over strand and field a record of travel through brittany by gustave flaubert simon p. magee publisher chicago, ill. over strand and field[ ] a trip through brittany chapter i. chÂteau de chambord. we walked through the empty galleries and deserted rooms where spiders spin their cobwebs over the salamanders of francis the first. one is overcome by a feeling of distress at the sight of this poverty which has no grandeur. it is not absolute ruin, with the luxury of blackened and mouldy débris, the delicate embroidery of flowers, and the drapery of waving vines undulating in the breeze, like pieces of damask. it is a conscious poverty, for it brushes its threadbare coat and endeavours to appear respectable. the floor has been repaired in one room, while in the next it has been allowed to rot. it shows the futile effort to preserve that which is dying and to bring back that which has fled. strange to say, it is all very melancholy, but not at all imposing. and then it seems as if everything had contributed to injure poor chambord, designed by le primatice and chiselled and sculptured by germain pilon and jean cousin. upreared by francis the first, on his return from spain, after the humiliating treaty of madrid ( ), it is the monument of a pride that sought to dazzle itself in order to forget defeat. it first harbours gaston d'orléans, a crushed pretender, who is exiled within its walls; then it is louis xiv, who, out of one floor, builds three, thus ruining the beautiful double staircase which extended without interruption from the top to the bottom. then one day, on the second floor, facing the front, under the magnificent ceiling covered with salamanders and painted ornaments which are now crumbling away, molière produced for the first time _le bourgeois gentilhomme_. then it was given to the maréchal de saxe; then to the polignacs, and finally to a plain soldier, berthier. it was afterwards bought back by subscription and presented to the duc de bordeaux. it has been given to everybody, as if nobody cared to have it or desired to keep it. it looks as if it had hardly ever been used, and as if it had always been too spacious. it is like a deserted hostelry where transient guests have not left even their names on the walls. when we walked through an outside gallery to the orléans staircase, in order to examine the caryatids which are supposed to represent francis the first, m. de chateaubriand, and madame d'Étampes, and turned around the celebrated lantern that terminates the big staircase, we stuck our heads several times through the railing to look down. in the courtyard was a little donkey nursing its mother, rubbing up against her, shaking its long ears and playfully jumping around. this is what we found in the court of honour of the château de chambord; these are its present hosts: a dog rolling in the grass, and a nursing, braying donkey frolicking on the threshold of kings! chÂteau d'amboise. the château d'amboise, which dominates the whole city that appears to be thrown at its feet like a mass of pebbles at the foot of a rock, looks like an imposing fortress, with its large towers pierced by long, narrow windows; its arched gallery that extends from the one to the other, and the brownish tint of its walls, darkened by the contrast of the flowers, which droop over them like a nodding plume on the bronzed forehead of an old soldier. we spent fully a quarter of an hour admiring the tower on the left; it is superb, imbrowned and yellowish in some places and coated with soot in others; it has charming charlocks hanging from its battlements, and is, in a word, one of those speaking monuments that seem to breathe and hold one spellbound and pensive under their gaze, like those paintings, the originals of which are unknown to us, but whom we love without knowing why. the château is reached by a slight incline which leads to a garden elevated like a terrace, from which the view extends on the whole surrounding country. it was of a delicate green; poplar trees lined the banks of the river; the meadows advanced to its edge, mingling their grey border with the bluish and vapourous horizon, vaguely enclosed by indistinct hills. the loire flowed in the middle, bathing its islands, wetting the edge of the meadows, turning the wheels of the mills and letting the big boats glide peacefully, two by two, over its silvery surface, lulled to sleep by the creaking of the heavy rudders; and in the distance two big white sails gleamed in the sun. birds flew from the tops of the towers and the edge of the machicolations to some other spot, described circles in the air, chirped, and soon passed out of sight. about a hundred feet below us were the pointed roofs of the city, the empty courtyards of the old mansions, and the black holes of the smoky chimneys. leaning in the niche of a battlement, we gazed and listened, and breathed it all in, enjoying the beautiful sunshine and balmy air impregnated with the pungent odour of the ruins. and there, without thinking of anything in particular, without even phrasing inwardly about something, i dreamed of coats of mail as pliable as gloves, of shields of buffalo hide soaked with sweat, of closed visors through which shot bloodthirsty glances, of wild and desperate night attacks with torches that set fire to the walls, and hatchets that mutilated the bodies; and of louis xi, of the lover's war, of d'aubigné and of the charlocks, the birds, the polished ivy, the denuded brambles, tasting in my pensive and idle occupation--what is greatest in men, their memory;--and what is most beautiful in nature, her ironical encroachments and eternal youth. in the garden, among the lilac-bushes and the shrubs that droop over the alleys, rises the chapel, a work of the sixteenth century, chiselled at every angle, a perfect jewel, even more intricately decorated inside than out, cut out like the paper covering of a _bonbonnière_, and cunningly sculptured like the handle of a chinese parasol. on the door is a _bas-relief_ which is very amusing and ingenuous. it represents the meeting of saint hubert with the mystic stag, which bears a cross between its antlers. the saint is on his knees; above him hovers an angel who is about to place a crown on his cap; near them stands the saint's horse, watching the scene with a surprised expression; the dogs are barking and on the mountain, the sides and facets of which are cut to represent crystals, creeps the serpent. you can see its flat head advancing toward some leafless trees that look like cauliflowers. they are the sort of trees one comes upon in old bibles, spare of foliage, thick and clumsy, bearing blossoms and fruit but no leaves; the symbolical, theological, and devout trees that are almost fantastical on account of their impossible ugliness. a little further, saint christopher is carrying jesus on his shoulders; saint antony is in his cell, which is built on a rock; a pig is retiring into its hole and shows only its hind-quarters and its corkscrew tail, while a rabbit is sticking its head out of its house. of course, it is all a little clumsy and the moulding is not faultless. but there is so much life and movement about the figure and the animals, so much charm in the details, that one would give a great deal to be able to carry it away and take it home. inside of the château, the insipid empire style is reproduced in every apartment. almost every room is adorned with busts of louis-philippe and madame adélaïde. the present reigning family has a craze for being portrayed on canvas. it is the bad taste of a parvenu, the mania of a grocer who has accumulated money and who enjoys seeing himself in red, white, and yellow, with his watch-charms dangling over his stomach, his bewhiskered chin and his children gathered around him. on one of the towers, and in spite of the most ordinary common sense, they have built a glass rotunda which is used for a dining-room. true, the view from it is magnificent. but the building presents so shocking an appearance from the outside, that one would, i should think, prefer to see nothing of the environs, or else to eat in the kitchen. in order to go back to the city, we came down by a tower that was used by carriages to approach the château. the sloping gravelled walk turns around a stone axle like the steps of a staircase. the arch is dark and lighted only by the rays that creep through the loop-holes. the columns on which the interior end of the vault rests, are decorated with grotesque or vulgar subjects. a dogmatic intention seems to have presided over their composition. it would be well for travellers to begin the inspection at the bottom, with the _aristoteles equitatus_ (a subject which has already been treated on one of the choir statues in the cathedral of rouen) and reach by degrees a pair embracing in the manner which both lucretius and _l'amour conjugal_ have recommended. the greater part of the intermediary subjects have been removed, to the despair of seekers of comical things, like ourselves; they have been removed in cold blood, with deliberate intent, for the sake of decency, and because, as one of the servants of his majesty informed us convincingly, "a great many were improper for the lady visitors to see." chÂteau de chenonceaux. a something of infinite suavity and aristocratic serenity pervades the château de chenonceaux. it is situated outside of the village, which keeps at a respectful distance. it can be seen through a large avenue of trees, and is enclosed by woods and an extensive park with beautiful lawns. built on the water, it proudly uprears its turrets and its square chimneys. the cher flows below, and murmurs at the foot of its arches, the pointed corners of which form eddies in the tide. it is all very peaceful and charming, graceful yet robust. its calm is not wearying and its melancholy has no tinge of bitterness. one enters through the end of a long, arched hallway, which used to be a fencing-room. it is decorated with some armours, which, in spite of the obvious necessity of their presence, do not shock one's taste or appear out of place. the whole scheme of interior decoration is tastefully carried out; the furniture and hangings of the period have been preserved and cared for intelligently. the great, venerable mantel-pieces of the sixteenth century do not shelter the hideous and economical german stoves, which might easily be hidden in some of them. in the kitchen, situated in a wing of the castle, which we visited later, a maid was peeling vegetables and a scullion was washing dishes, while the cook was standing in front of the stove, superintending a reasonable number of shining saucepans. it was all very delightful, and bespoke the idle and intelligent home life of a gentleman. i like the owners of chenonceaux. in fact, have you not often seen charming old paintings that make you gaze at them indefinitely, because they portray the period in which their owners lived, the ballets in which the farthingales of all those beautiful pink ladies whirled around, and the sword-thrusts which those noblemen gave each other with their rapiers? here are some temptations of history. one would like to know whether those people loved as we do, and what difference existed between their passions and our own. one would like them to open their lips and tell their history, tell us everything they used to do, no matter how futile, and what their cares and pleasures used to be. it is an irritating and seductive curiosity, a dreamy desire for knowledge, such as one feels regarding the past life of a mistress.... but they are deaf to the questions our eyes put to them, they remain dumb and motionless in their wooden frames, and we pass on. the moths attack their canvases, but the latter are revarnished; and the pictures will smile on when we are buried and forgotten. and others will come and gaze upon them, till the day they crumble to dust; then people will dream in the same old way before our own likenesses, and ask themselves what used to happen in our day, and whether life was not more alluring then. i should not have spoken again of those handsome dames, if the large, full-length portrait of madame deshoulières, in an elaborate white _dêshabille_, (it was really a fine picture, and, like the much decried and seldom read efforts of the poetess, better at the second look than at the first), had not reminded me, by the expression of the mouth, which is large, full, and sensual, of the peculiar coarseness of madame de staël's portrait by gérard. when i saw it two years ago, at coppet, in bright sunshine, i could not help being impressed by those red, vinous lips and the wide, aspiring nostrils. george sand's face offers a similar peculiarity. in all those women who were half masculine, spirituality revealed itself only in the eyes. all the rest remained material. in point of amusing incidents, there is still at chenonceaux, in diane de poitiers's room, the wide canopy bedstead of the royal favourite, done in white and red. if it belonged to me, it would be very hard for me not to use it once in a while. to sleep in the bed of diane de poitiers, even though it be empty, is worth as much as sleeping in that of many more palpable realities. moreover, has it not been said that all the pleasure in these things was only imagination? then, can you conceive of the peculiar and historical voluptuousness, for one who possesses some imagination, to lay his head on the pillow that belonged to the mistress of francis the first, and to stretch his limbs on her mattress? (oh! how willingly i would give all the women in the world for the mummy of cleopatra!) but i would not dare to touch, for fear of breaking them, the porcelains belonging to catherine de médicis, in the dining-room, nor place my foot in the stirrup of francis the first, for fear it might remain there, nor put my lips to the mouth-piece of the huge trumpet in the fencing-room, for fear of rupturing my lungs. chapter ii. chÂteau de clisson. on a hill at the foot of which two rivers mingle their waters, in a fresh landscape, brightened by the light colours of the inclined roofs, that are grouped like many sketches of hubert, near a waterfall that turns the wheel of a mill hidden among the leaves, the château de clisson raises its battered roof above the tree-tops. everything around it is calm and peaceful. the little dwellings seem to smile as if they had been built under softer skies; the waters sing their song, and patches of moss cover a stream over which hang graceful clusters of foliage. the horizon extends on one side into a tapering perspective of meadows, while on the other it rises abruptly and is enclosed by a wooded valley, the trees of which crowd together and form a green ocean. after one crosses the bridge and arrives at the steep path which leads to the château, one sees, standing upreared and bold on the moat on which it is built, a formidable wall, crowned with battered machicolations and bedecked with trees and ivy, the luxuriant growth of which covers the grey stones and sways in the wind, like an immense green veil which the recumbent giant moves dreamily across his shoulders. the grass is tall and dark, the plants are strong and hardy; the trunks of the ivy are twisted, knotted, and rough, and lift up the walls as with levers or hold them in the network of their branches. in one spot, a tree has grown through the wall horizontally, and, suspended in the air, has let its branches radiate around it. the moats, the steep slope of which is broken by the earth which has detached itself from the embankments and the stones which have fallen from the battlements, have a wide, deep curve, like hatred and pride; and the portal, with its strong, slightly arched ogive, and its two bays that raise the drawbridge, looks like a great helmet with holes in its visor. when one enters, he is surprised and astonished at the wonderful mixture of ruins and trees, the ruins accentuating the freshness of the trees, while the latter in turn, render more poignant the melancholy of the ruins. here, indeed, is the beautiful, eternal, and brilliant laughter of nature over the skeleton of things; here is the insolence of her wealth and the deep grace of her encroachments, and the melodious invasions of her silence. a grave and pensive enthusiasm fills one's soul; one feels that the sap flows in the trees and that the grass grows with the same strength and the same rhythm, as the stones crumble and the walls cave in. a sublime art, in the supreme accord of secondary discordances, has contrasted the unruly ivy with the sinuous sweep of the ruins, the brambles with the heaps of crumbling stones, the clearness of the atmosphere with the strong projections of the masses, the colour of the sky with the colour of the earth, reflecting each one in the other: that which was, and that which is. thus history and nature always reveal, though they may accomplish it in a circumscribed spot of the world, the unceasing relation, the eternal hymen of dying humanity and the growing daisy; of the stars that glow, and the men who expire, of the heart that beats and the wave that rises. and this is so clearly indicated here, is so overwhelming, that one shudders inwardly, as if this dual life centred in one's own body; so brutal and immediate is the perception of these harmonies and developments. for the eye also has its orgies and the mind its delights. at the foot of two large trees, the trunks of which are intersected, a stream of light floods the grass and seems like a luminous river, brightening the solitude. overhead, a dome of leaves, through which one can see the sky presenting a vivid contrast of blue, reverberates a bright, greenish light, which illuminates the ruins, accentuating the deep furrows, intensifying the shadows, and disclosing all the hidden beauties. you advance and walk between those walls and under the trees, wander along the barbicans, pass under the falling arcades from which spring large, waving plants. the vaults, which contain corpses, echo under your footfalls; lizards run in the grass, beetles creep along the walls, the sky is blue, and the sleepy ruins pursue their dream. with its triple enclosure, its dungeons, its interior court-yards, its machicolations, its underground passages, its ramparts piled one upon the other, like a bark on a bark and a shield on a shield, the ancient château of the clissons rises before your mind and is reconstructed. the memory of past existences exudes from its walls with the emanations of the nettles and the coolness of the ivy. in that castle, men altogether different from us were swayed by passions stronger than ours; their hands were brawnier and their chests broader. long black streaks still mark the walls, as in the time when logs blazed in the eighteen-foot fireplaces. symmetrical holes in the masonry indicate the floors to which one ascended by winding staircases now crumbling in ruins, while their empty doors open into space. sometimes a bird, taking flight from its nest hanging in the branches, would pass with spread wings through the arch of a window, and fly far away into the country. at the top of a high, bleak wall, several square bay-windows, of unequal length and position, let the pure sky shine through their crossed bars; and the bright blue, framed by the stone, attracted my eye with surprising persistency. the sparrows in the trees were chirping, and in the midst of it all a cow, thinking, no doubt, that it was a meadow, grazed peacefully, her horns sweeping over the grass. there is a window, a large window that looks out into a meadow called _la prairie des chevaliers_. it was there, from a stone bench carved in the wall, that the high-born dames of the period watched the knights urge their iron-barbed steeds against one another, and the lances come down on the helmets and snap, and the men fall to the ground. on a fine summer day, like to-day, perhaps, when the mill that enlivens the whole landscape did not exist, when there were roofs on the walls, and flemish hangings, and oil-cloths on the window-sills, when there was less grass, and when human voices and rumours filled the air, more than one heart beat with love and anguish under its red velvet bodice. beautiful white hands twitched with fear on the stone, which is now covered with moss, and the embroidered veils of high caps fluttered in the wind that plays with my cravat and that swayed the plumes of the knights. we went down into the vaults where jean v was imprisoned. in the men's dungeon we saw the large double hook that was used for executions; and we touched curiously with our fingers the door of the women's prison. it is about four inches thick and is plated with heavy iron bars. in the middle is a little grating that was used to throw in whatever was necessary to prevent the captive from starving. it was this grating which opened instead of the door, which, being the mouth of the most terrible confessions, was one of those that always closed but never opened. in those days there was real hatred. if you hated a person, and he had been kidnapped by surprise or traitorously trapped in an interview, and was in your power, you could torture him at your own sweet will. every minute, every hour, you could delight in his anguish and drink his tears. you could go down into his cell and speak to him and bargain with him, laugh at his tortures, and discuss his ransom; you could live on and off him, through his slowly ebbing life and his plundered treasures. your whole castle, from the top of the towers to the bottom of the trenches, weighed on him, crushing, and burying him; and thus family revenges were accomplished by the family itself, a fact which constituted their potency and symbolised the idea. sometimes, however, when the wretched prisoner was an aristocrat and a wealthy man, and he near death, and one was tired of him, and his tears had acted upon the hatred of his master like refreshing bleedings, there was talk of releasing him. the captive promised everything; he would return the fortified towns, hand over the keys to his best cities, give his daughter in marriage, endow churches and journey on foot to the holy sepulchre. and money! money! why, he would have more of it coined by the jews! then the treaty would be signed and dated and counter-signed; the relics would be brought forth to be sworn on, and the prisoner would be a free man once more. he would jump on his horse, gallop away, and when he reached home he would order the drawbridge hoisted, call his vassals together, and take down his sword from the wall. his hatred would find an outlet in terrific explosions of wrath. it was the time of frightful passions and victorious rages. the oath? the pope would free him from it, and the ransom he simply ignored. when clisson was imprisoned in the château de l'hermine, he promised for his freedom a hundred thousand francs' worth of gold, the restitution of the towns belonging to the duke of penthièvre, and the cancelling of his daughter marguerite's betrothal to the duke of penthièvre. but as soon as he was set free, he began by attacking chateladren, guingamp, lamballe and st. malo, which cities either were taken or they capitulated. but the people of brittany paid for the fun. when jean v. was captured by the count of penthièvre at the bridge of loroux, he promised a ransom of one million; he promised his eldest daughter, who was already betrothed to the king of sicily. he promised montcontour, sesson and jugan, etc., but he gave neither his daughter nor the money, nor the cities. he had promised to go to the holy sepulchre. he acquitted himself of this by proxy. he had taken an oath that he would no longer levy taxes and subsidies. the pope freed him from this pledge. he had promised to give nôtre-dame de nantes his weight in gold; but as he weighed nearly two hundred pounds, he remained greatly indebted. with all that he was able to pick up or snatch away, he quickly formed a league and compelled the house of penthièvre to buy the peace which they had sold to him. on the other side of the sèvre, a forest covers the hill with its fresh, green maze of trees; it is _la garenne_, a park that is beautiful in itself, in spite of the artificial embellishments that have been introduced. m. semot, (the father of the present owner), was a painter of the empire and a laureate, and he tried to reproduce to the best of his ability that cold italian, republican, roman style, which was so popular in the time of canova and of madame de staël. in those days people were inclined to be pompous and noble. they used to place chiselled urns on graves and paint everybody in a flowing cloak, and with long hair; then corinne sang to the accompaniment of her lyre beside oswald, who wore russian boots; and it was thought proper to have everybody's head adorned with a profusion of dishevelled locks and to have a multitude of ruins in every landscape. this style of embellishment abounds throughout la garenne. there is a temple erected to vesta, and directly opposite it another erected to friendship.... inscriptions, artificial rocks, factitious ruins, are scattered lavishly, with artlessness and conviction.... but the poetical riches centre in the grotto of héloïse, a sort of natural dolmen on the bank of the sèvre. why have people made héloïse, who was such a great and noble figure, appear commonplace and silly, the prototype of all crossed loves and the narrow ideal of sentimental schoolgirls? the unfortunate mistress of the great abélard deserved a better fate, for she loved him with devoted admiration, although he was hard and taciturn at times and spared her neither bitterness nor blows. she dreaded offending him more than she dreaded offending god, and strove harder to please him. she did not wish him to marry her, because she thought that "it was wrong and deplorable that the one whom nature had created for all ... should be appropriated by one woman." she found, she said, "more happiness in the appellation of mistress or concubine, than in that of wife or empress," and by humiliating herself in him, she hoped to gain a stronger hold over his heart. * * * * * the park is really delightful. alleys wind through the woods and clusters of trees bend over the meandering stream. you can hear the bubbling water and feel the coolness of the foliage. if we were irritated by the bad taste displayed here, it was because we had just left clisson, which has a real, simple, and solid beauty, and after all, this bad taste is not that of our contemporaries. but what is, in fact, bad taste? invariably it is the taste of the period which has preceded ours. bad taste at the time of ronsard was represented by marot; at the time of boileau, by ronsard; at the time of voltaire, by corneille, and by voltaire in the day of chateaubriand, whom many people nowadays begin to think a trifle weak. o men of taste in future centuries, let me recommend you the men of taste of to-day! you will laugh at their cramps, their superb disdain, their preference for veal and milk, and the faces they make when underdone meat and too ardent poetry is served to them. everything that is beautiful will then appear ugly; everything that is graceful, stupid; everything that is rich, poor; and oh! how our delightful boudoirs, our charming salons, our exquisite costumes, our palpitating plays, our interesting novels, our serious books will all be consigned to the garret or be used for old paper and manure! o posterity, above all things do not forget our gothic salons, our renaissance furniture, m. pasquier's discourses, the shape of our hats, and the aesthetics of _la revue des deux mondes!