the economical Peter, "and a pound of horsehair will make six. I'll send Louise for the bait, and you come along with me--we'll soon reckon out the plait. "

Mesurier, a thick-set, vigorous-looking man, shorter than Peter, stoodstill a moment, looking at him rather queerly out of his keen, greyeyes. 

"Been up to Jean's much of late?" he asked, trudging on again. 

"No, not I, " said Peter. "Hangin' round in the village isn't much aftermy mind. "

"Best send Louise instead, hey?"

Peter wheeled his huge frame round in a moment. 

"What do you mean, man?" he demanded, in a voice that seemed to comefrom his feet. 

Mesurier's face was devoid of expression, as he replied, "Nothing, to besure. Of course Louise will be going to the shop now and again. "

Peter laid his hand, like a lion's paw, on Mesurier's shoulder, as if hewould rend the truth out of him. 

"And what's the matter with her going to the shop?" said Peter, sorapidly and thickly as to be hardly articulate. 

"None that I know of, " said the other uneasily, shrugging off Peter'shand, with an attempted laugh. 

"Now you understand, " said Peter, with blazing eyes, "you've either gotto swear that you've heard nothing at all about Louise which yououghtn't to have heard, or else you'll tell me who said it, and let himknow he's got me to reckon with, " and Peter clenched his fist in a waythat would have made most people swear whatever he might have happenedto wish. 

"Well, mate, " said the other man. "You go and see Jean, and ask him whatcompany he's had of late. " Then seeing Peter's face becoming livid, headded briefly, "There's been a queer-looking fish staying with him thelast three weeks--walks all on one side--and Louise was talking to himt'other evening under the church wall. 'Twas my wife saw her. That's thetruth. Nobody else has said nought about her. "

Peter swung round without a word, and marched off in the direction ofthe village. Mesurier watched him a moment, then called after him, "Isay, mate! mind what you're doing: the man's a poor blighted creature, more like a monkey than a Christian. "

Peter said something in his throat while he handed the crabs toMesurier: his hand shook so violently as he did so that the basketnearly fell to the ground. Then he strode on again. Mesurier had glancedat his face, and did not follow. 

It took Peter less than an hour, at the pace at which he was walking, to reach the next village along the coast where Jean lived. The mellowafternoon sunshine was lighting up the cottage wall, and the long stripof gaily flowering garden, as he approached. He entered the front room, which was fitted up as a sort of shop, in which fishermen's requisiteswere sold. There was no one there. He pushed the door open into theinner room: it was also empty. He felt as if he could not breathe withinthe cottage walls, and went out again. The cliff overhung the sea a fewyards in front of the cottage. He went to the edge and was scanning theshore for a sign of Jean, when below, on a narrow, zigzag path which leddown the cliff to the beach, he perceived his wife. She stood at a turnin the path, looking downwards. There was something about her that toPeter made her seem different from what she had ever seemed before. Helooked at Louise, and he saw a woman with a shadow of guilt upon her. The path below her was concealed from Peter's sight by an over-hangingpiece of rock, but she seemed to be watching someone coming slowing upit. Then she glanced fearfully round, and saw Peter standing on the topof the cliff. She made a hasty sign to the person below, but already aman's hand leaning on a stick was visible beyond the edge of the rock. Peter strode straight down the face of the cliff to the turning in thepath. Louise screamed. Peter seized by the collar a puny, crookedcreature, whom he scarcely stopped to look at, and held him, as onemight a cat, over the cliff-side. 

"Swear you'll quit the island to-night, or I'll drop you, " he thundered. 

The creature merely screamed for mercy, and seemed unable to articulatea sentence; while Louise knelt, clasping Peter's knees in an agony ofentreaty. Meanwhile, the screaming ceased; the creature had fainted inPeter's grasp. He flung him down on the path, said sternly to Louise, "Come with me, " and they went up the cliff-side together. 

They walked home without a word, Louise crying and moaning a little, butnot daring to speak. When they got inside the cabin, he stood and facedher. 

"Woman, " he said, in a low, shaken voice, "What hast thou done?"

She fell upon her knees, crying. "Forgive me, Peter, " she entreated. "Thou art such a strong man; forgive me. "

"Tell me the whole truth. What is this man to thee?"

She knelt in silence, shaken with sobs. 

"Who is he?" said Peter, his voice getting deeper and hoarser. 

She only kept moaning, "Forgive me. " Presently she said between hersobs, "I only went this morning to tell him to go away. I wanted him togo away; I have prayed him to go again and again. "

"Since when hast thou known him?"

Again she made no answer, but inarticulate moans. 

Peter stood looking at her for a few seconds with an indescribableexpression of sorrow and aversion. 

"I loved thee, " he said; and turning away, left her. 

CHAPTER III. 

Peter went out in the evening without speaking to Louise again, and wasnot seen till the following afternoon, when he called his mate to gomackerel-fishing, and they were absent two days getting a great haul. Hecame back and slept at Mesurier's, and did not go near his own home fora week, though he sent money to Louise, when he sold the fish. 

At the end of that time he went over to Jean's. The stranger had gone, but Peter sat down on a stool opposite Jean, and began to enter intoconversation with him, with a more settled look in his hollow eyes thanhad been there since the catastrophe of the week before. The meeting onthe cliff had been seen by more than one passerby, and the report hadspread that Peter had nearly murdered the stranger for intriguing withhis wife. Jean told Peter all he knew of the man, but he neither knewhis business nor whence he came. He said his name was Jacques, and wouldgive no other. He had gone to the nearest inland town, where he saidthat a relation of his kept an "auberge. " He had gone in a hurry, andhad left some bottles and things behind, containing the stuff he rubbedhis leg with, Jean thought; and Jean meant to take them to him when nexthe went to the town. 

"By the way, " he said, taking a little book from the shelf, "I believethis belonged to him too. I remember to have seen him more than onceporing over it with them close-seeing eyes of his. The man was a rarescholar, and no mistake. "

Peter took the little book from him, and opened it. Jean, glancing athim as he did so, uttered an exclamation. A deadly paleness hadoverspread Peter's face, and he clutched with his hand in the air, asthough for something to steady himself with. Then he staggered to hisfeet, still tightly grasping the little book, and saying somethingunintelligible, went out. 

He went down the cliff to the place where, a week ago, he had found hiswife and the stranger, and stood under the rock, and looked at the book. He looked at it still closed in his hand, as if it were some venomouscreature, which might, the next moment, dart forth a poisoned fang tosting him. From the cover it appeared to be a little, much-wornprayer-book. Presently he opened it gingerly, and read something writtenon the fly-leaf. He spelled it out with some difficulty and slowly, andyet he looked at it as if the page were a familiar vision to him. Thenhe remained immovable for a long time, gazing out to sea, with thelittle book crunched to a shapeless mass in his huge fist. When at lasthe turned to ascend the cliff again, his face was ashen pale, and hisstep was that of an old man. He trudged heavily across the common andalong the road inland, five or six miles, till he reached the town, inquired for a certain auberge, entered the kitchen, and found himselfface to face with the man he sought. A spasm of fear passed swiftly overthe face of Jacques, as he beheld Peter, and he instinctively started upfrom the bench on which he was sitting, and shrank backwards. As he didso, he showed himself a disfigured paralytic, one side of his face beingpartly drawn, and one leg crooked. He was an undersized man, with sandyhair, quick, intelligent, grey eyes, and a well-cut profile. 

"Jacques Fauchon, " said Peter, "have no fear of me. "

Jacques kept his eyes on him, still distrustfully. 

"I did not know, " continued Peter, speaking thickly and slowly, "theother day, what I know now. I had never seen you but once--and you havechanged. "

"It is not my wish to cause trouble, " said Jacques, still glancingfurtively round. "Things being as they are, to my thinking, there'snought for it but to let 'em be. "

"I have not said yet, " said Peter, "what it is I've come to say. Thislittle prayer-book with her name writ in it, and yours below, --'tis theone she always took to church, as a girl--has shown me the path I've gotto take. How you came back from the dead, I don't know: 'twas the handof the Lord. But here you are, and you are her husband, and not I. " Hestopped. 