_ while we were pondering upon these lofty philosophical considerations, our wagon had hauled us over to tiffanges. seated side by side in a sort of tin tub, our weight crushed the tiny horse, which swayed to and fro between the shafts. it was like the twitching of an eel in the body of a musk-rat. going down hill pushed him forward, going up hill pulled him backward, while uneven places in the road threw him from side to side, and the wind and the whip lashed him alternately. the poor brute! i cannot think of him now without a certain feeling of remorse. the road down hill is curved and its edges are covered with clumps of sea-rushes or large patches of a certain reddish moss. to the right, on an eminence that starts from the bottom of the dale and swells in the middle like the carapace of a tortoise, one perceives high, unequal walls, the crumbling tops of which appear one above another. one follows a hedge, climbs a path, and enters an open portal which has sunken into the ground to the depth of one third of its ogive. the men who used to pass through it on horseback would be obliged to bend over their saddles in order to enter it to-day. when the earth is tired of supporting a monument, it swells up underneath it, creeps up to it like a wave, and while the sky causes the top to crumble away, the ground obliterates the foundations. the courtyard was deserted and the calm water that filled the moats remained motionless and flat under the pond-lilies. the sky was white and cloudless, but without sunshine. its bleak curve extended far away, covering the country with a cold and cheerless monotony. not a sound could be heard, the birds did not sing, even the horizon was mute, and from the empty furrows came neither the scream of the crows as they soar heavenward, nor the soft creaking of plough-wheels. we climbed down through brambles and underbrush into a deep and dark trench, hidden at the foot of a large tower, which stands in the water surrounded by reeds. a lone window opens on one side: a dark square relieved by the grey line of its stone cross-bar. a capricious cluster of wild honeysuckle covers the sill, and its maze of perfumed blossoms creeps along the walls. when one looks up, the openings of the big machicolations reveal only a part of the sky, or some little, unknown flower which has nestled in the battlement, its seed having been wafted there on a stormy day and left to sprout in the cracks of the stones. presently, a long, balmy breeze swept over us like a sigh, and the trees in the moats, the moss on the stones, the reeds in the water, the plants among the ruins, and the ivy, which covered the tower from top to bottom with a layer of shining leaves, all trembled and shook their foliage; the corn in the fields rippled in endless waves that again and again bent the swaying tops of the ears; the pond wrinkled and welled up against the foot of the tower; the leaves of the ivy all quivered at once, and an apple-tree in bloom covered the ground with pink blossoms. nothing, nothing! the open sky, the growing grass, the passing wind. no ragged child tending a browsing cow; not even, as elsewhere, some solitary goat sticking its shaggy head through an aperture in the walls to turn at our approach and flee in terror through the bushes; not a song-bird, not a nest, not a sound! this castle is like a ghost: mute and cold, it stands abandoned in this deserted place, and looks accursed and replete with terrifying recollections. still, this melancholy dwelling, which the owls now seem to avoid, was once inhabited. in the dungeon, between four walls as livid as the bottom of an old drinking-trough, we were able to discover the traces of five floors. a chimney, with its two round pillars and black top, has remained suspended in the air at a height of thirty feet. earth has accumulated on it, and plants are growing there as if it were a jardinière. beyond the second enclosure, in a ploughed field, one can recognise the ruins of a chapel by the broken shafts of an ogive portal. grass has grown around it, and trees have replaced the columns. four hundred years ago, this chapel was filled with ornaments of gold cloth and silk, censers, chandeliers, chalices, crosses, precious stones, gold vessels and vases, a choir of thirty singers, chaplains, musicians, and children sang hymns to the accompaniment of an organ which they took along with them when they travelled. they were clad in scarlet garments lined with pearl grey and vair. there was one whom they called archdeacon, and another whom they called bishop, and the pope was asked to allow them to wear mitres like canons, for this chapel was the chapel, and this castle one of the castles of gilles de laval, lord of rouci, of montmorency, of retz and of craon, lieutenant-general of the duke of brittany and field-marshal of france, who was burned at nantes on the th of october, , in the prée de la madéleine for being a counterfeiter, a murderer, a magician, an atheist and a sodomite. he possessed more than one hundred thousand crowns' worth of furniture; an income of thirty thousand pounds a year, the profits of his fiefs and his salary as field-marshal; fifty magnificently appointed horsemen escorted him. he kept open house, served the rarest viands and the oldest wines at his board, and gave representations of mysteries, as cities used to do when a king was within their gates. when his money gave out, he sold his estates; when those were gone, he looked around for more gold, and when he had destroyed his furnaces, he called on the devil. he wrote him that he would give him all that he possessed, excepting his life and his soul. he made sacrifices, gave alms and instituted ceremonies in his honour. at night, the bleak walls of the castle lighted up by the glare of the torches that flared amid bumpers of rare wines and gipsy jugglers, and blushed hotly under the unceasing breath of magical bellows. the inhabitants invoked the devil, joked with death, murdered children, enjoyed frightful and atrocious pleasures; blood flowed, instruments played, everything echoed with voluptuousness, horror, and madness. when he expired, four or five damsels had his body removed from the stake, laid out, and taken to the carmelites, who, after performing the customary services, buried him in state. on one of the bridges of the loire, relates guépin, opposite the hôtel de la boule-d'or, an expiatory monument was erected to his memory. it was a niche containing the statue of the _bonne vierge de crée lait_, who had the power of creating milk in nurses; the good people offered her butter and similar rustic products. the niche still exists, but the statue is gone; the same as at the town-house, where the casket which contained the heart of queen anne is also empty. but we did not care to see the casket; we did not even give it a thought. i should have preferred gazing upon the trousers of the marshal of retz to looking at the heart of madame anne de bretagne. chapter iii. carnac. the field of carnac is a large, open space where eleven rows of black stones are aligned at symmetrical intervals. they diminish in size as they recede from the ocean. cambry asserts that there were four thousand of these rocks and fréminville has counted twelve hundred of them. they are certainly very numerous. what was their use? was it a temple? one day saint cornille, pursued along the shore by soldiers, was about to jump into the ocean, when he thought of changing them all into stone, and forthwith the men were petrified. but this explanation was good only for fools, little children, and poets. other people looked for better reasons. in the sixteenth century, olaüs magnus, archbishop of upsal (who, banished to rome, wrote a book on the antiquities of his country that met with widespread success except in his native land, sweden, where it was not translated), discovered that, when these stones form one long, straight row, they cover the bodies of warriors who died while fighting duels; that those arranged in squares are consecrated to heroes that perished in battle; that those disposed in a circle are family graves, while those that form corners or angular figures are the tombs of horsemen or foot-soldiers, and more especially of those fighters whose party had triumphed. all this is quite clear, but olaüs magnus has forgotten to tell us how two cousins who killed each other in a duel on horseback could have been buried. the fact of the duel required that the stones be straight; the relationship required that they be circular; but as the men were horsemen, it seems as if the stones ought to have been arranged squarely, though this rule, it is true, was not formal, as it was applied only to those whose party had triumphed. o good olaüs magnus! you must have liked monte-pulciano exceeding well! and how many draughts of it did it take for you to acquire all this wonderful knowledge? according to a certain english doctor named borlase, who had observed similar stones in cornouailles, "they buried soldiers there, in the very place where they died." as if, usually, they were carted to the cemetery! and he builds his hypothesis on the following comparison: their graves are on a straight line, like the front of an army on plains that were the scene of some great action. then they tried to bring in the greeks, the egyptians, and the cochin chinese! there is a karnac in egypt, they said, and one on the coast of brittany. now, it is probable that this karnac descends from the egyptian one; it is quite certain! in egypt they are sphinxes; here they are rocks; but in both instances they are of stone. so it would seem that the egyptians (who never travelled), came to this coast (of the existence of which they were ignorant), founded a colony (they never founded any), and left these crude statues (they produced such beautiful ones), as a positive proof of their sojourn in this country (which nobody mentions). people fond of mythology thought them the columns of hercules; people fond of natural history thought them a representation of the python, because, according to pausanias, a similar heap of stones, on the road from thebes to elissonte, was called "the serpent's head," and especially because the rows of stones at carnac present the sinuosities of a serpent. people fond of cosmography discovered a zodiac, like m. de cambry, who recognised in those eleven rows of stones the twelve signs of the zodiac, "for it must be stated," he adds, "that the ancient gauls had only eleven signs to the zodiac." subsequently, a member of the institute conjectured that it might perhaps be the cemetery of the venetians, who inhabited vannes, situated six miles from carnac, and who founded venice, as everybody knows. another man wrote that these venetians, conquered by cæsar, erected all those rocks solely in a spirit of humility and in order to honour their victor. but people were getting tired of the cemetery theory, the serpent and the zodiac; they set out again and this time found a druidic temple. the few documents that we possess, scattered through pliny and dionysius cassius, agree in stating that the druids chose dark places for their ceremonies, like the depths of the woods with "their vast silence." and as carnac is situated on the coast, and surrounded by a barren country, where nothing but these gentlemen's fancies has ever grown, the first grenadier of france, but not, in my estimation, the cleverest man, followed by pelloutier and by m. mahé, (canon of the cathedral of vannes), concluded that it was "a druidic temple in which political meetings must also have been held." but all had not been said, and it still remained to be discovered of what use the empty spaces in the rows could have been. "let us look for the reason, a thing nobody has ever thought of before," cried m. mahé, and, quoting a sentence from pomponius mela: "the druids teach the nobility many things and instruct them secretly in caves and forests;" and this one from tucain: "you dwell in tall forests," he reached the conclusion that the druids not only officiated at the sanctuaries, but that they also lived and taught in them. "so the monument of carnac being a sanctuary, like the gallic forests," (o power of induction! where are you leading father mahé, canon of vannes and correspondent of the academy of agriculture at poitiers?), there is reason to believe that the intervals, which break up the rows of stones, held rows of houses where the druids lived with their families and numerous pupils, and where the heads of the nation, who, on state days, betook themselves to the sanctuary, found comfortable lodgings. good old druids! excellent ecclesiastics! how they have been calumnied! they lived there so righteously with their families and numerous pupils, and even were amiable enough to prepare lodgings for the principals of the nation! but at last came a man imbued with the genius of ancient things and disdainful of trodden paths. he was able to recognize the rests of a roman camp, and, strangely enough, the rests of one of the camps of cæsar, who had had these stones upreared only to serve as support for the tents of his soldiers and prevent them from being blown away by the wind. what gales there must have been in those days, on the coasts of armorica! the honest writer who, to the glory of the great julius, discovered this sublime precaution, (thus returning to cæsar that which never belonged to cæsar), was a former pupil of l'École polytechnique, an engineer, a m. de la sauvagère. the collection of all these data constitutes what is called _celtic archæology_, the mysteries of which we shall presently disclose. a stone placed on another one is called a "dolmen," whether it be horizontal or perpendicular. a group of upright stones covered by succeeding flat stones, and forming a series of dolmens, is a "fairy grotto," a "fairy rock," a "devil's stable," or a "giant's palace"; for, like the people who serve the same wine under different labels, the celto-maniacs, who had almost nothing to offer, decorated the same things with various names. when these stones form an ellipse, and have no head-covering, one must say: there is a "cromlech"; when one perceives a stone laid horizontally upon two upright stones, one is confronted by a "lichaven" or a "trilithe." often two enormous rocks are put one on top of the other, and touch only at one point, and we read that "they are balanced in such a way that the wind alone is sufficient to make the upper rock sway perceptibly," an assertion which i do not dispute, although i am rather suspicious of the celtic wind, and although these swaying rocks have always remained unshaken in spite of the fierce kicks i was artless enough to give them; they are called "rolling or rolled stones," "turned or transported stones," "stones that dance or dancing stones," "stones that twist or twisting stones." you must still learn what a _pierre fichade_, a _pierre fiche_, a _pierre fixée_ are, and what is meant by a _haute borne_, a _pierre latte_ and a _pierre lait_; in what a _pierre fonte_ differs from a _pierre fiette_, and what connection there is between a _chaire à diable_ and a _pierre droite_; then you will be as wise as ever were pelloutier, déric, latour d'auvergne, penhoet and others, not forgetting mahé and fréminville. now, all this means a _pulvan_, also called a _men-hir_, and designates nothing more than a stone of greater or lesser size, placed by itself in an open field. i was about to forget the tumuli! those that are composed of silica and soil are called "barrows" in high-flown language, while the simple heaps of stones are "gals-gals." people have pretended that when they were not tombs the "dolmens" and "trilithes" were altars, that the "fairy rocks" were assembling places or sepultures, and that the business meetings at the time of the druids were held in the "cromlechs." m. de cambry saw in the "swaying rocks" the emblems of the suspended world. the "barrows" and "gals-gals" have undoubtedly been tombs; and as for the "men-hirs," people went so far as to pretend that they had a form which led to the deduction that a certain cult reigned throughout lower brittany. o chaste immodesty of science, you respect nothing, not even a peulven! a reverie, no matter how undefined, may lead up to splendid creations, when it starts from a fixed point. then the imagination, like a soaring hippogriff, stamps the earth with all its might and journeys straightway towards infinite regions. but when it applies itself to a subject devoid of plastic art and history, and tries to extract a science from it, and to reconstruct a world, it remains even poorer and more barren than the rough stone to which the vanity of some praters has lent a shape and dignified with a history. to return to the stones of carnac (or rather, to leave them), if anyone should, after all these opinions, ask me mine, i would emit an irresistible, irrefutable, incontestable one, which would make the tents of m. de la sauvagère stagger, blanch the face of the egyptian penhoët, break up the zodiac of cambry and smash the python into a thousand bits. this is my opinion: the stones of carnac are simply large stones! * * * * * so we returned to the inn and dined heartily, for our five hours' tramp had sharpened our appetites. we were served by the hostess, who had large blue eyes, delicate hands, and the sweet face of a nun. it was not yet bedtime, and it was too dark to work, so we went to the church. this is small, although it has a nave and side-aisles like a city church. short, thick stone pillars support its wooden roof, painted in blue, from which hang miniature vessels, votive offerings that were promised during raging storms. spiders creep along their sails and the riggings are rotting under the dust. no service was being held, and the lamp in the choir burned dimly in its cup filled with yellow oil; overhead, through the open windows of the darkened vault, came broad rays of white light and the sound of the wind rustling in the tree-tops. a man came in to put the chairs in order, and placed two candles in an iron chandelier riveted to the stone pillar; then he pulled into the middle of the aisle a sort of stretcher with a pedestal, its black wood stained with large white spots. other people entered the church, and a priest clad in his surplice passed us. there was the intermittent tinkling of a bell and then the door of the church opened wide. the jangling sound of the little bell mingled with the tones of another and their sharp, clear tones swelled louder as they came nearer and nearer to us. a cart drawn by oxen appeared and halted in front of the church. it held a corpse, whose dull white feet protruded from under the winding-sheet like bits of washed alabaster, while the body itself had the uncertain form peculiar to dressed corpses. the crowd around was silent. the men bared their heads; the priest shook his holy-water sprinkler and mumbled orisons, and the pair of oxen swung their heads to and fro under the heavy, creaking yoke. the church, in the background of which gleamed a star, formed one huge shadow in the greenish outdoor atmosphere of a rainy twilight, and the child who held a light on the threshold had to keep his hand in front of it to prevent the wind from blowing it out. they lifted the body from the cart, and in doing so struck its head against the pole. they carried it into the church and placed it on the stretcher. a crowd of men and women followed. they knelt on the floor, the men near the corpse, and the women a little farther away, near the door; then the service began. it did not last very long, at least it impressed us that way, for the low psalmodies were recited rapidly and drowned now and then by a stifled sob which came from under the black hoods near the door. a hand touched me and i drew aside to let a bent woman pass. with her clenched fists on her breast, and face averted, she advanced without appearing to move her feet, eager to see, yet trembling to behold, and reached the row of lights which burned beside the bier. slowly, very slowly, lifting up her arm as if to hide herself under it, she turned her head on her shoulder and sank in a heap on a chair, as limp as her garments. by the light of the candles, i could see her staring eyes, framed by lids that looked as if they had been scalded, so red were they; her idiotic and contracted mouth, trembling with despair, and her whole pitiful face, which was drenched with tears. the corpse was that of her husband, who had been lost at sea; he had been washed ashore and was now being laid to rest. the cemetery adjoined the church. the mourners passed into it through a side-door, while the corpse was being nailed in its coffin, in the vestry. a fine rain moistened the atmosphere; we felt cold; the earth was slippery and the grave-diggers who had not completed their task, found it hard to raise the heavy soil, for it stuck to their shovels. in the background, the women kneeling in the grass, throwing back their hoods and their big white caps, the starched wings of which fluttered in the wind, appeared at a distance like an immense winding-sheet hovering over the earth. when the corpse reappeared, the prayers began again, and the sobs broke out anew, and could be heard through the dropping rain. not far from us, issued, at regular intervals, a sort of subdued gurgle that sounded like laughter. in any other place, a person hearing it would have thought it the repressed explosion of some overwhelming joy or the paroxysm of a delirious happiness. it was the widow, weeping. then she walked to the edge of the grave, as did the rest of the mourners, and little by little, the soil assumed its ordinary level and everybody went home. as we walked down the cemetery steps, a young fellow passed us and said in french to a companion: "heavens! didn't the fellow stink! he is almost completely mortified! it isn't surprising, though, after being in the water three weeks!" * * * * * one morning we started as on other mornings; we chose the same road, and passed the hedge of young elms and the sloping meadow where the day before we had seen a little girl chasing cattle to the drinking-trough; but it was the last day, and the last time perhaps, that we should pass that way. a muddy stretch of land, into which we sank up to our ankles, extends from carnac to the village of pô. a boat was waiting for us; we entered it, and they hoisted the sail and pushed off. our sailor, an old man with a cheerful face, sat aft; he fastened a line to the gunwale and let his peaceful boat go its own way. there was hardly any wind; the blue sea was calm and the narrow track the rudder ploughed in the waters could be seen for a long time. the old fellow was talkative; he spoke of the priests, whom he disliked, of meat, which he thought was a good thing to eat even on fast days, of the work he had had when he was in the navy, and of the shots he had received when he was a customs officer.... the boat glided along slowly, the line followed us and the end of the _tape-cul_ hung in the water. the mile we had to walk in order to go from saint-pierre to quiberon was quickly covered, in spite of a hilly and sandy road, and the sun, which made our shoulders smart beneath the straps of our bags, and a number of "men-hirs" that were scattered along the route. chapter iv. quiberon. in quiberon, we breakfasted at old rohan belle-isle's, who keeps the hôtel penthièvre. this gentleman had his bare feet stuck in old slippers, on account of the heat, and was drinking with a mason, a fact which does not prevent him from being the descendant of one of the first families of europe; an aristocrat of the old stock! a real aristocrat! _vive dieu!_ he immediately set to work to pound a steak and to cook us some lobsters. our pride was flattered to its innermost fibre. the past of quiberon is concentrated in a massacre. its greatest curiosity is a cemetery, which is filled to its utmost capacity and overflows into the street. the head-stones are crowded together and invade and submerge one another, as if the corpses were uncomfortable in their graves and had lifted up their shoulders to escape from them. it suggests a petrified ocean, the tombs being the waves, and the crosses the masts of shipwrecked vessels. in the middle, an open ossuary contains skeletons that have been exhumed in order to make room for other corpses. who has said: "life is a hostelry, and the grave is our home?" but these corpses do not remain in their graves, for they are only tenants and are ejected at the expiration of the lease. around this charnel-house, where the heaps of bones resemble a mass of fagots, is arranged, breast-high, a series of little black boxes, six inches square, surmounted by a cross and cut out in the shape of a heart in front, so that one can see the skulls inside. above the heart-shaped opening are the following words in painted letters: "this is the head of ---- ----, deceased on such and such a day, in such and such a year." these heads belonged to persons of a certain standing, and one would be considered an ungrateful son if, after seven years, he did not give his parents' skulls the luxury of one of these little black boxes. the remainder of the bodies is thrown into the bone-house, and twenty-five years afterwards the heads are sent to join them. a few years ago they tried to abolish the custom; but a riot ensued and the practice continued. perhaps it is wicked to play with those round skulls which once contained a mind, with those empty circles in which passion throbbed. those boxes surrounding the ossuary and scattered over the graves, over the wall and in the grass, without any attempt at order, may appear horrible to a few and ridiculous to many; but those black cases rotting even as the bones blanch and crumble to dust; those skulls, with noses eaten away and foreheads streaked by the slimy trails of snails, and hollow, staring eyes; those thigh-bones piled up as in the great charnel-houses mentioned in the bible; those pieces of skulls lying around filled with earth, in which a flower springs up sometimes and grows through the holes of the eyes; even the vulgarity of those inscriptions, which are as similar as the corpses they identify--all this human rottenness appeared beautiful to us, and procured us a splendid sight. if the post of auray had arrived, we should have started at once for belle-isle; but they were waiting for it. transient sailors with bare arms and open shirts sat in the kitchen of the inn, drinking to pass away the time. "at what time is the post due here in auray?" "that depends; usually at ten o'clock," replied the innkeeper. "no, at eleven," put in a man. "at twelve," said m. de rohan. "at one." "at half-past one." "sometimes it doesn't reach here until two o'clock." "it isn't very regular!" we were aware of that; it was already three. we could not start before the arrival of this ill-fated messenger, which brings belle-isle the despatches from _terra firma_, so we had to resign ourselves. once in a while some one would get up, go to the door, look out, come back, and start up again. oh! he will not come to-day.--he must have stopped on the way.--let's go home.--no, let's wait for him.--if, however, you are tired of waiting gentlemen.... after all, there may not be any letters.... no, just wait a little longer.--oh! here he comes!--but it was some one else, and the dialogue would begin all over again. at last we heard the beating of tired hoofs on the cobblestones, the tinkling of bells, the cracking of a whip and a man's voice shouting: "ho! ho! here's the post! here's the post!" the horse stopped in front of the door, hunched its back, stretched its neck, opened its mouth, disclosed its teeth, spread its hind legs and rose on its hocks. the animal was lean and tall, and had a moth-eaten mane, rough hoofs and loose shoes; a seton bobbed up and down on its breast. lost in a saddle that swallowed him up, supported at the back by a valise and in front by the mail-bag, which was passed through the saddle-bow, its rider sat huddled on it like a monkey. his small face, adorned with straggling blond whiskers and as wrinkled and rough as a winter apple, was hidden by a large oil-cloth hat lined with felt; a sort of gray coutil coat was drawn up to his hips and bagged around his stomach, while his trousers stopped at the knees and disclosed his bare legs reddened by the rubbing of the stirrup-straps, and his blue hose, which hung over his shoes. the harness was held together with strings, the rider's clothes had been mended with threads of different colours; all sorts of patches and all kinds of spots, torn linen, greasy leather, dried mud, recent dust, hanging straps, bright rags, a dirty man and a mangy horse, the former sickly and perspiring, the latter consumptive and almost spent; the one with his whip and the other with its bells--all this formed but one object which had the same colour and movement and executed almost the same gestures, which served the same purpose, the conducting of the auray post. after another hour, when all the packages and commissions had been attended to and we had waited for several passengers who were to come, we finally left the inn and went aboard. at first there was nothing but a confused mass of people and luggage, oars that caused us to stumble, sails that dropped on our heads, men falling over each other and not knowing where to go; then everything quieted down, each one found his nook, the luggage was put in the bottom of the boat, the sailors got on the benches, and the passengers seated themselves as best they could. there was no breeze and the sails clung limply to the masts. the heavy boat hardly moved over the almost motionless sea, which swelled and subsided with the gentle rhythm of a sleeping breast. leaning against one of the gunwales, we gazed at the water, which was as blue and calm as the sky, and listened to the splashing of the oars; sitting in the shadow of the sail, the six rowers lifted their oars regularly to make the forward stroke, and when they dipped them into the water and brought them up again, drops of crystal clung to their paddles. reclining on the straw, or sitting on the benches, with their legs dangling and their chins in their hands, or leaning against the sides of the boat, between the big jambs of the hull, the tar of which was melting in the heat, the silent passengers hung their heads and closed their eyes to shut out the glare of the sun, that shone on the flat ocean as on a mirror. a white-haired man was sleeping at my feet, a gendarme was sweltering under his three-cornered hat, and two soldiers had unfastened their knapsacks and used them as pillows. near the bowsprit stood a cabin-boy looking into the stay-sail and whistling for wind, while the skipper remained aft and managed the tiller. still no wind arose. orders were given to haul in the sails; slowly and gently they came down and fell in a heap on the benches; then each sailor took off his waistcoat, stowed it away under the bow of the boat, and the men began to row again with all their might. * * * * * our departure had been so delayed that there was hardly any water left in the harbour and we had great difficulty in landing. our boat grated on the pebbles, and in order to leave it, we were compelled to walk on an oar as if it were a tight-rope. ensconced between the citadel and its ramparts, and cut in two by an almost empty port, the palay appeared to us a useless little town overcome with military ennui, and put me in mind, i do not know why, of a gaping _sous-officier_. one fails to see the low-crowned, broad-brimmed black felt hats of le morbihan, that give protection to the shoulders as well as the head. the women do not affect the big, white caps that stand out from their faces, and reach down their backs like those worn by the nuns, so that when worn by little girls they cover half of their bodies. their gowns are made without the wide stripe of velvet applied on each shoulder and rounding away under the arms. nor do they wear the low shoes with square toes, high heels, and long black ribbon streamers. here, as elsewhere, we found faces that resemble other faces, costumes that really are no costumes at all, cobblestones, and even a sidewalk. was it worth while to expose ourselves to seasickness (which, by the way, we escaped, a fact that inclined us to leniency), only to see a citadel that we do not admire, a lighthouse that did not appeal to us in the least, and a rampart built by vauban, of whom we were already heartily tired? but people had spoken to us of belle-isle's rocks. so we started at once, and taking a short cut across the fields, walked to the beach. we saw one grotto, only one (the day was near its close), but it appeared so beautiful to us (it was draped with sea-weed and decorated with shells, and water dripped from the top), that we resolved to spend a day in belle-isle, in order to discover more of them, if there were any, and feast our eyes leisurely upon their beauties. the following day, at dawn, having filled our flasks and put some sandwiches in our knapsacks, we decided to go where we pleased; so, without a guide or information of any sort (this is the best way), we set out to walk, having resolved that we would go anywhere, provided it were far, and would return home at any time, provided it were late. we began by a path which led to the top of a cliff, then followed its asperities and valleys and continued around the whole island. when we reached places where landslips had obliterated it, we struck out into the country and let our eyes roam over the horizon of the sea, the deep blue line of which touched the sky; then we walked back to the edge of the rocks, which had suddenly reappeared at our side. the perpendicular cliff, the top of which we were treading, concealed the flank of the rocks, and we could only hear the roaring of the breakers below us. sometimes the rock was split in its entire length, disclosing its two almost straight sides, streaked with layers of silica, with tufts of yellow flowers scattered here and there. if we threw a stone, it appeared suspended in the air for a time, would then strike the sides of the cliff, rebound from the one to the other, break into a thousand bits, scattering earth and pebbles in its course, and finally land at the bottom of the pit, where it frightened the cormorants, which shrieked and took flight. frequent storms and thaws have pushed a part of the upper grounds into these gorges, and so their steep slope has grown less abrupt, and one is able to climb down to the bottom. we attempted to do so by sliding down like children, holding ourselves back with our hands and feet, and finally we landed safely on the soft, wet sand. the tide was going out, but in order to be able to pass, we had to wait until the breakers receded. we watched them approach us. they dashed against the rocks, swirled in the crevices, rose like scarfs on the wind, fell back in drops and sprays, and with one long, sweeping libration, gathered their green waters together and retreated. when one wave left the sand, its currents immediately joined, and sought lower levels. the sea-weed moved its slimy branches; the water bubbled between the pebbles, oozed through the cracks of the rocks and formed a thousand rivulets and fountains. the drenched sand absorbed it all, and soon its yellow tint grew white again through the drying action of the sun. as soon as we could, we jumped over the rocks and continued on our way. soon, however, they increased in numbers, their weird groups being crowded together, piled up and overturned on one another. we tried to hold on with our hands and feet, but we slid on their slippery asperities. the cliff was so very high that it quite frightened us to look up at it. although it crushed us by its formidable placidity, still it fascinated us, for we could not help looking at it and it did not tire our eyes. a swallow passed us and we watched its flight; it came from the sea; it ascended slowly through the air, cutting the luminous, fluid atmosphere with its sharp, outstretched wings that seemed to enjoy being absolutely untrammelled. the bird ascended higher and higher, rose above the cliff and finally disappeared. meanwhile we were creeping over the rocks, the perspective of which was renewed by each bend of the coast. once in a while, when the rocks ended, we walked on square stones that were as flat as marble slabs and seamed by almost symmetrical furrows, which appeared like the tracks of some ancient road of another world. in some places were great pools of water as calm as their greenish depths and as limpid and motionless as a woodland stream on its bed of cresses. then the rocks would reappear closer than before and more numerous. on one side was the ocean with its breakers foaming around the lower rocks; on the other, the straight, unrelenting, impassive coast. tired and bewildered, we looked about us for some issue; but the cliff stretched out before us, and the rocks, infinitely multiplying their dark green forms, succeeded one another until their unequal crags seemed like so many tall, black phantoms rising out of the earth. we stumbled around in this way until we suddenly perceived an undulating series of rough steps which enabled us to climb up to flat land again. it is always a pleasure, even when the country is ugly, to walk with a friend, to feel the grass under one's feet, to jump over fences and ditches, to break thistles with one's stick, to pull leaves from the bushes and wheat from the fields, to go where one's fancy dictates, whistling, singing, talking, dreaming, without strange ears to listen to one's conversation, and the sound of strange footsteps behind one, as absolutely free as if one were in the desert! ah! let us have air! air! and more space! since our contracted souls suffocate and die on the window-sill, since our captive spirits, like the bear in its cage, turn around and around, and stagger against the walls of their prison, why not, at least, let our nostrils breathe the different perfumes of all the winds of the earth, why not let our eyes rove over every horizon? no steeple shone in the distance, no hamlet with thatched roofs and square yards framed by clusters of trees, appeared on the side of a hill; not a soul was to be seen, not even a peasant, a grazing sheep, or a stray dog. all those cultivated fields look uninhabited; the peasants work in them, but they do not live there. one is led to believe that they benefit by them but do not care about them in the least. we saw a farm and walked in; a ragged woman served us some ice-cold milk in earthen cups. the silence all around was peculiar. the woman watched us eagerly, and we soon took our departure. we walked into a valley, the narrow gorge of which appeared to extend to the ocean. tall grass with yellow flowers reached up to our waists, and we had to take long strides in order to advance. we could hear the murmur of flowing water near by, and we sank ankle-deep into the marshy soil. presently the two hills parted; their barren sides were covered with short, stubby grass and here and there were big yellow patches of moss. at the foot of one hill a stream wends its way through the drooping boughs of the stunted shrubs that grow on its edges, and loses itself in a quiet pond where long-legged insects disport themselves on the leaves of the water-lilies. the sun beat down on us. the gnats rubbed their wings together and bent the slender ends of the reeds with the weight of their tiny bodies. we were alone in the tranquillity of this desert. at this point, the valley curved and widened and formed a sharp bend. we climbed a little hill, in order to locate ourselves, but the horizon either ended abruptly, enclosed by another hill, or else stretched out over new plains. we did not lose courage, however, and continued to advance, while we thought of the travellers on desert islands who climb on promontories in the hope of sighting some vessel setting sail towards them. the soil was growing less moist, and the grass less high; presently the ocean came in view, ensconced in a narrow bay, and soon the shore, strewn with débris of shells and madrepores, crunched beneath our footsteps. we let ourselves drop to the ground and as we were exhausted, we soon fell asleep. an hour later the cold woke us up, and we started homeward without any fear of losing our way this time. we were on the coast facing france, and palay was on our left. it was here, the day before, that we had discovered the grotto we admired so much. it did not take us long to find others, higher and deeper even than the first one. they always opened through large, pointed arches which were either upright or inclined, their bold columns supporting enormous pieces of rock. black, veined with purple, fiery red, or brown streaked with white, these beautiful grottoes displayed for their visitors the infinite variety of their shapes and colouring, their graces and their grand caprices. there was one all of silver veined with deep red; in another, tufts of flowers resembling periwinkles had grown on glazings of reddish granite, and drops of water fell from the ceiling on the fine sand with never-ceasing regularity. in the background of another grotto, beneath a long semi-circle, a bed of polished white gravel, which the tide no doubt turns and makes fresh every day, seemed to be waiting to receive the body of a mermaid; but the bed is empty and has lost her forever! only the moist seaweed remains on which she used to stretch her delicate nude limbs when she was tired of swimming, and on which she reclined till daybreak, in the pale light of the moon. the sun was setting, and the tide was coming in over the rocks that melted in the blue evening mist, which was blanched on the level of the ocean by the foam of the tumbling waves. in the other part of the horizon, the sky streaked with orange stripes looked as if it had been swept by a gale. its light reflected on the waters and spread a gleaming sheen over them, and projected on the sand, giving it a brownish tinge and making it glitter like steel. half a mile to the south, the coast is covered by a line of rocks that extends to the sea. in order to reach them, we should have been compelled to tramp as we had already done that morning. we were tired, and it was far; but a temptation seemed to push us forward. the breeze played in the cracks of the rocks and wrinkled the surface of the pools; the sea-weed, cleaving to the sides of the cliff, shook in the wind, and from the part of the sky where the moon was to rise, a pale light spread over the waters. it was the hour when the shadows lengthen. the rocks appeared larger, and the breakers a deeper green. the sky seemed to expand, and all nature assumed a different appearance. so we started, without giving a thought to the incoming tide or whether or not we should find later a way to get back to land. we wished to enjoy our pleasure to the fullest extent. we seemed lighter than in the morning, and ran and jumped without the slightest feeling of fatigue. an abundance of animal spirits impelled us onward and we felt a peculiarly robust twitching in our muscles. we shook our heads in the wind and touched the grasses with our fingers. we breathed the salt air of the ocean, and noted and assimilated every color, every sunbeam, every sound, the design of the seaweed, the softness of the sand, the hardness of the rocks that echoed under our footsteps, the height of the cliffs, the fringe of the waves, the accidents of the coast, and the voice of the horizon; and the breeze that passed over our faces like intangible kisses, the sky with its passing clouds, the rising moon, the peeping stars. our souls bathed in all this splendour, and our eyes feasted on it; we opened our ears and nostrils wide; something of the very life of the elements, forced from them undoubtedly by the attraction of our eyes, reached us and was assimilated, so that we were able to comprehend them in a closer relation and feel them more keenly, thanks to this complex union. by thus entering and penetrating into nature, we became a part of it, diffused ourselves in it, and were claimed by it once more; we felt that it was overpowering us, and we rejoiced; we desired to be lost in it, to be borne away, or to carry it away with us. as in the raptures of love, one wishes more hands with which to caress, more lips with which to kiss, more eyes with which to see, more soul with which to worship; spreading ourselves out in nature, with a joyful and delirious abandon, we regretted that our eyes could not penetrate to the innermost parts of the rocks, to the bottom of the sea, to the end of the heavens, in order to see how the stones grow, how the breakers are made, how the stars are lighted; we regretted that our ears could not catch the rumour of the fermentation of the granite in the bowels of the earth, could not hear the sap circulate in the plants and the coral roll in the solitudes of the ocean. and while we were under the spell of that contemplative effusion, we wished that our souls, radiating everywhere, might live all these different lives, assume all these different forms, and, varying unceasingly, accomplish their metamorphoses under an eternal sun! but man was made to enjoy each day only a small portion of food, colours, sounds, sentiments and ideas. anything above the allotted quantity tires or intoxicates him; it becomes the idiocy of the drunkard or the ravings of the ecstatic. o, god! how small is our glass and how large is our thirst! what weak heads we have! chapter v. return. in order to return to quiberon, we were compelled, on the following day, to arise before seven o'clock, a feat which required some courage. while we were still stiff from fatigue and shivering with sleep, we got into a boat along with a white horse, two drummers, the same one-eyed gendarme and the same soldier who, this time, however, did not lecture anybody. as drunk as a lord, he kept slipping under the benches and had all he could do to keep his shako on his head and extricate his gun from between his feet. i could not say which was the sillier of the two. the gendarme was sober, but he was very stupid. he deplored the soldier's lack of manners, enumerated the punishments that would be dealt out to him, was scandalised by his hiccoughs and resented his demeanour. viewed from the side of the missing eye, with his three-cornered hat, his sabre and his yellow gloves, the gendarme presented one of the sorriest aspects of human life. besides, there is something so essentially grotesque about gendarmes that i cannot help laughing at them; these upholders of the law always produce the same comic effect on me, and so do attorneys for the king, magistrates, and professors of literature. tipped to one side, the boat skimmed lightly through the foaming waves. the three sails were comfortably swelled; the masts creaked and the wind rattled the pulleys. a cabin-boy stood at the helm singing. we could not catch the words, but it was some slow, monotonous lay which neither rose nor fell and was repeated again and again, with long-drawn-out inflections and languid refrain. and it swept softly and sadly out over the ocean, as some confused memory sweeps through one's mind. the horse stood as straight as it could on its four legs and pulled at a bundle of hay. the sailors, with