"Well, Mr. Girard, I know my legal rights, " began Jacques, "butconsidering--and I've no wish to cause unpleasantness, of that you maybe sure. 'Tis why I never wrote, not knowing how the land might lie, andfor four years I was helpless on my back. "

"Never mind the past, man, " interrupted Peter, "It's the future that'sto be thought of. What you've got to do is to take her away to adistance, and settle in some place where nobody knows what's gone by. "

Fauchon considered for a moment, a slight, deprecatory smile stealingover his face. 

"I suppose, " he remarked, "she hasn't got any little purse of her own bythis time; considering, I mean, that she's been of use with the linesand the nets and so on. "

"Do you mean, " said Peter, "that you can't support her?"

"Well, you see, I worked my passage from New Zealand as cook--that'swhat I waited so long for. If she could pay her passage, the samecaptain would take us again, when he starts to go back next week. And ifshe had a little in hand, when we got there, we could set up a store, may-be, and make shift to get on. I only thought, may-be, she havingbeen of use--"

"I'll sell the cottage and the bits of things, " said Peter, "and there'sa trifle put by to add to it. But tell me this; when you're out there, can you support her, or can't you?"

"Well, there's Mr. Boucher, that took me on as house-servant at first inNew Zealand, he being in the sailing ship when I was picked up. And whenthe paralytics came on, resulting from the injury I got in the wreck, henever let me want for nothing, the four years that I lay helpless. He'sgot money to spare, you see"--with a wink--"he's well off, and he's whatI call easy-going; and if we could manage to get the right side ofhim"--with another wink--"I reckon he'd help us a bit. "

"Man, " said Peter, letting his hand fall heavily on Fauchon's shoulder, "tell me plain that you've got honest work as'll feed and clothe her outthere, else, by God, you shan't have her!" and his grip on Fauchon'sshoulder tightened, so that a flash of terror passed over the man'sface, and he tried to edge away, saying deprecatingly, "I've no wish, Mr. Girard, you understand--I've no wish to offend. In fact, my wholeintention was not to cause any trouble. On my honour, I was going toleave the island to-morrow, when I found how things were--'tis the truthI speak. "

"You are her husband, " said Peter, "and she loves you, and she shall gowith you. But if you let her want, God do so unto you, and more also!"

And he let go of him, and strode away again. 

When he got back it was dark, and he stood at his cottage door andlooked in. Louise was sitting by the hearth, with her back to him, andher hands in her lap, rocking herself gently on her stool, and gazinginto the glowing ash on the hearthstone. Opposite, on the other side ofthe hearth, Peter's own stool stood empty, and on the shelf beside itwere the two yellow porringers, out of which he and Louise used alwaysto sup together. His jersey, the one she had knitted for him when theywere married, hung in the corner, with the bright blue patch in it, thatshe had been mending it with the last time he was at home. Louise was soabsorbed in her thoughts that she did not hear his approach, andstepping softly, he passed in and stood before her; she started back, and immediately began to whimper a little, putting up her hands to herface. 

"Louise, " said Peter, "wilt thou forgive me?"

She looked up perplexed, only half believing what she heard. 

"I know everything. I have seen Jacques. I was harsh to thee, monenfant. "

"I meant no harm, " said Louise. "I begged him not to come. I knew thouwouldest be angered. "

"I am not angered. He is thy husband. "

She glanced up with an irrepressible start of eagerness. 

"Thou meanest--" Her very desire seemed to take away her speech. 

Peter laid his hand on her wrist, as gently as a woman. 

"Louise, " he said, "thou lovest him?"

She gazed at him in silence; the piercing question in her eyes her onlyanswer. 

"Thou shalt go with him, " he said. "I only came to say goodbye. "

He went to the door: then stood and looked back, with a world ofyearning and tenderness in his face. He stretched out his arms. "Kissme, Louise, " he said. 

She rose, still half frightened, and kissed him as she was told. 

He held her tightly in his arms for a minute, then put her silently fromhim, and turned away. 

Peter was not seen in those parts again. It was understood that he andhis wife had emigrated to New Zealand, and the cottage was sold, and thefurniture and things dispersed. 