folded arms, looked absently at the sails and smiled a far-away smile. * * * * * so we journeyed on without speaking a word and as best we could, without reaching the edge of the bay, where it looked as if plouharnel might be. however, after a while we arrived there. but when we did, we were confronted by the ocean, for we had followed the right side of the coast instead of the left, and were forced to turn back and go over a part of the route. a muffled sound was heard. a bell tinkled and a hat appeared. it was the auray post. again the same man, the same horse, the same mail-bag. he was ambling quietly towards quiberon; he would be back directly and return again the next day. he is the guest of the coast; he passes in the morning and again at night. his life is spent going from one point to another; he is the only one who gives the coast some animation, something to look forward to, and, i was almost going to say, some charm. he stopped and talked to us for a few minutes, then lifted his hat and was off again. what an ensemble! what a horse, and what a rider! what a picture! callot would probably have reproduced it, but it would take cervantes to write it. after passing over large pieces of rock that have been placed in the sea in order to shorten the route by cutting the back of the bay in two, we finally arrived at plouharnel. the village was quiet; chickens cackled and scratched in the streets, and in the gardens enclosed by stone walls, weeds and oats grew side by side. while we were sitting in front of the host's door, an old beggar passed us. he was as red as a lobster, dirty and unkempt and covered with rags and vermin. the sun shone on his dilapidated garments and on his purple skin; it was almost black and seemed to transude blood. he kept bellowing in a terrible voice, while beating a tattoo on the door of a neighbouring house. chapter vi. quimper. quimper, although it is the centre of the real brittany, is distinctly different from it. the elm-tree promenade that follows the winding river, which has quays and boats, renders the town very pretty and the big hôtel de la préfecture, which alone covers the little western delta, gives it a thoroughly administrative and french appearance. you are aware that you are in the _chef-lieu_ of a department, a fact brought home to you by the latter's division in _arrondissements_, with their large, medium, and small parishes, its committee of primary instruction, its saving banks, its town council and other modern inventions, which rob the cities of local colour, dear to the heart of the innocent tourist. with all due deference to the people who pronounce the name of quimper-corentin as the synonyme of all that is ridiculous and provincial, it is a most delightful place, and well worth other more respected ones. you will not, it is true, find the charms and riotous wealth of colouring possessed by quimperlé; still, i know of few things that can equal the charming appearance of that alley following the edge of the river and shaded by the escarpment of a neighbouring mountain, which casts the dark shadows of its luxuriant foliage over it. it does not take long to go through cities of this kind, and to know their most intimate recesses, and sometimes one stumbles across places that stay one's steps and fill one's heart with gladness. small cities, like small apartments, seem warmer and cosier to live in. but keep this illusion! there are more draughts in such apartments than in a palace, and a city of this kind is more deadly monotonous than the desert. returning to the hotel by one of those paths we dearly love, that rises and falls and winds, sometimes through a field, sometimes through grass and brambles, sometimes along a wall, which are filled in turn with daisies, pebbles and thistles, a path made for light thoughts and bantering conversation,--returning, i said, to the city, we heard cries and plaintive wails issue from under the slated roof of a square building. it was the slaughter-house. at that moment i thought of some terrible city, of some frightful and immense place like babylon or babel, filled with cannibals and slaughter-houses, where they butchered men instead of animals; and i tried to discover a likeness to human agonies in those bleating and sobbing voices. i thought of groups of slaves brought there with ropes around their necks, to be tied to iron rings, and killed in order to feed their masters, who would eat their flesh from tables of carved ivory and wipe their lips on fine linen. would their attitudes be more dejected, their eyes sadder or their prayers more pitiful? while we were in quimper, we went out one day through one side of the town and came back through the other, after tramping about eight hours. our guide was waiting for us under the porch of the hotel. he started in front of us and we followed. he was a little white-haired man, with a linen cap and torn shoes, and he wore an old brown coat that was many sizes too large for him. he stuttered when he spoke, and when he walked he knocked his knees together; but in spite of all this, he managed to advance very quickly, with a sort of nervous, almost febrile perseverance. from time to time, he would pull a leaf off a tree and clap it over his mouth to cool his lips. his business consists in going from one place to another, attending to letters and errands. he goes to douarnenez, quimperlé, brest and even to rennes, which is forty miles away (a journey which he accomplished in four days, including going and coming). his whole ambition, he said, was to return to rennes once more during his lifetime. and only for the purpose, mind you, of going back, of making the trip, and being able to boast of it afterwards. he knows every road and every _commune_ that has a steeple; he takes short cuts across the fields, opens gates, and when he passes in front of a farm, he never fails to greet its owners. having listened to the birds all his life, he has learned to imitate their chirpings, and when he walks along the roads, under the trees, he whistles as his feathered friends do, in order to charm his solitude. our first stop was at loc-maria, an ancient monastery, given in olden times by conan iii to the abbey of fontevrault; it is situated a quarter of a mile from the town. this monastery has not been shamefully utilised like the abbey of poor robert d'arbrissel.[ ] it is deserted, but has not been sullied. its gothic portal does not re-echo the voices of jailers, and though there may not be much of it, one experiences neither disgust nor rebellion. in that little chapel, of a rather severe romance style, the only curious thing is a large granite holy-water basin which stands on the floor and is almost black. it is wide and deep and represents to perfection the real catholic holy-water basin, made to receive the entire body of an infant, and not in the least like those narrow shells in our churches in which you can only dip your fingers. with its clear water rendered more limpid by the contrast of a greenish bed, the vegetation which has grown all around it during the religious calm of centuries, its crumbling angles, and its great mass of bronzed stone, it looks like one of those hollowed rocks which contain salt water. after we had inspected the chapel carefully, we walked to the river, crossed it in a boat, and plunged into the country. it is absolutely deserted and strangely empty. trees, bushes, sea-rushes, tamarisks, and heather grow on the edge of the ditches. we came to broad stretches of land, but we did not see a soul anywhere. the sky was bleak and a fine rain moistened the atmosphere and spread a grey veil over the country. the paths we chose were hollow and shaded by clusters of foliage, the branches of which, uniting, drooped over our heads and almost prevented us from walking erect. the light that filtered through the dome of leaves was greenish, and as dim as on a winter evening. but farther away, it was brilliant, and played around the edges of the leaves and accentuated their delicate pinking. later we reached the top of a barren slope, which was flat and smooth, and without a blade of grass to relieve the monotony of its colour. sometimes, however, we came upon a long avenue of beech-trees with moss growing around the foot of their thick, shining trunks. there were wagon-tracks in these avenues, as if to indicate the presence of a neighbouring castle that we might see at any moment; but they ended abruptly in a stretch of flat land that continued between two valleys, through which it would spread its green maze furrowed by the capricious meanderings of hedges, spotted here and there by a grove, brightened by clumps of sea-rushes, or by some field bordering the meadows which rose slowly to meet the hills and lost themselves in the horizon. above these hills, far away in the mist, stretched the blue surface of the ocean. the birds are either absent or they do not sing; the leaves are thick, the grass deadens one's footfalls, and the country gazes at you like some melancholy countenance. it looks as if it had been created expressly to harbour ruined lives and shattered hopes, and to foster their bitterness beneath its weeping sky, to the low rustling of the trees and the heather. on winter nights, when the fox creeps stealthily over the dry leaves, when the tiles fall from the pigeon-house and the reeds bend in the marshes, when the beech-trees stoop in the wind, and the wolf ambles over the moonlit snow, while one is alone by the dying embers listening to the wind howl in the empty hallways, how charming it must be to let one's heart dwell on its most cherished despairs and long forgotten loves! we spied a hovel with a gothic portal; further on was an old wall with an ogive door; a leafless bush swayed there in the breeze. in the courtyard the ground is covered with heather, violets, and pebbles; you walk in, look around and go out again. this place is called "the temple of the false gods," and used to be, it is thought, a commandery of templars. our guide started again and we followed him. presently a steeple rose among the trees; we crossed a stubble-field, climbed to the top of a ditch and caught a glimpse of a few of dwellings: the village of pomelin. a rough road constitutes the main street and the village consists of several houses separated by yards. what tranquillity! or rather what forlornness! the thresholds are deserted; the yards are empty. where are the inhabitants? one would think that they had all left the village to lie in wait behind the furze-bushes to catch a glimpse of the _blues_ who are about to pass through the ravine. the church is poor and perfectly bare. no beautiful painted saints, no pictures on the walls or on the roof, no hanging lamp oscillating at the end of a long, straight cord. in a corner of the choir, a wick was burning in a glass filled with oil. round wooden pillars hold up the roof, the blue paint of which has been freshened recently. the bright light of the fields, filtering through the green foliage which covers the roof of the church, shines through the white window-panes. the door, a little wooden door that closes with a latch, was open; a flight of birds came in, chirping and beating their wings against the walls; they fluttered for awhile beneath the vault and around the altar, two or three alighted upon the holy-water basin, to moisten their beaks, and then all flew away as suddenly as they had come. it is not an unusual thing to see birds in the breton churches; many live there and fasten their nests to the stones of the nave; they are never disturbed. when it rains, they all gather in the church, but as soon as the sun pierces the clouds and the rain-spouts dry up, they repair to the trees again. so that during the storm two frail creatures often enter the blessed house of god together; man to pray and allay his fears, and the bird to wait until the rain stops and to warm the naked bodies of its frightened young. a peculiar charm pervades these churches. it is not their poverty that moves us, because even when they are empty, they appear to be inhabited. is it not, then, their modesty that appeals to us? for, with their unpretentious steeples, and their low roofs hiding under the trees, they seem to shrink and humiliate themselves in the sight of god. they have not been upreared through a spirit of pride, nor through the pious fancy of some mighty man on his death-bed. on the contrary, we feel that it is the simple impression of a need, the ingenuous cry of an appetite, and, like the shepherd's bed of dried leaves, it is the retreat the soul has built for itself where it comes to rest when it is tired. these village churches represent better than their city sisters the distinctive features of the places where they are built, and they seem to participate more directly in the life of the people who, from father to son, come to kneel at the same place and on the same stone slab. every day, every sunday, when they enter and when they leave, do they not see the graves of their parents, are these not near them while they pray, and does it not seem to them as if the church was only a larger family circle from which the loved ones have not altogether departed? these places of worship thus have a harmonious sense, and the life of these people is influenced by it from the baptismal font to the grave. it is not the same with us, because we have relegated eternity to the outskirts of the city, have banished our dead to the faubourgs and laid them to rest in the carpenter's quarter, near the soda factories and night-soil magazines. about three o'clock in the afternoon, we arrived at the chapel of kerfeunteun, near the entrance to quimper. at the upper end of the chapel is a fine glass window of the sixteenth century, representing the genealogical tree of the holy trinity. jacob forms the trunk, and the top is figured by the cross surmounted by the eternal father with a tiara on his head. on each side, the square steeple represents a quadrilateral pierced by a long straight window. this steeple does not rest squarely on the roof, but instead, by means of a slender basis, the narrow sides of which almost touch, it forms an obtuse angle near the ridge of the roof. in brittany, almost every church has a steeple of this kind. before returning to the city, we made a détour in order to visit the chapel of _la mère-dieu_. as it is usually closed, our guide summoned the custodian, and the latter accompanied us with his little niece, who stopped along the road to pick flowers. the young man walked in front of us. his slender and flexible figure was encased in a jacket of light blue cloth, and the three velvet streamers of his black hat, which was carefully placed on the back of his head, over his knotted hair, hung down his back. at the bottom of a valley, or rather a ravine, can be seen the church of _la mère-dieu_, veiled by thick foliage. in this place, amid the silence of all these trees and because of its little gothic portal (which appears to be of the thirteenth century, but which, in reality, is of the sixteenth), the church reminds one of the discreet chapels mentioned in old novels and old melodies, where they knighted the page starting for the holy land, one morning when the stars were dim and the lark trilled, while the mistress of the castle slipped her white hand through the bars of the iron gate and wept when he kissed her goodbye. we entered the church. the young custodian took off his hat and knelt on the floor. his thick, blond hair uncoiled and fell around his shoulders. it clung a moment to the coarse cloth of his jacket, and then, little by little, it separated and spread like the hair of a woman. it was parted in the middle and hung on both sides over his shoulders and neck. the golden mass rippled with light every time he moved his head bent in prayer. the little girl kneeled beside him and let her flowers fall to the ground. for the first time in my life, i understood the beauty of a man's locks and the fascination they may have for bare and playful arms. a strange progress, indeed, is that which consists in curtailing everywhere the grand superfetations nature has bestowed upon us, so that whenever we discover them in all their virgin splendour, they are a revelation to us. chapter vii. pont-l'abbÉ. at five o'clock in the evening, we arrived at pont-l'abbé, covered with quite a respectable coating of mud and dust, which fell from our clothing upon the floor of the inn with such disastrous abundance, every time we moved, that we were almost mortified at the mess we made. pont-l'abbé is a peaceful little town, cut in two in its entire length by a broad, paved street. its modest inhabitants cannot possibly look any more stupid or insignificant than the place itself. for those who must see something wherever they go, there are the unimportant remains of the castle and the church, an edifice that would be quite passable were it not for the thick coat of paint that covers it. the chapel of the virgin was a bower of flowers; bunches of jonquils, pansies, roses, jessamine, and honeysuckle were arranged in blue glasses or white china vases and spread their bright colours over the altar and upward between the two tall candlesticks framing the virgin's face and her silver crown, from which fell a long veil caught on the gold star of the plaster infant she held in her arms. one could smell the odour of the holy water and the flowers. it was a perfumed, mysterious little nook all by itself, a hidden retreat decorated by loving hands, and peculiarly adapted for the exhalation of mystical desires and long, heart-broken orisons. all his heart's sensuousness, compressed by the climate and numbed by misery, is brought here by man and laid at the feet of mary, the divine mother, and he is thus able to satisfy his unquenchable longing for love and enjoyment. no matter if the roof leaks and there are no benches or chairs in the rest of the church, you will always find the chapel of the virgin bright with flowers and lights, for it seems as if all the religious tenderness of brittany has concentrated there; it is the softest spot of its heart; it is its weakness, its passion, its treasure. though there are no flowers in these parts, there are flowers in the church; though the people are poor, the virgin is always sumptuous and beautiful. she smiles at you, and despairing souls go to warm themselves at her knees as at a hearthstone that is never extinguished. one is astonished at the way these people cling to their belief; but does one know the pleasure and voluptuousness they derive from it? is not asceticism superior epicureanism, fasting, refined gormandising? religion can supply one with almost carnal sensations; prayer has its debauchery and mortification its raptures; and the men who come at night and kneel in front of this dressed statue, feel their hearts beat thickly and a sort of vague intoxication, while in the streets of the city, the children on their way home from school stop and gaze dreamily at the woman who smiles at them from the stained window of the church. but you must attend a fête in order to gain an insight into the gloomy character of these people. they don't dance; they merely turn; they don't sing; they only whistle. that very evening we went to a neighbouring village to be present at the inauguration of a threshing-floor. two _biniou_ players were stationed on top of the wall surrounding the yard, and played continuously while two long lines of men and women, following in one anothers' footsteps, trotted around the place and described several figures. the lines would turn, break up and form again at irregular intervals. the heavy feet of the dancers struck the ground without the slightest attempt at rhythm, while the shrill notes of the music succeeded one another rapidly and with desperate monotony. the dancers who tired withdrew without interrupting the dance, and when they had rested, they re-entered it. during the whole time we watched this peculiar performance, the crowd stopped only once, while the musicians drank some cider; then, when they had finished, the lines formed anew and the dance began again. at the entrance of the yard was a table covered with nuts; beside it stood a pitcher of brandy and on the ground was a keg of cider; near by stood a citizen in a green frock coat and a leather cap; a little farther away was a man wearing a jacket and a sword suspended from a white shoulder-belt; they were the _commissaire de police_, of pont-l'abbé and his _garde-champêtre_. suddenly, m. le commissaire pulled out his watch and motioned to the _garde_. the latter drew several peasants aside, spoke to them in a low tone, and presently the assembly broke up. all four of us returned to the city together, which afforded us the opportunity of again admiring mother of the harmonious combinations of providence which had created this _commissaire de police_ for this _garde-champêtre_ and this _garde-champêtre_ for his _commissaire de police_. they were made for each other. the same fact would give rise in both of them to the same reflections; from the same idea both would draw parallel conclusions. when the _commissaire_ laughed, the _garde_ grinned; when he assumed a serious expression, his shadow grew gloomy; if the frock-coat said, "this must be done," the jacket replied, "i think so, too;" if the coat added, "it is necessary;" the waistcoat affirmed: "it is indispensable." notwithstanding this inward comprehension, their outward relations of rank and authority remained unchanged. for the _garde_ spoke in a lower tone than the _commissaire_, and was a trifle shorter and walked behind him. the _commissaire_ was polished, important, fluent; he consulted himself, ruminated, talked to himself, and smacked his tongue; the _garde_ was deferential, attentive, pensive and observing, and would utter an exclamation from time to time and scratch his nose. on the way, he inquired about the news, asked the _commissaire's_ advice, and solicited his orders, while his superior questioned, meditated, and issued commands. we had just come in sight of the first houses of the city, when we heard shrieks issue from one of them. the street was blocked by an excited crowd, and several persons rushed up to the _commissaire_ and exclaimed: "come, come quickly, monsieur, they're having a fight! two women are being killed!" "by whom?" "we don't know." "why?" "they are bleeding." "but with what?" "with a rake." "where's the murderer?" "one on the head and the other on the arm. go in, they're waiting for you; the women are there." so the _commissaire_ went in and we followed. we heard sobs, screams, and excited conversation and saw a jostling, curious mob. people stepped on one another's toes, dug one another's ribs, cursed, and caused general confusion. the _commissaire_ got angry; but as he could not speak breton, the _garde_ got angry for him and chased the crowd out, taking each individual by his shoulders and shoving him through the door into the street. when the room had been cleared of all except a dozen persons, we managed to discover in a corner, a piece of flesh hanging from an arm and a mass of black hair dripping with blood. an old woman and a young girl had been hurt in the fight. the old woman was tall and angular and had skin as yellow and wrinkled as parchment; she was standing up, groaning and holding her left arm with her right hand; she did not seem to be suffering much, but the girl was crying. she was sitting on a chair with her hands spread out on her knees and her head bent low; she was trembling convulsively and shaking with low sobs. as they replied by complaints to all our questions, and as the testimony of the witnesses was conflicting, we could not ascertain who had started the fight or what it was about. some said that a husband had surprised his wife; others, that the women had started the row and that the owner of the house had tried to kill them in order to make them stop. but no one knew anything definite. m. _le commissaire_ was greatly perplexed and the _garde_ perfectly nonplussed. as the doctor was away, and as it might be that the good people did not wish his services, because it meant expense, we had the audacity to offer the help of our limited knowledge and rushed off for our satchels, a piece of cerecloth, and some linen and lint which we had brought with us in anticipation of possible accidents. it would really have been an amusing sight for our friends, had they been able to see us spread out our bistoury, our pincers, and three pairs of scissors, one with gold branches, on the table of this hut. the _commissaire_ praised our philanthropy, the women watched us in awed silence, and the tallow candle melted and ran down the iron candle-stick in spite of the efforts of the _garde_, who kept trimming the wick with his fingers. we attended to the old woman first. the cut had been given conscientiously; the bare arm showed the bone, and a triangle of flesh about four inches long hung over it like a cuff. we tried to put this back in its place by adjusting it carefully over the edge of the gaping wound and bandaging the arm. it is quite possible that the violent compression the member was subjected to caused mortification to set in, and that the patient may have died. we did not know exactly what ailed the girl. the blood trickled through her hair, but we could not see whence it came; it formed oily blotches all over it and ran down into her neck. the _garde_, our interpreter, bade her remove the cotton band she wore on her head, and her tresses tumbled down in a dull, dark mass and uncoiled like a cascade full of bloody threads. we parted the thick, soft, abundant locks, and found a swelling as large as a nut and pierced by an oval hole on the back of her head. we shaved the surrounding parts; and after we had washed and stanched the wound, we melted some tallow and spread it over some lint, which we adapted to the swelling with strips of diachylum. over this we placed first a bandage, then the cotton band, and then the cap. while this was taking place, the justice of the peace arrived. the first thing he did was to ask for the rake, and the only thing he seemed to care about was to examine it. he took hold of the handle, counted the teeth, waved it in the air, tested the iron and bent the wood. "is this," he demanded, "the instrument with which the assault was committed? jérôme, are you sure it is?" "they say so, monsieur." "you were not present, monsieur le commissaire?" "no, monsieur le juge de paix." "i would like to know whether the blows were really dealt with a rake or whether they were given with a blunt instrument. who is the assailant? and did the rake belong to him or to some one else? was it really with this that these women were hurt? or was it, i repeat, with a blunt instrument? do they wish to lodge a complaint? what do you think about it, monsieur le commissaire?" the victims said little, remarking only that they suffered great pain; so they were given over night to decide whether or not they wished to seek redress by law. the young girl could hardly speak, and the old woman's ideas were muddled, seeing that she was drunk, according to what the neighbours intimated,--a fact which explained her insensibility when we had endeavoured to relieve her suffering. after they had looked at us as keenly as they could in order to ascertain who we were, the authorities of pont-l'abbé bade us good night and thanked us for the services we had rendered the community. we put our things back into our satchel, and the _commissaire_ departed with the _garde_, the _garde_ with his sword, and the justice of the peace with the rake. chapter viii. roaming. en route! the sky is blue, the sun is shining, and our feet are eager to tread on the grass. from crozon to leudevenec the country is quite flat, and there is not a house nor a tree to be seen. as far as the eye can reach, reddish moss spreads over the ground. sometimes fields of ripe wheat rise above the little stunted sea-rushes. the latter are flowerless now, and look as they did before the springtime. deep wagon-tracks, edged by rolls of dried mud, make their appearance and continue for a long time; then they suddenly describe a bend and are lost to the eye. grass grows in large patches between these sunken furrows. the wind whistles over the flats; we walk on; a welcome breeze dries the beads of perspiration on our cheeks, and when we halted we were able to hear, above the sound of our beating arteries, the rustling of the wind in the grass. from time to time, a mill with rapidly revolving wheels would rise up and point the way. the creaking wooden fans descended, grazed the ground and then rose. standing erect in the open garret-window, the miller watched us pass. we walked on; coming to a hedge of elm-trees which probably concealed a village, we caught sight of a man standing in a tree, at the foot of which was a woman with her blue apron spread out to catch the plums he was throwing to her. i recollect a crop of dark hair falling in masses over her shoulders, two uplifted arms, the movement of the supple neck and the sonorous laughter that floated over the hedge to me. the path we were following grew narrower. presently the plain disappeared and we found ourselves on the crest of a promontory dominating the ocean. looking towards brest, it seemed to extend indefinitely; but on the other side, it projected its sinuosities into the land, between short hills covered with underwood. each gulf is ensconced between two mountains; each mountain is flanked by two gulfs, and nothing can equal the beauty of those vast green slopes rising almost in a straight line out of the sea. the hills have rounded tops and flattened bases, and describe a wide, curved chain which joins the plateaux with the graceful sweep of a moorish arch; following so closely upon one another, the colour of their foliage and their formation are almost exactly alike. propelled by the sea-breeze, the breakers dashed up against the foot of these hills, and the sun, falling on them, made them gleam; the whole surface of the ocean was blue and glittering with silver, and we could not get enough of its beauty. then we watched the sunbeams glide over the hills. one of the latter had already been deserted by them, and appeared more indistinct than the rest, while a broad black shadow was rapidly gathering over another. as we approached the level of the shore the mountains that faced us a moment ago seemed to grow loftier; the gulfs deepened and the ocean expanded. we walked on, oblivious to everything, and let our eyes roam at will, and the pebbles that our feet dislodged rolled down the hill quickly and disappeared in the bushes edging the road. the roads followed hedges that were as compact and thick as walls; we climbed up and we climbed down; meanwhile, it was growing dark, and the country was settling into the deep silence characteristic of midsummer evenings. as we failed to meet anybody who could show us the way, the few peasants we had questioned having responded by unintelligible cries, we produced our map and our compass, and, locating ourselves by the setting sun, we resolved to head straight for daoulas. instantly our vigour returned, and we started across the fields, vaulting fences and ditches, and uprooting, tearing and breaking everything in our way, without giving a thought to the stiles we left open or the damaged crops. at the top of a slope, we discovered the village of l'hôpital lying in a meadow watered by a stream. a bridge spans the latter and on this bridge is a mill; beyond the meadow is a hill, which we started to climb nimbly, when suddenly we saw, by a ray of light, a beautiful yellow and black salamander creeping along the edge of a ditch with its slender tail dragging in the dust and undulating with every motion of its speckled body. it had come from its retreat under a big stone covered with moss, and was hunting insects in the rotten trunks of old oak-trees. a pavement of uneven cobblestones echoed beneath our feet, and a street stretched out before us. we had arrived in daoulas. there was light enough to enable us to distinguish a square sign swinging on an iron rod on one of the houses. we should have recognised the inn even without the sign, as houses, like men, have their professions stamped on their faces. so we entered, for we were ravenous, and told the host above all things not to keep us waiting. while we were sitting in front of the door, waiting for our dinner, a little girl in rags came along with a basket of strawberries on her head. she entered the inn and came out again after a short while, holding a big loaf of bread in both hands. uttering shrill cries, she scampered off with the alertness of a kitten. her dusty hair fluttered in the wind and stood out straight from her wizened face, and her bare legs, which she lifted high in the air when running, disappeared under the rags that covered her form. after our meal, which comprised, besides the unavoidable omelet and the fatal veal, the strawberries the little girl had brought, we went up to our rooms. the winding staircase with its worm-eaten steps groaned beneath our weight, like a sensitive woman under a new disillusion. at the top was a room with a door that closed on the outside with a hook. we slept there. the plaster on the once yellow walls was crumbling away; the beams of the ceiling bent beneath the weight of the slated roof, and on the window-panes was a layer of dust that softened the light like a piece of unpolished glass. the beds, four walnut boards carelessly put together, had big, round, worm-eaten knobs, and the wood was split by the dryness. on each bed was a mattress and a matting, covered with a ragged green spread. a piece of mirror in a varnished frame, an old game-bag on a nail, and a worn silk cravat which showed the crease of its folds, indicated that the room belonged to some one who probably slept there every night. under one of the red cotton pillows i discovered a hideous object, a cap of the same color as the coverlet, but coated with a greasy glazing which prevented its texture from being recognisable; a worn, shapeless, clammy, oily thing. i am sure that its owner prizes it highly and that he finds it warmer than any other cap. a man's life, the perspiration of an entire existence, is secreted in this layer of mouldy cerate. how many nights it must have taken to make it so thick! how many nightmares have galloped under this cap? how many dreams have been dreamed beneath it? and charming ones, too, perhaps,--why not? if you are neither an engineer, nor a blacksmith, nor a builder, brest will not interest you very much. the port is magnificent, i admit; beautiful, if you say so; gigantic, if you wish. it is imposing, you know, and gives the impression of a powerful nation. but those piles of cannons and anchors and cannon-balls, the infinite extension of those quays, which enclose a calm, flat sea that appears to be chained down, and those big workshops filled with grinding machinery, the never-ceasing clanking of galley chains, the convicts who pass by in regular gangs and work in silence,--this entire, pitiless, frightful, forced mechanism, this organized defiance, quickly disgusts the soul and tires the eye. the latter can rest only on cobblestones, shells, piles of iron, madriers, dry docks containing the naked hulls of vessels, and the grey walls of the prison, where a man leans out of the windows and tests the iron bars with a hammer. nature is absent and more completely banished from this place, than from any other spot on the face of the earth; everywhere can be seen denial and hatred of it, as much in the crowbar which demolishes the rocks, as in the sabre of the _garde-chiourme_ who watches over the convicts. outside of the arsenal and the penitentiary, there is nothing but barracks, corps-de-garde, fortifications, ditches, uniforms, bayonets, sabres and drums. from morning until night, military music sounds under your windows, soldiers pass through the streets, come, go, and drill; the bugle sounds incessantly and the troops file past. you understand at once that the arsenal constitutes the real city and that the other is completely swallowed up by it. everywhere and in every form reappear discipline, administration, ruled paper. factitious symmetry and idiotic cleanliness are much admired. in the navy hospital for instance, the floors are so highly polished that a convalescent trying to walk on his mended leg would probably fall and break the other. but it looks nice. between each ward is a yard, but the sun never shines in it, and the grass is carefully kept out. the kitchens are beautiful, but are situated so far from the main building that in winter the food must be cold before it reaches the patients. but who cares about them? aren't the saucepans like polished suns? we saw a man who had broken his skull in falling from a vessel, and who for eighteen hours had received no medical assistance whatsoever; but his sheets were immaculate, for the linen department is very well kept. in the prison ward i was moved like a child by the sight of a litter of kittens playing on a convict's bed. he made them little paper balls, and they would chase them all over the bed-spread, and cling to its edges with their claws. then he would turn them over, stroke them, kiss them and cuddle them to his heart. more than once, when he is put back to work and sits tired and depressed on his bench, he will dream of the quiet hours he spent alone with the little animals, and of the softness of their fur on his rough hands and the warmth of their little bodies against his breast. i believe, though, that the rules forbid this kind of recreation and that probably he had them through the kindness of the sister in charge. but here, as well as elsewhere, rules have their exceptions, for, in the first place, the distinction of caste does not disappear (equality being a lie, even in the penitentiary). delicately scented locks sometimes show beneath the numbered caps, just as the sleeve of the red blouse often reveals a cuff surrounding a well-kept hand. moreover, special favours are shown toward certain professions, certain men. how have they been able, in spite of the law and the jealousy of their fellow-prisoners, to attain this eccentric position which makes them almost amateur convicts, and keep it without anybody trying to wrest it from them? at the entrance to the workshop, where boats are built, you will find a dentist's table filled with instruments. in a pretty frame on the wall, rows of plates are exhibited, and when you pass, the artist utters a little speech to advertise his ability. he stays in his place all day, polishing his instruments and stringing teeth; he can talk to visitors without feeling the restraint of being watched, be informed of what is going on in the medical world, and practise his profession like a licensed dentist. at the present time, i daresay, he must use ether. more than that, he may have pupils and give lectures. but the man who has the most enviable position of all is the curé delacollonge.[ ] he is the mediator between the convicts and the ban; the authorities use his ascendency over the prisoners, and they, in turn, address themselves to him when they want to obtain any favours. he lives apart from the rest of them in a neat little room, has a man to wait on him, eats big bowls of plougastel strawberries, takes his coffee and reads the newspapers. if delacollonge is the head of the penitentiary, ambroise is its arm. ambroise is a superb negro almost six feet tall, who would have made a fine servant for a sixteenth century man of quality. heliogobalus must have kept some such fellow to furnish amusement for himself and his guests by strangling lions and fighting gladiators single-handed. his polished skin is quite black, with steely reflections; his body is well knit and as vigorous as a tiger's, and his teeth are so white that they almost frighten one. king of the penitentiary by right of strength, all the convicts fear and admire him; his athletic reputation compels him to test every newcomer, and up to the present time, all these contests have turned out in his favour. he can bend iron rods over his knee, carry three men with one hand, and knock down eight by opening his arms; he eats three times as much as an ordinary man, for he has an enormous appetite and a heroic constitution. when we saw him, he was watering the plants in the botanical garden. he is always hanging around the hot-house behind the plants and the palm-trees, digging the soil and cleansing the wood-work. on thursday, when the public is admitted, ambroise receives his mistresses behind the boxed orange-trees; he has several of them, in fact, more than he wishes. he knows how to procure them, whether by his charms, his strength or his money, which he always carries in quantities about his person and spends lavishly whenever he wishes to enjoy himself. so he is very popular among a certain class of women, and the people who have put him where he is, have never perhaps been loved as much as ambroise. in the middle of the garden, in a little lake shaded by a willow-tree and bordered by plants, is a swan. with one stroke of its leg it can swim from one side of the pond to the other, and although it crosses it a hundred times a day and catches gold fishes to while away the time, it never thinks of wandering away. further on, in a line against the wall, are some cages for rare animals from foreign lands destined for the museum of paris. most of the cages, however, were empty. in front of one, in a narrow grated yard, a convict was teaching a young wild-cat to obey commands like a dog. hasn't this man had enough of slavery himself? why does he torment this poor little beast? the lashes with which he is threatened he gives the wild-cat, which, some day, will probably take its revenge by jumping over the iron railing and killing the swan. one moonlit evening, we decided to take a stroll through the streets known to be frequented by _filles de joie_. they are very numerous. the navy, the artillery, the infantry, each has its own particular streets, without mentioning the penitentiary, which covers a whole district of the city. seven parallel streets ending at its walls, compose what is called keravel, and are filled by the mistresses of jailers and convicts. they are old frame houses, crowded together, with every door and window closed tight. no sound issues from them, nobody is seen coming out, and there are no lights in the windows; at the end of each street is a lamp-post which the wind sways from side to side, thus making its long yellow rays oscillate on the sidewalk. the rest of the quarter is in absolute darkness. in the moonlight, these silent houses with their uneven roofs projected fantastic glimmerings. when do they open? at unknown hours, at the most silent time of the darkest nights. then comes the jailer who has slipped away from his watch, or the convict who has managed to escape from the prison, though sometimes they arrive together, aiding and abetting each other; then, when daylight dawns, the jailer turns his head away and nobody is the wiser. in the sailor's district, on the contrary, everything is open and above-board. the disreputable houses are full of noise and light; there is dancing and shouting and fighting. on the ground floors, in the low rooms, women in filmy attire sit on the benches that line the white-washed walls lighted by an oil lamp; others, in the doorway, beckon to you, and their animated faces stand out in relief on the background of the lighted resort, from which issues the sound of clinking glasses and coarse caresses. you can hear the kisses which fall on the opulent shoulders of the women and the laughter of the girl who is sitting on some tanned sailor's lap, her unruly locks slipping from under her cap and her bare shoulders issuing from her chemise. the street is thronged, the place is packed, the door is wide open, anybody who wishes may go in. men come and peep through the windows or talk in an undertone to some half-clad creature, who bends eagerly over their faces. groups stand around and wait their turn. it is all quite informal and unrestrained. being conscientious travellers, and desiring to see and study everything at close range, we entered. in a room papered in red, three or four girls were sitting at a round table, and a man with a cap on his head and a pipe in his mouth was reclining on the sofa; he bowed politely when we entered. the women wore parisian dresses and were modest in their demeanour. the mahogany furniture was covered with red plush, the floor was polished and engravings of battles decorated the walls. o virtue! you are beautiful, for very stupid is vice. the woman who was sitting by my side had hands which were sufficient in themselves to make a man forget her sex, and not knowing how to spend our time we treated the whole company to drinks. then i lighted a cigar, stretched out on the divan, and, sad and depressed, while the voices of the women rose shrilly and the glasses were being drained, i said to myself: where is she? where can she be? is she dead to the world, and will men never see her again? she was beautiful, in olden times, when she walked up the steps leading to the temple, when on her shell-like feet fell the golden fringe of her tunic, or when she lounged among persian cushions, twirling her collar of cameos and chatting with the wise men and the philosophers. she was beautiful when she stood naked on the threshold of her _cella_ in the street of suburra, under the rosin torchlight that blazed in the night, slowly chanting her campanian lay, while from the tiber came the refrains of the orgies. she was beautiful, too, in her old house of the _cité_ behind the gothic windows, among the noisy students and dissipated monks, when, without fear of the sergeants, they struck the oaken tables with their pewter mugs, and the worm-eaten beds creaked beneath the weight of their bodies. she was beautiful when she leaned over the green cloth and coveted the gold of the provincials; then she wore high heels and had a small waist and a large wig which shed its perfumed powder on her shoulders, a rose over her ear and a patch on her cheek. she was beautiful also among the goat-skins of the cossacks and the english uniforms, pushing her way through the throngs of men and letting her bare shoulders dazzle them on the steps of the gambling houses, under the jewellers' windows, beneath the lights of the cafés, between starvation and wealth. what are you regretting? i am regretting the _fille de joie_. on the boulevard, one evening, i caught a glimpse of her as she passed under the gaslight, with watchful and eager eyes, dragging her feet over the sidewalk. i saw her pale face on the street-corner, while the rain wet the flowers in her hair, and heard her soft voice calling to the men, while her flesh shivered in her low-necked bodice. it was her last day; after that she disappeared. fear not that she will ever return, for she is dead, quite dead! her dress is made high, she has morals, objects to coarse language, and puts the sous she earns in a savings bank. cleared of her presence, the street has lost the only poetry it still retained; they have filtered the gutter and sorted the garbage. in a little while, the mountebanks will also have disappeared, in order to make room for magnetic _séances_ and reform banquets, and the rope-dancer with her spangled skirt and long balancing-pole will be as remote from us as the bayadère of the ganges. of all that beautiful, glittering world as flighty as fancy itself, so melancholy and sonorous, so bitter and yet so gay, full of inward pathos and glaring sarcasms, where misery was warm and grace was sad, the last vestige of a lost age, a distant race, which, we are told, came from the other end of the earth and brought us in the tinkling of its bells the echo and vague memory of idolised joys; some covered wagon moving slowly along the road, with rolled tents on its roof and muddy dogs beneath it, a man in a yellow jacket, selling _muscade_ in tin cups, the poor marionnettes in the champs-elysées, and the mandolin players who visit the cafés in the outskirts of the city, are all that is left. since then, it is true, we have had a number of farces of a higher class of humour. but is the new as good as the old? do you prefer tom thumb or the museum of versailles? on a wooden stand that formed a balcony around a square tent of grey canvas, a man in a blouse was beating a drum; behind him was a big painted sign representing a sheep and a cow, and some ladies, gentlemen, and soldiers. the animals were the two young phenomena from guérande, with one arm and four shoulders. their exhibitor, or editor, was shouting himself hoarse and announcing that besides these two beautiful things, battles between wild beasts would take place at once. under the wooden stand stood a donkey and three bears, and the barking of the dogs, which proceeded from the interior of the tent, mingled with the beating of the drum, the shouts of the owner of the two phenomena and the cries of another fellow who was not as jovial and fat as the former, but tall and lanky, with a funereal expression and ragged clothes. this was the partner; they had met on the road and had combined their shows. the lean one contributed his bears, his dogs and his donkey, while the fat man brought his two phenomena and a grey felt hat which was used in their performance. the theatre was roofless and its walls were of grey canvas; they fluttered in the wind and would have blown down had it not been for the poles which held them. along the sides of the ring was a railing, behind which was the audience, and in a reserved corner we perceived the two phenomena nibbling at a bundle of hay half concealed by a gorgeous blanket. in the middle of the ring a high post was sunk in the ground, and here and there, attached to smaller posts, were dogs, barking and