In a fishing village on the coast of Brittany, there appeared, not longafterwards, a tall Englishman, speaking the Channel Island patois, whosettled down to make a home among the Breton folk, adopting their waysand language, and eking out, like them, a livelihood by hard toil earlyand late among the rocks and sand-banks, or by long months of fishing onthe high seas; a man on whom the simple-minded villagers looked with acertain respect, mingled with awe, as on one who seemed to them markedout by heaven for some special fate; who lived alone in his cottage, attending to his own wants, no woman being ever allowed to enter it; andabout whose past nothing was known, and no one dared to ask. 

[Illustration;]

TABITHA'S AUNT. 

From the very hour that Tabitha set foot in my house, I conceived adislike for her Aunt. In the first place I did not see why she shouldhave an Aunt. Tabitha was going to belong to me: and why an old, invalidlady, whose sons were scattered over the face of the earth, and who hadnever had a daughter of her own: who had been clever enough to discovera distant relationship to Tabitha, and had promptly matured a plan bywhich Tabitha was to remain always with her; to take the vacant chairopposite and pour out tea, and be coddled and kissed and lookedafter--why she might not have Tabitha herself for her whole and soleproperty, I could not understand. But this Aunt was always turning up:not visibly, I mean, but in conversation. I could never say which way Iliked Tabitha's veil to be fastened but I was told Aunt Rennie's opinionon the matter--(Tabitha always absurdly shortened her Aunt's surname, which was Rensworth). I never could mention a book I liked but AuntRennie had either read it or not read it. It did not matter which to me, the least. But the climax came when Aunt Rennie sent Tabitha a bicycle. Now I know that young women bicycle nowadays; but that is no reason whyTabitha should. I always turn away my eyes when I see a young girl passthe window on one of those ugly, muddy, dangerous machines, with herknees working like pumps, her skirt I don't know where, and anexpression of self-satisfied determination on her face. I don't think Iam old-fashioned, but I am sure my own dear little girl, if she had evercome to me, would not have bicycled; and though I had no wish to put anyunfair restraint on Tabitha, still I did not want her to have a bicycle. And that this Aunt Rennie, as Tabitha would call her, without a word ofwarning, should send her one of those hideous things, as if it was _her_business to arrange for Tabitha's exercise--I do think it was ratheruncalled for. 

When Tabitha came into the room to tell me about it, with that bright, affectionate smile she has, and her dear, plain, pale face--only thatnobody would think her plain who knew her, for everybody loves her--shesaw quickly enough that I did not like it: and then she was so sweet, looking so disappointed, and yet ready to give up the horrid thing if Iwished, that I hardly knew what to do. Tabitha works on one in a waythat I believe nobody else can. She has such a generous, warm heart, andis so responsive, and so quick to understand, and then she is so easilypleased, and so free from self-consciousness, you seem to know her allat once, and you feel as if it would be wicked to hurt her. So I don'tknow how it was exactly, but I began to give in about the bicycle;though I could not help mentioning that it was rather unnecessary forAunt Rennie to have taken the trouble: for Tabitha might have told me ifshe wanted a bicycle so much. And Tabitha said that Aunt Rennie thoughtbicycling was good for her, and, when she lived with her, a year ago, her Aunt used to take her on her tours round the villages, distributing, what she called "political literature. " This did make me shudder, Iconfess. Fancy Tabitha turning into one of those canvassing women, withtheir uncivilised energy, their irritating superiority, and their entirewant of decent respect for you and your own opinions! I knew that AuntRennie belonged to a Woman Suffrage Committee, but I did think she hadleft the child uncontaminated. It made me more thankful than ever that Ihad rescued her from the hands of such a person. However, as you see, Icould not refuse to let Tabitha ride that bicycle; but I always knewthat harm would come of it. 