tugging at their chains. the men continued to shout and beat the drum, the bears growled, and the crowd began to file in. first they brought out a poor, half-paralyzed bear, which seemed considerably bored. it wore a muzzle and had a big collar with an iron chain around its neck, a rope in its nose, to make it obey commands promptly, and a sort of leather hood over its ears. they tied bruin to the centre post, and the barks grew louder and fiercer. the dogs stood up, a bristling, scratching crew, their hind-quarters elevated, their snouts near the ground, their legs spread, while their masters stood in opposite corners of the ring and yelled at them in order to increase their ferocity. they let three bull-dogs go and the brutes rushed at the bear, which began to dodge around the post. the dogs followed, crowding and barking; sometimes the bear would upset them and trample them with its huge paws, but they would immediately scramble to their feet and make a dash for its head, clinging to its neck so that it was unable to shake off their wriggling bodies. with watchful eye, the two masters waited the moment when it looked as if the bear would be strangled; then they rushed at the dogs, tore them away, pulled their necks and bit their tails to make them unlock their jaws. the brutes whined with pain, but they would not let go. the bear struggled to free itself from the dogs, the dogs bit the bear, and the men bit the dogs. one young bull-dog especially, was remarkable for its ferocity; it clung to the bear's back and would not let go, though they chewed and bent its tail, and lacerated its ears. the men were compelled to get a mattock to loosen its jaws. when they had all been disentangled, everyone took a rest; the bear lay down on the ground, the gasping dogs hung their tongues out, and the perspiring men pulled the hairs from between their teeth, while the dust that had arisen during the fight scattered in the atmosphere and settled on the heads of the spectators. two more bears were led into the ring, and one acted the gardener of the fable, went on a hunting trip, waltzed, took off its hat, and played dead. after this performance came the donkey. but it defended itself well; its kicks sent the dogs flying through the air like balloons; with its tail between its legs and its ears back, it ran around the ring trying to get its foes under its forelegs while they endeavoured to run around it and fasten their teeth in its throat. when the men finally rescued it, it was completely winded and shaking with fright; it was covered with drops of blood which trickled down its legs (on which repeated wounds had left scars), and, mingling with sweat, moistened its worn hoofs. but the best of the performance was the general fight between the dogs; all took part in it, the big and the little ones, the bull-dogs, the sheep-dogs, the white ones, the black ones, the spotted ones, and the russet variety. fully fifteen minutes were spent in bringing them to the proper pitch of excitement. the owners held them between their legs and pointing their heads in the direction of their adversaries, would knock them together violently. the thin man, especially, worked with great gusto. with much effort he succeeded in producing a ferocious, hoarse chest-note that maddened the whole irritated pack. as serious as an orchestra leader, he would absorb the discordant harmony, and direct and strengthen its emission; but when the brutes were let loose and the howling band tore one another to pieces, he would be in a frenzy of enthusiasm and delight. he would applaud and bark and stamp his feet and imitate all the motions of the dogs; he would have enjoyed biting and being bitten, would gladly have been a dog himself with a snout, so that he could wallow in the dust and blood, and sink his teeth in the hairy skins and warm flesh, and enjoy the fray to his heart's content. there was a critical moment when all the dogs, one on top of another, formed a wriggling mass of legs, backs, tails and ears, which oscillated to and fro in the ring without separating, and in another instant had torn down the railing and threatened to harm the two young phenomena. the owner's face paled and he hastily sprang forward, while his partner rushed to his side. then tails were bitten, and kicks and blows were distributed right and left! they grabbed the dogs everywhere, pulled them away and flung them over their shoulders like bundles of hay. it was all over in a second, but i had seen the moment when the two young phenomena were near being reduced to chopped meat, and i trembled for the safety of the arm which grows on their back. flustered, no doubt, by their narrow escape, they did not care to be shown off. the cow backed and the sheep bucked; but finally the green blanket with yellow fringe was removed and their appendage was exhibited to the public, and then the performance ended.... chapter ix. brest. at the light-house of brest. here the old world ends. this is its most advanced point; its farthest limit. behind you spread europe and asia; before you lies the entire ocean. as great as space appears to our eye, does it not always seem limited as soon as we know that it has a boundary? can you not see from our shores, across the channel, the streets of brighton and the fortresses of provence; do you not always think of the mediterranean as an immense blue lake ensconced in rocks, with promontories covered with falling monuments, yellow sands, swaying palm-trees and curved bays? but here nothing stops your eye. thought can fly as rapidly as the winds, spread out, divagate, and lose itself, without finding anything but water, or perhaps vague america, nameless islands, or some country with red fruits, humming-birds and savages; or the silent twilight of the pole, with its spouting whales; or the great cities lighted by coloured glass, japan with its porcelain roofs, and china with its sculptured staircases and its pagodas decorated with golden bells. thus does the mind people and animate this infinity, of which it tires so soon, in order that it may appear less vast. one cannot think of the desert without its caravans, of the ocean without its ships, of the bowels of the earth without evoking the treasures that they are supposed to conceal. we returned to conquet by way of the cliff. the breakers were dashing against its foot. driven by a sea-breeze, they would come rushing in, strike the rocks and cover them with rippling sheets of water. half an hour later, in a _char-à-banc_ drawn by two sturdy little horses, we reached brest, which we left with pleasure two days afterwards. when you leave the coast and approach the channel, the country undergoes a marked change; it becomes less wild, less celtic; the dolmens become scarcer, the flats diminish as the wheat fields grow more numerous, and, little by little, one reaches the fertile land of léon, which is, as m. pitre-chevalier has gracefully put it, "the attica of brittany." landerneau is a place where there is an elm-tree promenade, and where we saw a frightened dog running through the streets with a pan attached to its tail. in order to go to the château de la joyeuse-garde, one must first follow the banks of the eilorn and then walk through a forest, in a hollow where few persons go. sometimes, when the underwood thins out and meadows appear between the branches, one catches sight of a boat sailing up the river. our guide preceded us at quite a distance. alone together we trod the good old earth, flecked with bunches of purple heather and fallen leaves. the air was perfumed with the breath of violets and strawberries; slender ferns spread over the trunks of the trees. it was warm; even the moss was hot. a cuckoo, hidden in the foliage, now and then gave out its long cry, and gnats buzzed in the glades. we walked on with a feeling of inward peace, and let our conversation touch on many subjects; we spoke of sounds and colours, of the masters and their works, and of the joys of the mind; we thought of different writings, of familiar pictures and poses; we recited aloud some wonderful verses, the beauty of which thrilled us so that we repeated the rhythm again and again, accentuating the words and cadencing them so that they were almost sung. foreign landscapes and splendid figures rose before our mind's eye, and we dwelt with rapture on soft asiatic nights with the moon shining on the cupolas; or our admiration was aroused by some sonorous name; or we delighted in the artlessness of some sentence standing out in relief in an ancient book. stretched out in the courtyard of joyeuse-garde, near the filled-up subterranean vaults, beneath the semi-circle of its unique ivy-covered arcade, we talked of shakespeare and wondered whether the stars were inhabited. then we started off again, having given but a hasty glance at the crumbling home of good old lancelot, the one a fairy stole from his mother and kept in a shining palace at the bottom of a lake. the dwarfs have disappeared, the drawbridge has flown away, and lizards now crawl where formerly the entrancing geneviève dreamed of her lover gone to fight the giants in trébizonde. we went back through the same paths to the forest; the shadows were lengthening, the flowers and shrubs were hardly visible, and the blue peaks of the low mountains opposite seemed to grow taller against the fading sky. the river, which is bordered by artificial quays for half a mile outside the city, now becomes free to spread its waters at will over the meadow; its wide curve stretched far away into the distance, and the pools of water coloured by the setting sun looked like immense golden platters forgotten on the grass. till it reaches roche-maurice, the eilorn follows the road, which winds around the foot of the rocky hills, the uneven eminences of which extend into the valley. we were riding in a gig driven by a boy who sat on one of the shafts. his hat had no strings and consequently blew off occasionally, and during his efforts to catch it, we had plenty of time to admire the landscape. the château de la roche-maurice is a real burgrave's castle, a vulture's nest on the top of a mountain. it is reached by an almost perpendicular slope along which great blocks of stone are strewn in place of steps. at the top is a wall built of huge stones laid one above another, and in the wall are large windows, through which the whole surrounding country can be viewed; the woods, the fields, the river, the long, white road, the mountains with their uneven peaks, and the great meadow, which separates them through the middle. a crumbling flight of steps leads to a dilapidated tower. here and there stones crop out among the grass, and the rock shows amid the stones. sometimes it seems as if this rock assumed artificial shapes, and as if the ruins, on the contrary, by crumbling more and more, had taken on a natural appearance and gone back to original matter. a whole side of the wall is covered with ivy; it begins at the bottom and spreads out in an inverted pyramid, the color of which grows darker towards the top. through an aperture, the edges of which are concealed by the foliage, one can see a section of the blue sky. it was in these parts that the famous dragon lived, which was killed in olden times by knight derrien, who was returning from the holy land with his friend, neventer. derrien attacked it as soon as he had rescued the unfortunate eilorn who, after giving over his slaves, his vassals and his servants (he had no one left but his wife and son), had thrown himself headlong from the top of the tower into the river; but the monster, mortally wounded, and bound by the sash of its conqueror, soon drowned itself in the sea, at poulbeunzual,[ ] like the crocodile of batz island, which obeyed the behest of saint pol de léon and drowned itself with the stole of the breton saint wound around it. the gargoyle of rouen met a similar fate with the stole of saint romain. how beautiful those terrific old dragons were, with their gaping, fire-spitting jaws, their scales, their serpent-tails, their bat-wings, their lion-claws, their equine bodies and fantastic heads! and the knight who overpowered them was a wonderfully fine specimen of manhood! first, his horse grew frightened and reared, and his lance broke on the scales of the monster, whose fiery breath blinded him. finally he alighted, and after a day's battle, succeeded in sinking his sword up to the hilt in the beasts belly. black blood flowed in streams from the wound, the audience escorted the knight home in triumph, and he became king and married a fair maiden. but where did the dragons come from? are they a confused recollection of the monsters that existed before the flood? were they conceived from the contemplation of the carcasses of the ichthyosaurus and pteropod, and did the terror of men hear the sound of their feet in the tall grass and the wind howl when their voices filled the caves? are we not, moreover, in the land of fairies, in the home of the knights of the round table and of merlin, in the mythological birthplace of vanished epopees? these, no doubt, revealed something of the old worlds which have become mythical, and told something of the cities that were swallowed up, of is and herbadilla, splendid and barbaric places, filled with the loves of their bewitching queens, but now doubly wiped out, first, by the ocean which has obliterated them and then by religion, which has cursed their memory. there is much to be said on this subject. and, indeed, what is there on which much cannot be said? it might perhaps be landivisian, for even the most prolix man is obliged to be concise in his remarks, when there is a lack of matter. i have noticed that good places are usually the ugliest ones. they are like virtuous women; one respects them, but one passes on in search of others. here, surely, is the most productive spot of all brittany; the peasants are not as poor as elsewhere, the fields are properly cultivated, the colza is superb, the roads are in good condition, and it is frightfully dreary. cabbages, turnips, beets and an enormous quantity of potatoes, all enclosed by ditches, cover the entire country from saint pol de léon to roscoff. they are forwarded to brest, rennes, and even to havre; it is the industry of the place, and a large business is done with them. roscoff has a slimy beach and a narrow bay, and the surrounding sea is sprinkled with tiny black islands that rise like the backs of so many turtles. the environs of saint pol are dreary and cheerless. the bleak tint of the flats mingles without transition with the paleness of the sky, and the short perspective has no large lines in its proportions, nor change of colour on the edges. here and there, while strolling through the fields, you may come across some silent farm behind a grey stone wall, an abandoned manor deserted by its owners. in the yard the pigs are sleeping on the manure heap and the chickens are pecking at the grass that grows among the loose stones; the sculptured shield above the door has worn away under the action of rain and atmosphere. the rooms are empty and are used for storage purposes; the plaster on the ceiling is peeling off, and so are the remaining decorations, which, besides, have been tarnished by the cobwebs of the spiders one sees crawling around the joists. wild mignonette has grown on the door of kersa-lion; near the turret is a pointed window flanked by a lion and a hercules, which stand out in bold relief on the wall like two gargoyles. at kerland, i stumbled against a wolf-trap while i was ascending the large winding staircase. ploughshares, rusted shovels, and jars filled with dried grain were scattered around the rooms or on the wide stone window-seats. kerouséré has retained its three turrets with machicolations; in the courtyard can still be seen the deep furrows of the trenches that have been filled up little by little, and are now on level with the ground; they are like the track of a bark, which spreads and spreads over the water till it finally disappears. from the platform of one of the towers (the others have pointed roofs), one can see the ocean between two low, wooded hills. the windows on the first floor are half stopped up, so as to keep the rain out; they look out into a garden enclosed by a high wall. the grass is covered with thistles and wheat grows in the flower-beds surrounded by rose-bushes. a narrow path wends its way between a field where the ripe wheat sways in the breeze and a line of elm-trees growing on the edge of a ditch. poppies gleamed here and there amongst the wheat; the ditch was edged with flowers, brambles, nettles, sweet-brier, long prickly stems, broad shining leaves, blackberries and purple digitalis, all of which mingled their colours and various foliage and uneven branches, and crossed their shadows on the grey dust like the meshes of a net. when you have crossed a meadow where an old mill reluctantly turns its clogged wheel, you follow the wall by stepping on large stones placed in the water for a bridge; you soon come to the road that leads to saint-pol, at the end of which rises the slashed steeple of kreisker; tall and slender, it dominates a tower decorated with a balustrade and produces a fine effect at a distance; but the nearer one gets to it, the smaller and uglier it becomes, till finally one finds that it is nothing more than an ordinary church with a portal devoid of statues. the cathedral also is built in a rather clumsy gothic style, and is overloaded with ornaments and embroideries: but there is one notable thing, at least, in saint-pol, and that is the _table d'hôte_ of the inn. the girl who waits on it has gold earrings dangling against her white neck and a cap with turned up wings, like molière's soubrettes, and her sparkling blue eyes would incline anyone to ask her for something more than mere plates. but the guests! what guests! all _habitués_! at the upper end sat a creature in a velvet jacket and a cashmere waistcoat. he tied his napkin around the bottles that had been uncorked, in order to be able to distinguish them. he ladled the soup. on his left, sat a man in a light grey frock-coat, with the cuffs and collar trimmed with a sort of curly material representing fur; he ate with his hat on and was the professor of music at the local college. but he has grown tired of his profession and is anxious to find some place that would bring him from eight to twelve hundred francs at the most. he does not care so much about the salary, what he desires is the consideration that attaches to such a place. as he was always late, he requested that the courses be brought up again from the kitchen, and if he did not like them, he would send them back untouched; he sneezed and expectorated and rocked his chair and hummed and leaned his elbows on the table and picked his teeth. everybody respects him, the waitress admires everything he says, and is, i am sure, in love with him. the high opinion he has of himself shows in his smile, his speech, his gestures, his silence, and in his way of wearing his hair; it emanates from his entire obnoxious personality. opposite to us sat a grey-haired, plump man with red hands and thick, moist lips, who looked at us so persistently and annoyingly, while he masticated his food, that we felt like throwing the carafes at him. the other guests were insignificant and only contributed to the picture. one evening the conversation fell upon a woman of the environs who had left her husband and gone to america with her lover, and who, the previous week, and passed through saint-pol on her way home, and had stopped at the inn. everybody wondered at her audacity, and her name was accompanied by all sorts of unflattering epithets. her whole life was passed in review by these people, and they all laughed contemptuously and insulted her and grew quite hot over the argument. they would have liked to have her there to tell her what they thought of her and see what she would say. tirades against luxury, virtuous horror, moral maxims, hatred of wealth, words with a double meaning, shrugs, everything, in fact, was used to crush this woman, who, judging by the ferocity these ruffians displayed in their attacks, must have been pretty, refined, and charming. our hearts beat indignantly in our breasts, and if we had taken another meal in saint-pol, i am sure that something would have happened. chapter x. saint-malo. saint-malo, which is built right on the ocean and is enclosed by ramparts, looks like a crown of stones, the gems of which are the machicolations. the breakers dash against its walls, and when the tide is low they gently unfurl on the sand. little rocks covered with sea-weed dot the beach and look like black spots on its light surface. the larger ones, which are upright and smooth, support the fortifications, thus making them appear higher than they really are. above this straight line of walls, broken here and there by a tower or the pointed ogive of a door, rise the roofs of the houses with their open garret-windows, their gyrating weather-cocks, and their red chimneys from which issue spirals of bluish smoke that vanishes in the air. around saint-malo are a number of little barren islands that have not a tree nor a blade of grass, but only some old crumbling walls, great pieces of which are hurled into the sea by each succeeding storm. on the other side of the bay, opposite the city and connected with dry land by a long pier, which separates the port from the ocean, is saint-servan, a large, empty, almost deserted locality, which lies peacefully in a marshy meadow. at the entrance to saint-servan rise the four towers of the château de solidor, which are connected by curtains and are perfectly black from top to bottom. these alone are sufficient compensation for having made that extended circuit on the beach, under the broiling july sun, among the dock-yards and tar-pots and fires. a walk around the city, over the ramparts, is one of the finest that can be taken. nobody goes there. you can sit down in the embrasures of the cannons and dangle your feet over the abyss. in front of you lies the mouth of the rance, which flows between two green hills, the coast, the islands, the rocks, and the ocean. the sentinel marches up and down behind you, and his even footsteps echo on the sonorous stones. one evening we remained out for a long time. the night was beautiful, a true summer night, without a moon, but brilliant with stars and perfumed by the sea-breeze. the city was sleeping. one by one the lights went out in the windows, and the lighthouses shone red in the darkness, which was quite blue above us and glittering with myriads of twinkling stars. we could not see the ocean, but we could hear and smell it, and the breakers that lashed the walls flung drops of foam over us through the big apertures of the machicolations. in one place, between the wall and the city houses, a quantity of cannon-balls are piled up in a ditch. from that point you can see these words written on the second floor of one of the dwellings: "chateaubriand was born here." further on, the wall ends at the foot of a tower called quiquengrogne; like its sister, la générale, it is high, broad, and imposing, and is swelled in the middle like a hyperbola. though they are as good as new and absolutely intact, these towers would no doubt be improved if they lost some of their battlements in the sea and if ivy spread its kindly leaves over their tops. indeed, do not monuments grow greater through recollection, like men and like passions? and are they not completed by death? we entered the castle. the empty courtyard planted with a few sickly lime-trees was as silent as the courtyard of a monastery. the janitress went and obtained the keys from the commander. when she returned, she was accompanied by a pretty little girl who wished to see the strangers. her arms were bare and she carried a large bunch of flowers. her black curls escaped from beneath her dainty little cap, and the lace on her pantalettes rubbed against her kid shoes tied around the ankles with black laces. she ran up stairs in front of us beckoning and calling. the staircase is long, for the tower is high. the bright daylight passes through the loop-holes like an arrow. when you put your head through one of these openings, you can see the ocean, which seems to grow wider and wider, and the crude colour of the sky, which seems to grow larger and larger, till you are afraid you will lose yourself in it. vessels look like launches and their masts like walking-sticks. eagles must think we look like ants. i wonder whether they really see us. do they know that we have cities and steeples and triumphal arches? when we arrived on the platform, and although the battlement reached to our chest, we could not help experiencing the sensation one always feels at a great height from the earth. it is a sort of voluptuous uneasiness mingled with fear and delight, pride and terror, a battle between one's mind and one's nerves. you feel strangely happy; you would like to jump, fly, spread out in the air and be supported by the wind; but your knees tremble and you dare not go too near the edge. still, one night, in olden times, men climbed this tower with ropes. but then, it is not astonishing for those times, for that wonderful sixteenth century, the epoch of fierce convictions and frantic loves! how the human instrument vibrated then in all its chords! how liberal-minded, productive, and active men were! does not this phrase of fénelon apply wonderfully well to that period: "a sight well calculated to delight the eye?" for, without making any reference to the foreground of the picture,--beliefs crumbling at their foundation like tottering mountains, newly discovered worlds, lost worlds brought to light again, michael-angelo beneath his dome, laughing rabelais, observant shakespeare, pensive montaigne,--where can be found a greater development in passions, a greater violence in courage, a greater determination in willpower, in fine, a more complete expansion of liberty struggling against all native fatalities? and with what a bold relief the episode stands out in history, and still, how wonderfully well it fits in, thereby giving a glimpse of the dazzling brightness and broad horizons of the period. faces, living faces, pass before your eyes. you meet them only once; but you think of them long afterwards, and endeavour to contemplate them in order that they may be impressed more deeply upon your mind. was not the type of the old soldiers whose race disappeared around , at the taking of vervins, fine and terrible? it was a type represented by men like lamouche, heurtand de saint-offange, and la tremblaye, who came back holding the heads of his enemies in his hand; also la fontenelle, of whom so much has been said. they were men of iron, whose hearts were no softer than their swords, and who, attracting hundreds of energies which they directed with their own, entered towns at night, galloping madly at the heads of their companies, equipped corsairs, burned villages, and were dealt with like kings! who has thought of depicting those violent governors of the provinces, who slaughtered the people recklessly, committed rapes and swept in gold, like d'epernon, an atrocious tyrant in provence and a perfumed courtier at the louvre; like montluc, who strangled huguenots with his own hands, or baligui, the king of cambrai, who read machiavel in order to copy the valentinois, and whose wife went to war on horseback, wearing a helmet and a cuirass. one of the forgotten men of the period, or at least one of those whom most historians mention only slightly, is the duke of mercoeur, the intrepid enemy of henri iv, who defied him longer than mayenne, the ligue, and philip ii. finally he was disarmed, that is, won over and appeased (by terms that were such that twenty-three articles of the treaty were not disclosed); then, not knowing what to do, he enlisted in the hungarian army and fought the turks. one day, with five thousand men, he attacked a whole army, and, beaten again, returned to france and died of the fever in nuremberg, at the age of forty-four. saint-malo put me in mind of him. he always tried to get it, but he never could succeed in making it his subject or his ally. they wished to fight on their own account, and to do business through their own resources, and although they were really _ligueurs_, they spurned the duke as well as the béarnais. when de fontaines, the governor of the city, informed them of the death of henri iii, they refused to recognize the king of navarre. they armed themselves and erected barricades; de fontaines intrenched himself in the castle and everybody kept upon the defensive. little by little, the people encroached upon him; first, they requested him to declare that he was willing to maintain their franchises. de fontaines complied in the hope of gaining time. the following year ( ), they chose four generals who were independent of the governor. a year later, they obtained permission to stretch chains. de fontaines acceded to everything. the king was at laval and he was waiting for him. the time was close at hand when he would be able to take revenge for all the humiliations he had suffered, and all the concessions he had been forced to make. but he precipitated matters and was discovered. when the people of saint-malo reminded him of his promises, he replied that if the king presented himself, he (de fontaines) would let him enter the city. when they learned this, they decided to act. the castle had four towers. it was the highest one, la générale, the one on which de fontaines relied the most, which they climbed. these bold attempts were not infrequent, as proved by the ascension of the cliffs of fécamp by bois-rosé, and the attack of the château de blein, by guebriant. the rebels connived and assembled during several evenings at the place of a certain man named frotet, sieur de la lanbelle; they entered into an understanding with a scotch gunner, and one dark night they armed themselves, went out to the rampart, let themselves down with ropes and approached the foot of la générale. there they waited. soon a rustling sound was heard on the wall, and a ball of thread was lowered, to which they fastened their rope ladder. the ladder was then hoisted to the top of the tower and attached to the end of a culverin which was levelled in an embrasure of the battlement. michel frotet was the first to ascend, and after him came charles anselin, la blissais and the others. the night was dark and the wind whistled; they had to climb slowly, to hold their daggers between their teeth and feel for the rungs of the ladder with their hands and feet. suddenly (they were midway between the ground and the top), they felt themselves going down; the rope had slipped. but they did not utter a sound; they remained motionless. their weight had caused the culverin to tip forward; it stopped on the edge of the embrasure and they slowly resumed their ascension and arrived one after another on the platform of the tower. the sleepy sentinels did not have time to give the alarm. the garrison was either asleep or playing dice on the drums. a panic seized the soldiers and they fled to the dungeon. the conspirators pursued them and attacked them in the hallways, on the staircase, and in the rooms, crushing them between the doors and slaughtering them mercilessly. meanwhile the townspeople arrived to lend assistance; some put up ladders, and entered the tower without encountering any resistance and plundered it. la pérandière, lieutenant of the castle, perceiving la blissais, said to him: "this, sir, is a most miserable night." but la blissais impressed upon him that this was not the time for conversation. the count of fontaines had not made his appearance. they went in search of him, and found him lying dead across the threshold of his chamber, pierced by a shot from an arquebuse that one of the townspeople had fired at him, as he was about to go out, escorted by a servant bearing a light. "instead of rushing to face the danger," says the author of this account,[ ] "he had dressed as leisurely as if he were going to a wedding, without leaving one shoulder-knot untied." this outbreak in saint-malo, which so greatly harmed the king, did not in the least benefit the duke de mercoeur. he had hoped that the people would accept a governor from his hands, his son, for example, a mere child, for that would have meant himself, but they obstinately refused to listen to it. he sent troops to protect them, but they refused to let them enter, and the soldiers were compelled to take lodgings outside of the city. still, in spite of all this, they had not become more royalist, for some time later, having arrested the marquis of la noussaie and the viscount of denoual, it cost the former twelve thousand crowns to get out of prison and the latter two thousand. then, fearing that pont-brient would interrupt commercial relations with dinan and the other cities in the ligue, they attacked and subjected it. presuming that their bishop, who was the temporal master of the city, might be likely to deprive them of the freedom they had just acquired, they put him in prison and kept him there for a year. the conditions at which they finally accepted henri iv are well-known: they were to take care of themselves, not be obliged to receive any garrison, be exempt from taxes for six years, etc. situated between brittany and normandy, this little people seems to have the tenacity and granite-like resistance of the former and the impulses and dash of the latter. whether they are sailors, writers, or travellers on foreign seas, their predominant trait is audacity; they have violent natures which are almost poetical in their brutality, and often narrow in their obstinacy. there is this resemblance between these two sons of saint-malo, lamennais and broussais: they were always equally extreme in their systems and employed their latter years in fighting what they had upheld in the earlier part of their life. in the city itself are little tortuous streets edged with high houses and dirty fishmongers' shops. there are no carriages or luxuries of any description; everything is as black and reeking as the hold of a ship. a sort of musty smell, reminiscent of newfoundland, salt meat, and long sea voyages pervades the air. "the watch and the round are made every night with big english dogs, which are let loose outside of the city by the man who is in charge of them, and it is better not to be in their vicinity at that time. but when morning comes, they are led back to a place in the city where they shed all their ferocity which, at night, is so great."[ ] barring the disappearance of this four-legged police which at one time devoured m. du mollet, the existence of which is confirmed by a contemporaneous text, the exterior of things has changed but little, no doubt, and even the civilized people living in saint-malo admit that it is very much behind the times. the only picture we noticed in the church is a large canvas that represents the battle of lepante and is dedicated to nôtre-dame des victoires, who can be seen floating above the clouds. in the foreground, all christianity, together with crowned kings and princesses, is kneeling. the two armies can be seen in the background. the turks are being hurled into the sea and the christians stretch their arms towards heaven. the church is ugly, has no ornamentation, and looks almost like a protestant house of worship. i noticed very few votive offerings, a fact that struck me as being rather peculiar in this place of sea perils. there are no flowers nor candles in the chapels, no bleeding hearts nor bedecked virgin, nothing, in fact, of all that which causes m. michelet to wax indignant. opposite the ramparts, at a stone's throw from the city, rises the little island of grand-bay. there, can be found the tomb of chateaubriand; that white spot cut in the rock is the place he has designated for his body. we went there one evening when the tide was low and the sun setting in the west. the water was still trickling over the sand. at the foot of the island, the dripping sea-weed spread out like the hair of antique women over a tomb. the island is deserted; sparse grass grows in spots, mingled here and there with tufts of purple flowers and nettles. on the summit is a dilapidated casemate, with a courtyard enclosed by crumbling walls. beneath this ruin, and half-way up the hill, is a space about ten feet square, in the middle of which rises a granite slab surmounted by a latin cross. the tomb comprises three pieces: one for the socle, one for the slab, and another for the cross. chateaubriand will rest beneath it, with his head turned towards the sea; in this grave, built on a rock, his immortality will be like his life--deserted and surrounded by tempests. the centuries and the breakers will murmur a long time around his great memory; the breakers will dash against his tomb during storms, or on summer mornings, when the white sails unfold and the swallow arrives from across the seas; they will bring him the melancholy voluptuousness of far-away horizons and the caressing touch of the sea-breeze. and while time passes and the waves of his native strand swing back and forth between his cradle and his grave, the great heart of rené, grown cold, will slowly crumble to dust to the eternal rhythm of this never-ceasing music. we walked around the tomb and touched it, and looked at it as if it contained its future host, and sat down beside it on the ground. the sky was pink, the sea was calm, and there was a lull in the breeze. not a ripple broke the motionless surface of ocean on which the setting sun shed its golden light. blue near the coast and mingled with the evening mist, the sea was scarlet everywhere else and deepened into a dark red line on the horizon. the sun had no rays left; they had fallen from its face and drowned their brilliancy in the water, on which they seemed to float. the red disc set slowly, robbing the sky of the pink tinge it had diffused over it, and while both the sun and the delicate color were wearing away, the pale blue shades of night crept over the heavens. soon the sun touched the ocean and sank into it to the middle. for a moment it appeared cut in two by the horizon; the upper half remained firm, while the under one vacillated and lengthened; then it finally disappeared; and when the reflection died away from the place where the fiery ball had gone down, it seemed as if a sudden gloom had spread over the sea. the shore was dark. the light in one of the windows in a city house, which a moment before was bright, presently went out. the silence grew deeper, though sounds could be heard. the breakers dashed against the rocks and fell back with a roar; long-legged gnats sang in our ears and disappeared with a buzzing of their transparent wings, and the indistinct voices of the children bathing at the foot of the ramparts reached us, mingled with their laughter and screams. young boys came out of the water, and, stepping gingerly on the pebbles, ran up the beach to dress. when they attempted to put on their shirts, the moist linen clung to their wet shoulders and we could see their white torsos wriggling with impatience, while their heads and arms remained concealed and the sleeves flapped in the wind like flags. a man with his wet hair falling straight around his neck, passed in front of us. his dripping body shone. drops trickled from his dark, curly beard, and he shook his head so as to let the water run out of his locks. his broad chest was parted by a stubby growth of hair that extended between his powerful muscles. it heaved with the exertion of swimming and imparted an even motion to his flat abdomen, which was as smooth as ivory where it joined the hips. his muscular thighs were set above slender knees and fine legs ending in arched feet, with short heels and spread toes. he walked slowly over the beach. how beautiful is the human form when it appears in its original freedom, as it was created in the first day of the world! but where are we to find it, masked as it is and condemned never to reappear. that great word, nature, which humanity has repeated sometimes with idolatry and sometimes with fear, which philosophers have sounded and poets have sung, how it is being lost and forgotten! if there are still here and there in the world, far from the pushing crowd, some hearts which are tormented by the constant search of beauty, and forever feeling the hopeless need of expressing what cannot be expressed and doing what can only be dreamed, it is to nature, as to the home of the ideal, that they must turn. but how can they? by what magic will they be able to do so? man has cut down the forests, has conquered the seas, and the clouds that hover over the cities are produced by the smoke that rises from the chimneys. but, say others, do not his mission and his glory consist in going forward and attacking the work of god, and encroaching upon it? man denies his work, he ruins it, crushes it, even in his own body, of which he is ashamed and which he conceals like a crime. man having thus become the rarest and most difficult thing in the world to know (i am not speaking of his heart, o moralists!), it follows that the artist ignores his shape as well as the qualities that render it beautiful. where is the poet, nowadays, even amongst the most brilliant, who knows what a woman is like? where could the poor fellow ever have seen any? what has he ever been able to learn about them in the salons; could he see through the corset and the crinoline? better than all the rhetoric in the world, the plastic art teaches those who study it the gradation of proportions, the fusion of planes, in a word, harmony. the ancient races, through the very fact of their existence, left the mark of their noble attitudes and pure blood on the works of the masters. in juvenal, i can hear confusedly the death-rattles of the gladiators; tacitus has sentences that resemble the drapery of a laticlave, and some of horace's verses are like the body of a greek slave, with supple undulations, and short and long syllables that sound like crotala. but why bother about these things? let us not go so far back, and let us be satisfied with what is manufactured. what is wanted nowadays is rather the opposite of nudity, simplicity and truth? fortune and success will fall to the lot of those who know how to dress and clothe facts! the tailor is the king of the century and the fig-leaf is its symbol; laws, art, politics, all things, appear in tights! lying freedom, plated furniture, water-colour pictures, why! the public loves this sort of thing! so let us give it all it wants and gorge the fool! chapter xi. mont saint-michel. the road from pontorson to the mont saint-michel is wearying on account of the sand. our post-chaise (for we also travel by post-chaise), was disturbed every now and then by a number of carts filled with the grey soil which is found in these parts and which is transported to some place and utilised as manure. they became more numerous as we approached the sea, and defiled for several miles until we finally saw the deserted strand whence they came. on this white surface, with its conical heaps of earth resembling huts, the fluctuating line of carts reminded us of an emigration of barbarians deserting their native heath. the empty horizon stretches out, spreads, and finally mingles its greyish flats with the yellow sand of the beach. the ground becomes firmer and a salt breeze fans your cheeks; it looks like a vast desert from which the waters have receded. long, flat strips of sand, superposed indefinitely in indistinct planes, ripple like shadows, and the wind playfully designs huge arabesques on their surfaces. the sea lies far away, so far, in fact, that its roar cannot be heard, though we could distinguish a sort of vague, aërial, imperceptible murmur, like the voice of the solitude, which perhaps was only the effect produced by the intense silence. opposite us rose a large round rock with embattled walls and a church on its top; enormous counterparts resting on a steep slope support the sides of the edifice. rocks and wild shrubs are strewn over the incline. half-way up the slope are a few houses, which show above the white line of the wall and are dominated by the brown church; thus some bright colours are interspersed between the two plain tints. the post-chaise drove ahead of us and we followed it, guiding ourselves by the tracks of the wheels; finally it disappeared in the distance, and we could distinguish only its hood, which looked like some big crab crawling over the sand. here and there a swift current of water compelled us to move farther up the beach. or we would suddenly come upon pools of slime with ragged edges framed in sand. beside us walked two priests who were also going to the mont saint-michel. as they were afraid of soiling their new cassocks, they gathered them up around their legs when they jumped over the little streams. their silver buckles were grey with mud, and their wet shoes gaped and threw water at every step they took. meantime the mount was growing larger. with one sweep of the eye we were able to take in the whole panorama, and could see distinctly the tiles on the roofs, the bunches of nettles on the rocks, and, a little higher, the green shutters of a small window that looks out into the governor's garden. the first door, which is narrow and pointed, opens on a sort of pebble road leading to the ocean; on the worn shield over the second door, undulating lines carved in the stone seem to represent water; on both sides of the doors are enormous cannons composed of iron bars connected by similar circular bands. one of them has retained a cannon-ball in its mouth; they were taken from the english in , by louis d'estouteville, and have remained here four hundred years. five or six houses built opposite one another compose the street; then the line breaks, and they continue down the slopes and stairs leading to the castle, in a sort of haphazard fashion. in order to reach the castle, you first go up to the curtain, the wall of which shuts out the view of the ocean from the houses below. grass grows between the cracked stones and the battlements. the rampart continues around the whole island and is elevated by successive platforms. when you have passed the watch-house, which is situated between the two towers, you see a little straight flight of steps; when you climb them, the roofs of the houses, with their dilapidated chimneys, gradually grow lower and lower. you can see the washing hung out to dry on poles fastened to the garret-windows, or a tiny garden baking in the sun between the roof of one house and the ground-floor of another, with its parched leeks drooping their leaves over the grey soil; but the other side of the rock, the side that faces the ocean, is barren and deserted, and so steep that the shrubs that grow there have a hard time to remain where they are and look as if they were about to topple over every minute. when you are standing up there, enjoying as much space as the human eye can possibly encompass and looking at the ocean and the horizon of the coast, which forms an immense bluish curve, or at the wall of la merveille with its thirty-six huge counterparts upreared on a perpendicular cliff, a laugh of admiration parts your lips, and you suddenly hear the sharp noise of the weaving-looms. the people manufacture linen, and the shrill sound of the shuttles produces a very lively racket. between two slender towers, which represent the uplifted barrels of two cannons, is the entrance to the castle, a long, arched hallway, at the end of which is a flight of stone steps. the middle of the hall is always dark, being insufficiently lighted by two skylights one of which is at the bottom of the hall and the other at the top, between the interval of the drawbridge; it is like a subterranean vault. the guard-room is at the head of the stairs as you enter. the voice of the sergeants and the clicking of the guns re-echoed along the walls. they were beating a drum. meanwhile a _garde-chiourme_ returned with our passports, which m. le gouverneur had wished to see; then he motioned us to follow him; he opened doors, drew bolts, and led us through a maze of halls, vaults and staircases. really, one can lose oneself in this labyrinth, for a single visit does not enable you to understand the complicated plan of these combined buildings, where a fortress, a church, an abbey, a prison and a dungeon, are mingled, and where you can find every style of architecture, from the romance of the eleventh century to the bewildering gothic of the sixteenth. we could catch only a glimpse of the knights' hall, which has been converted into a loom-room and is for this reason barred to the public. we saw only four rows of columns supporting a ceiling ornamented with salient mouldings; they were decorated with clover leaves. the monastery is built over this hall, at an altitude of two hundred feet above the sea level. it is composed of a quadrangular gallery formed by a triple line of small granite, tufa, or stucco columns. acanthus, thistles, ivy, and oak-leaves wind around their caps; between each mitred ogive is a cut-out rose; this gallery is the place where the prisoners take the air. the cap of the _garde-chiourme_ now passes along these walls where, in olden times, passed the shaved heads of industrious friars; and the wooden shoes of the prisoners click on the slabs that used to be swept by the trailing robes of monks and trodden by their heavy leather sandals. the church has a gothic choir and a romance nave, and the two architectures seem to vie with each other in majesty and elegance. in the choir, the arches of the windows are pointed, and are as lofty as the aspirations of love; in the nave, the arcades open their semi-circles roundly, and columns as straight as the trunk of a palm-tree mount along the walls. they rest on square pedestals, are