And it came just in the way of which my inner consciousness had warnedme. Now, of course, I never really expected to have Tabitha with me allher life: but I did want just for a little while to make-believe, as itwere, that I had a daughter, and to feel as if she were happy andcontent with me. So it was rather hard that such a thing should happen, only the second time that she went out on that hideous machine. I cansee her telling me about it now, kneeling down in her affectionate wayby my sofa, all flushed and dishevelled after her ride, and with quite anew expression on her face. It seemed that she had punctured herbicycle (whatever that means) and could not get on: and then an "awfullynice man" (she will use the modern slang; in my days we should merelyhave said "a gentleman") came up with his tools and things, and put itright for her: and ended by claiming acquaintance and proposing to call, "Because, Mammy dear, " said Tabitha, "isn't it funny, but he knows AuntRennie!"

Now, kind reader, I must confess that this was a little too much for me. To have Aunt Rennie (in spirit) perpetually between me and Tabitha wasbad enough: to have her demoralising Tabitha by sending her bicycles wasstill worse: but to have her introducing, (I had nearly said intruding)young men into the privacy of my home, and into dangerous proximity withTabitha was, for a moment, more than I could stand. 

"Well, my child, " said I, "No doubt Miss Rensworth and her friends weremore amusing than your poor sick Mammy. I suppose it was selfish of meto want to have you all to myself. If you would like to go back to yourAunt Rennie again, dear child. " I added, "you have only to say so. "

What Tabitha said in reply I shall never forget; but neither, friendlyreader, shall I tell it to you. So you must be content with knowing thatwe were friends again; and that the end of it was that I gave in aboutJohn Chambers--as his name turned out to be--just as I had given inabout the bicycle. 

He came in just as we were having tea the next day, and the worst of itwas, I had to admit at once that he _was_ nice. Of course this provednothing in regard to Aunt Rennie and her friends: and it was just asunreasonable that I should be expected to receive whoever happened toknow her, as if he had turned out to be vulgar or odious. But, as itwas, he introduced himself in a sensible, straightforward way, lookedone straight in the face when he spoke, had a deep, hearty laugh thatsounded manly and true, and evidently entertained the friendliestsentiments for Tabitha. 

Well, as you will imagine, kind reader, that tea was not the last he hadwith us. He fell into our ways with delightful readiness; indeed, he wasrather "old-fashioned, " as I call it. He would pour out my second cup oftea, if Tabitha happened to be out of the room, as nicely as she herselfcould have done, carefully washing the tea-leaves out of the cup first;and he would tell Tabitha if a piece of braid were hanging down from herskirt, when they were going bicycling together. We got quite used tobeing kept in order by him in all kinds of little ways, and he grew tobe so associated with the idea of Tabitha in my mind, that my affectionfor her became in a sort of way an affection for them both. The onlything was that, as the months went on, I began to wonder why more didnot come of it. Sometimes I fancied I noted a reflection of my ownperplexed doubts crossing Tabitha's sweet, expressive face, and Iquestioned within myself whether I ought (like the fathers in books) toask the young man about his "intentions, " and imply that he could notexpect an unlimited supply of my cups of tea, unless they were madeclear: but I think that my own delicacy as well as common senseprevented my taking such a course, and things were still _in statu quo_, when one morning, as I was peacefully mending Tabitha's gloves (she_will_ go out with holes in them) a ring at the front door bell wasfollowed by the advance of someone in rustling silk garments up thestairs: the drawing-room door was opened, and there appeared ayoung-looking, fair lady, who advanced brightly to greet me, with afinished society manner, and an expression in her kind, blue eyes ofunmixed pleasure at the meeting. The name murmured at the door had notreached my ears, and I was still wondering which of my child-friends haddeveloped into this charming and fashionable young lady, when Tabithaburst into the room, flung her arms round the new-comer's neck, andexclaimed, "You darling, who would have expected you to turn up socharmingly, just when we didn't expect you!"

The light slowly dawned on my amazed intelligence. Could _this_--_this_be the formidable, grey-haired woman, with whom I had been expecting, and somewhat dreading, sooner or later, an encounter? Could _this_ bethe spectacled Committee-woman--the rampant bicyclist--the corrupter ofthe youth of Tabitha? I looked at her immaculate dress, and pretty, neathair; I noted the winning expression of her eyes, and her sweetness ofmanner; and instead of entrenching myself in the firm, though unspokenhostility, which I had secretly cherished towards the idea of AuntRennie, I felt myself yielding to the charm of a personality, whoserichness and sweetness were to me like a new experience of life. 

I thought I had grasped the outlines of that personality in the firstinterview, as we often do on forming a new acquaintance; but surpriseswere yet in store for me. Aunt Rennie needed but little pressing to staythe night, and then to add a second and a third day to her visit: shewas staying with some friends in the neighbourhood, and, it appeared, could easily transfer herself to us. And as the time went on, I began tofeel that she had some secondary object in coming and in staying: Ithought I perceived a kind of diplomatic worldliness in Aunt Rennie, which jarred with my first impression of her. I felt sure that herpurpose was in some way connected with Tabitha and John. She had, ofcourse, heard of Tabitha's friendship for him from her own letters, andJohn she had known before we did. Well, it was on the fourth day thatAunt Rennie, sitting cosily beside me, startled me by suddenly andlightly remarking, that if I would consent, she wished to take Tabithaback with her, at any rate for a time, to her home in the South ofEngland; she was almost necessary to her in her work at the presentjuncture: no one could act as her Secretary so efficiently as Tabithacould. 

"Besides, to tell you a little secret, " she added, with a charming airof confidence and humour, "there is someone besides me that wantsTabitha back: there is an excellent prospect for her, if she could onlyturn her thoughts in that direction. You have heard of Horace Wetherell, my second cousin--a rising barrister? Ah, well, a little bird haswhispered things to me. His prospects are now very different from whatthey were when she was with me before, or I don't think she would everhave come to you, to say the truth! We must not let her get involved inanything doubtful. As you know, I have been acquainted with this JohnChambers and his family all my life. He is a good fellow enough, butwill never set the Thames on fire. She is exactly suited to my cousin, who is a man of the highest and noblest character, and could not fail tomake her happy. It is only to take her away for a time, and I feel sureall will be well. I knew, my dear friend, that a word to you was enough, for Tabitha's sake: and so we will settle it between us. "

I said little in reply, for I was suffering keenly. I felt as if thisfair, clever woman had struck a deliberate blow at my happiness, and ina way to leave me resistless. I could not deny that it might be forTabitha's good to go away. Certainly John was poor, and in fact I hadthought lately that that might be the reason the engagement was delayed. Tabitha was only twenty-two, and she might change her mind. I murmuredthat I would leave it to Tabitha to decide; and as Aunt Rennie turnedaway, I remember thinking that she was rather young to decide anotherwoman's destiny in such a matter. She was only six years older thanTabitha. 

 * * * * *

Tabitha often says that she owes her present happiness to Aunt Rennie, for if it had not been for the misery of the approaching separation, John, oppressed by the sense of his poverty and humble prospects, wouldnever have had courage to tell her of his love. And I have sometimesamused myself by reflecting how Aunt Rennie's shrewdness, intelligenceand determination, instead of working out her own ends, were all thetime furthering the thing that was most opposed to her wishes. 

When, after those few days that followed--days for me of heart-breakingconflict of feeling, and for my two children of tears, silent misery andstruggling passion, culminating at last, when the storm burst, incomplete mutual understanding, and a joint determination that carriedall before it--when, I say, Aunt Rennie, defeated, prepared to take herleave, she said a word to me which I often thought of afterwards. "Sheis choosing blindfold, tinsel for gold. " I thought of it, not on accountof the expression, but of Aunt Rennie herself. There was something inthe pallor of her face, and in her tone, that made me ask myself whetherthere could be anything in this matter that concerned Aunt Rennieherself more closely than we thought--and, for the moment, a new andmotherly feeling rose up in my heart towards her. 

Well, she has left me my two children, and though John is only "inbusiness, " and they live on three hundred a year, they are very happy, and I am happy in their happiness. 

It was a year after their marriage, that the news came that Aunt Renniewas engaged to be married to her cousin. Horace Wetherell. And, as Ipondered on it. I doubted whether I had, after all, quite understood thenobility of Aunt Rennie's character. 

Horace Wetherell has become an M. P. , and he and his wife write bookstogether on social problems. 

Poor John will never be an M. P. , but I am glad that Tabitha loved him. 

[Illustration:]