crowned with acanthus leaves, and continue in powerful mouldings that curve beneath the ceiling and help support it. it was noon. the bright daylight poured in through the open door and rippled over the dark sides of the building. the nave, which is separated from the choir by a green curtain, is filled with tables and benches, for it is used also as a dining-hall. when mass is celebrated, the curtain is drawn and the condemned men may be present at divine service without removing their elbows from the table. it is a novel idea. in order to enlarge the platform by twelve yards on the western side of the church, the latter itself has been curtailed; but as it was necessary to reconstruct some sort of entrance, one architect closed the nave by a façade in greek style; then, perhaps, feeling remorseful, or desiring (a presumption which will be accepted more readily), to embellish his work still further, he afterwards added some columns "which imitate fairly well the architecture of the eleventh century," says the notice. let us be silent and bow our heads. each of the arts has its own particular leprosy, its mortal ignominy that eats its face away. painting has the family group, music the ballad, literature the criticism, and architecture the architect. the prisoners were walking around the platform, one after another, silent, with folded arms, and in the beautiful order we had the opportunity to admire at fontevrault. they were the patients of the hospital ward taking the air. tottering along with the file was one who lifted his feet higher than the rest and clung to the coat of the man ahead of him. he was blind. poor, miserable wretch! god prevents him from seeing and his fellow-men forbid him to speak! the following day, when the tide had again receded from the beach, we left the mount under a broiling sun which heated the hood of the carriage and made the horses sweat. they only walked; the harness creaked and the wheels sank deep into the sand. at the end of the beach, when grass appeared again, i put my eye to the little window that is in the back of every carriage, and bade goodbye to mont saint-michel. chapter xii. combourg. a letter from the viscount vésin was to gain us entrance to the castle. so as soon as we arrived, we called on the steward, m. corvesier. they ushered us into a large kitchen where a young lady in black, marked by smallpox and wearing horn spectacles over her prominent eyes, was stemming currants. the kettle was on the fire and they were crushing sugar with bottles. it was evident that we were intruding. after several minutes had elapsed, we were informed that m. corvesier was confined to his bed with a fever and was very sorry that he could not be of any service to us, but sent us his regards. in the meantime, his clerk, who had just come in from an errand, and who was lunching on a glass of cider and a piece of buttered bread, offered to show us the castle. he put his napkin down, sucked his teeth, lighted his pipe, took a bunch of keys from the wall and started ahead of us through the village. after following a long wall, we entered through an old door into a silent farm-yard. silica here and there shows through the beaten ground, on which grows a little grass soiled by manure. there was nobody around and the stable was empty. in the barns some chickens were roosting on the poles of the wagons, with their heads under their wings. around the buildings, the sound of our footsteps was deadened by the dust accumulated from the straw in the lofts. four large towers connected by curtains showed battlements beneath their pointed roofs; the openings in the towers, like those in the main part of the castle, are small, irregular windows, which form uneven black squares on the grey stones. a broad stoop, comprising about thirty steps, reaches to the first floor, which has become the ground-floor of the interior apartments, since the trenches have been filled up. the yellow wall-flower does not grow here, but instead, one finds nettles and lentisks, greenish moss and lichens. to the left, next to the turret, is a cluster of chestnut-trees reaching up to the roof and shading it. after the key had been turned in the lock and the door pushed open with kicks, we entered a dark hallway filled with boards and ladders and wheelbarrows. this passage led into a little yard enclosed by the thick interior walls of the castle. it was lighted from the top like a prison yard. in the corners, drops of humidity dripped from the stones. we opened another door. it led into a large, empty, sonorous hall; the floor was cracked in a hundred places, but there was fresh paint on the wainscoting. the green forest opposite sheds a vivid reflection on the white walls, through the large windows of the castle. there is a lake and underneath the windows were clusters of lilacs, petunia-blossoms and acacias, which have grown pell-mell in the former parterre, and cover the hill that slopes gradually to the road, following the banks of the lake and then continuing through the woods. the great, deserted hall, where the child who afterwards wrote _rené_, used to sit and gaze out of the windows, was silent. the clerk smoked his pipe and expectorated on the floor. his dog, which had followed him, hunted for mice, and its nails clicked on the pavement. we walked up the winding stairs. moss covers the worn stone steps. sometimes a ray of light, passing through a crack in the walls, strikes a green blade and makes it gleam in the dark like a star. we wandered through the halls, through the towers, and over the narrow curtain with its gaping machicolations, which attract the eye irresistibly to the abyss below. on the second floor is a small room which looks out into the inside courtyard and has a massive oak door that closes with a latch. the beams of the ceiling (you can touch them), are rotten from age; the whitewashed walls show their lattice-work and are covered with big spots; the window-panes are obscured by cobwebs and their frames are buried in dust. this used to be chateaubriand's room. it faces the west, towards the setting sun. we continued; when we passed in front of a window or a loop-hole, we warmed ourselves in the warm air coming from without, and this sudden transition rendered the ruins all the more melancholy and cheerless. the floors of the apartments are rotting away, and daylight enters through the fireplaces along the blackened slab where rain has left long green streaks. the golden flowers on the drawing-room ceiling are falling off, and the shield that surmounts the mantelpiece is broken into bits. while we were looking around, a flight of birds entered, flew around for a few minutes and passed out through the chimney. in the evening, we went to the lake. the meadow has encroached upon it and will soon cover it entirely, and wheat will grow in the place of pond-lilies. night was falling. the castle, flanked by its four turrets and framed by masses of green foliage, cast a dark shadow over the village. the setting sun made the great mass appear black; the dying rays touched the surface of the lake and then melted in the mist on the purplish top of the silent forest. we sat down at the foot of an oak and opened _rené_. we faced the lake where he had often watched the nimble swallow on the bending reeds; we sat in the shadow of the forest where he had often pursued rainbows over the dripping hills; we harkened to the rustling of the leaves and the whisperings of the water that had added their murmur to the sad melody of his youth. as the darkness gathered on the pages of the book, the bitterness of its words went to our hearts, and we experienced a sensation of mingled melancholy and sweetness. a wagon passed in the road, and the wheels sank in the deep tracks. a smell of new-mown hay pervaded the air. the frogs were croaking in the marshes. we went back. the sky was heavy and a storm raged all night. the front of a neighbouring house was illumined and flared like a bonfire at every flash of lightning. gasping, and tired of tossing on my bed, i arose, lighted a candle, opened the window and leaned out. the night was dark, and as silent as slumber. the lighted candle threw my huge shadow on the opposite wall. from time to time a flash of lightning blinded me. i thought of the man whose early life was spent here and who filled half a century with the clamouring of his grief. i thought of him first in these quiet streets, playing with the village boys and looking for nests in the church-steeple and in the woods. i imagined him in his little room, leaning his elbows on the table, and watching the rain beating on the window-panes and the clouds passing above the curtain, while his dreams flew away. i thought of the bitter loneliness of youth, with its intoxications, its nausea, and its bursts of love that sicken the heart. is it not here that our own grief was nourished, is this not the very golgotha where the genius that fed us suffered its anguish? nothing can express the gestation of the mind or the thrills which future great works impart to those who carry them; but we love to see the spot where we know they were conceived and lived, as if it had retained something of the unknown ideal which once vibrated there. his room! his room! his childhood's poor little room! it was here that he was tormented by vague phantoms which beckoned to him and clamoured for birth: attala shaking the magnolias out of her hair in the soft breeze of florida, velléda running through the woods in the moonlight, cymodocée protecting her white bosom from the claws of the leopards, and frail amélie and pale rené! one day, however, he tears himself away from the old feudal homestead, never to return. now he is lost in the whirl of paris and mingles with his fellow-men; and then he feels an impulse to travel and he starts off. i can see him leaning over the side of the ship, i can see him looking for a new world and weeping over the country he has left. he lands; he listens to the waterfalls and the songs of the natchez; he watches the flowing rivers and the bright scales of the snakes and the eyes of the savages. he allows his soul to be fascinated by the languor of the savannah. they tell each other of their native melancholy and he exhausts its pleasures as he exhausted those of love. he returns, writes, and everyone is carried away by the charm of his magnificent style with its royal sweep and its supple, coloured, undulating phrase, as stormy as the winds that sweep over virgin forests, as brilliant as the neck of a humming-bird, and as soft as the light of the moon shining through the windows of a chapel. he travels again; this time he goes to ancient shores; he sits down at thermoplyæ and cries: leonidas! leonidas! visits the tomb of achilles, lacedæmon, and carthage, and, like the sleepy shepherd who raises his head to watch the passing caravans, all those great places awake when he passes through them. banished, exiled, laden with honours, this man who had starved in the streets will dine at the table of kings; he will be an ambassador and a minister, will try to save the tottering monarchy, and after seeing the ruin of all his beliefs, he will witness his own glorification as if he were already counted among the dead. born during the decline of one period and at the dawn of another, he was to be its transition and the guardian of its memories and hopes. he was the embalmer of catholicism and the proclaimer of liberty. although he was a man of old traditions and illusions, he was constitutional in politics and revolutionary in literature. religious by instinct and education, it is he, who, in advance of everyone else, in advance of byron, gave vent to the most savage pride and frightful despair. he was an artist, and had this in common with the artists of the eighteenth century: he was always hampered by narrow laws which, however, were always broken by the power of his genius. as a man, he shared the misery of his fellow-men of the nineteenth century. he had the same turbulent preoccupations and futile gravity. not satisfied with being great, he wished to appear grandiose, and it seems that this conceited mania did not in the least efface his real grandeur. he certainly does not belong to the race of dreamers who have made no incursion into life, masters with calm brows who have had neither period, nor country nor family. but this man cannot be separated from the passions of his time; they made him what he was, and he in turn created a number of them. perhaps the future will not give him credit for his heroic stubbornness and no doubt it will be the episodes of his books that will immortalise their titles with the names of the causes they upheld. i stayed at the window enjoying the night and feeling with delight the cold morning air on my lids. little by little the day dawned; the wick of the candle grew longer and longer and its flame slowly faded away. the roof of the market appeared in the distance and a cock crowed; the storm had passed; a few drops of water remained in the dust of the road and made large round spots on it. as i was very tired, i went back to bed and slept. we felt very sad on leaving combourg, and besides, the end of our journey was at hand. soon this delightful trip which we had enjoyed for three months would be over. the return, like the leave-taking, produces an anticipated sadness, which gives one a proof of the insipid life we lead. footnotes: [footnote : gustave flaubert was twenty-six years old when he started on this journey. he travelled on foot and was accompanied by m. maxime ducamp. when they returned, they wrote an account of their journey. it is by far the most important of the unpublished writings, for in it the author gives his personal genius full sway and it abounds in picturesque descriptions and historical reflections.] [footnote : founder of the abbey of fontevrault, in .] [footnote : he strangled his mistress whose mutilated body was found floating in a sack on a pond. (see _causes célèbres_.)] [footnote : a contraction of poulbeuzanneval, the swamp where the beast was drowned.] [footnote : josselin frotet, sieur de la lanbelle, at whose place the rebels congregated before the escalade. (note on the manuscript of g.f.)] [footnote : d'argentré, _hist. de bretagne_. p. .] malvina of brittany by jerome k. jerome contents. malvina of brittany. the preface. i. the story. ii. how it came about. iii. how cousin christopher became mixed up with it. iv. how it was kept from mrs. arlington. v. how it was told to mrs. marigold. vi. and how it was finished too soon. the prologue. the street of the blank wall. his evening out. the lesson. sylvia of the letters. the fawn gloves. malvina of brittany. the preface. the doctor never did believe this story, but claims for it that, to a great extent, it has altered his whole outlook on life. "of course, what actually happened--what took place under my own nose," continued the doctor, "i do not dispute. and then there is the case of mrs. marigold. that was unfortunate, i admit, and still is, especially for marigold. but, standing by itself, it proves nothing. these fluffy, giggling women--as often as not it is a mere shell that they shed with their first youth--one never knows what is underneath. with regard to the others, the whole thing rests upon a simple scientific basis. the idea was 'in the air,' as we say--a passing brain-wave. and when it had worked itself out there was an end of it. as for all this jack-and-the-beanstalk tomfoolery--" there came from the darkening uplands the sound of a lost soul. it rose and fell and died away. "blowing stones," explained the doctor, stopping to refill his pipe. "one finds them in these parts. hollowed out during the glacial period. always just about twilight that one hears it. rush of air caused by sudden sinking of the temperature. that's how all these sort of ideas get started." the doctor, having lit his pipe, resumed his stride. "i don't say," continued the doctor, "that it would have happened without her coming. undoubtedly it was she who supplied the necessary psychic conditions. there was that about her--a sort of atmosphere. that quaint archaic french of hers--king arthur and the round table and merlin; it seemed to recreate it all. an artful minx, that is the only explanation. but while she was looking at you, out of that curious aloofness of hers--" the doctor left the sentence uncompleted. "as for old littlecherry," the doctor began again quite suddenly, "that's his speciality--folklore, occultism, all that flummery. if you knocked at his door with the original sleeping beauty on your arm he'd only fuss round her with cushions and hope that she'd had a good night. found a seed once--chipped it out of an old fossil, and grew it in a pot in his study. about the most dilapidated weed you ever saw. talked about it as if he had re-discovered the elixir of life. even if he didn't say anything in actually so many words, there was the way he went about. that of itself was enough to have started the whole thing, to say nothing of that loony old irish housekeeper of his, with her head stuffed full of elves and banshees and the lord knows what." again the doctor lapsed into silence. one by one the lights of the village peeped upward out of the depths. a long, low line of light, creeping like some luminous dragon across the horizon, showed the track of the great western express moving stealthily towards swindon. "it was altogether out of the common," continued the doctor, "quite out of the common, the whole thing. but if you are going to accept old littlecherry's explanation of it--" the doctor struck his foot against a long grey stone, half hidden in the grass, and only just saved himself from falling. "remains of some old cromlech," explained the doctor. "somewhere about here, if we were to dig down, we should find a withered bundle of bones crouching over the dust of a prehistoric luncheon-basket. interesting neighbourhood!" the descent was rough. the doctor did not talk again until we had reached the outskirts of the village. "i wonder what's become of them?" mused the doctor. "a rum go, the whole thing. i should like to have got to the bottom of it." we had reached the doctor's gate. the doctor pushed it open and passed in. he seemed to have forgotten me. "a taking little minx," i heard him muttering to himself as he fumbled with the door. "and no doubt meant well. but as for that cock-and-bull story--" i pieced it together from the utterly divergent versions furnished me by the professor and the doctor, assisted, so far as later incidents are concerned, by knowledge common to the village. i. the story. it commenced, so i calculate, about the year b.c., or, to be more precise--for figures are not the strong point of the old chroniclers--when king heremon ruled over ireland and harbundia was queen of the white ladies of brittany, the fairy malvina being her favourite attendant. it is with malvina that this story is chiefly concerned. various quite pleasant happenings are recorded to her credit. the white ladies belonged to the "good people," and, on the whole, lived up to their reputation. but in malvina, side by side with much that is commendable, there appears to have existed a most reprehensible spirit of mischief, displaying itself in pranks that, excusable, or at all events understandable, in, say, a pixy or a pigwidgeon, strike one as altogether unworthy of a well-principled white lady, posing as the friend and benefactress of mankind. for merely refusing to dance with her--at midnight, by the shores of a mountain lake; neither the time nor the place calculated to appeal to an elderly gentleman, suffering possibly from rheumatism--she on one occasion transformed an eminently respectable proprietor of tin mines into a nightingale, necessitating a change of habits that to a business man must have been singularly irritating. on another occasion a quite important queen, having had the misfortune to quarrel with malvina over some absurd point of etiquette in connection with a lizard, seems, on waking the next morning, to have found herself changed into what one judges, from the somewhat vague description afforded by the ancient chroniclers, to have been a sort of vegetable marrow. such changes, according to the professor, who is prepared to maintain that evidence of an historical nature exists sufficient to prove that the white ladies formed at one time an actual living community, must be taken in an allegorical sense. just as modern lunatics believe themselves to be china vases or poll-parrots, and think and behave as such, so it must have been easy, the professor argues, for beings of superior intelligence to have exerted hypnotic influence upon the superstitious savages by whom they were surrounded, and who, intellectually considered, could have been little more than children. "take nebuchadnezzar." i am still quoting the professor. "nowadays we should put him into a strait-waistcoat. had he lived in northern europe instead of southern asia, legend would have told us how some kobold or stromkarl had turned him into a composite amalgamation of a serpent, a cat and a kangaroo." be that as it may, this passion for change--in other people--seems to have grown upon malvina until she must have become little short of a public nuisance, and eventually it landed her in trouble. the incident is unique in the annals of the white ladies, and the chroniclers dwell upon it with evident satisfaction. it came about through the betrothal of king heremon's only son, prince gerbot, to the princess berchta of normandy. malvina seems to have said nothing, but to have bided her time. the white ladies of brittany, it must be remembered, were not fairies pure and simple. under certain conditions they were capable of becoming women, and this fact, one takes it, must have exerted a disturbing influence upon their relationships with eligible male mortals. prince gerbot may not have been altogether blameless. young men in those sadly unenlightened days may not, in their dealings with ladies, white or otherwise, have always been the soul of discretion and propriety. one would like to think the best of her. but even the best is indefensible. on the day appointed for the wedding she seems to have surpassed herself. into what particular shape or form she altered the wretched prince gerbot; or into what shape or form she persuaded him that he had been altered, it really, so far as the moral responsibility of malvina is concerned, seems to be immaterial; the chronicle does not state: evidently something too indelicate for a self-respecting chronicler to even hint at. as, judging from other passages in the book, squeamishness does not seem to have been the author's literary failing, the sensitive reader can feel only grateful for the omission. it would have been altogether too harrowing. it had, of course, from malvina's point of view, the desired effect. the princess berchta appears to have given one look and then to have fallen fainting into the arms of her attendants. the marriage was postponed indefinitely, and malvina, one sadly suspects, chortled. her triumph was short-lived. unfortunately for her, king heremon had always been a patron of the arts and science of his period. among his friends were to be reckoned magicians, genii, the nine korrigans or fays of brittany--all sorts of parties capable of exerting influence, and, as events proved, only too willing. ambassadors waited upon queen harbundia; and harbundia, even had she wished, as on many previous occasions, to stand by her favourite, had no alternative. the fairy malvina was called upon to return to prince gerbot his proper body and all therein contained. she flatly refused. a self-willed, obstinate fairy, suffering from swelled head. and then there was that personal note. merely that he should marry the princess berchta! she would see king heremon, and anniamus, in his silly old wizard's robe, and the fays of brittany, and all the rest of them--! a really nice white lady may not have cared to finish the sentence, even to herself. one imagines the flash of the fairy eye, the stamp of the fairy foot. what could they do to her, any of them, with all their clacking of tongues and their wagging of heads? she, an immortal fairy! she would change prince gerbot back at a time of her own choosing. let them attend to their own tricks and leave her to mind hers. one pictures long walks and talks between the distracted harbundia and her refractory favourite--appeals to reason, to sentiment: "for my sake." "don't you see?" "after all, dear, and even if he did." it seems to have ended by harbundia losing all patience. one thing there was she could do that malvina seems either not to have known of or not to have anticipated. a solemn meeting of the white ladies was convened for the night of the midsummer moon. the place of meeting is described by the ancient chroniclers with more than their usual exactitude. it was on the land that the magician kalyb had, ages ago, raised up above all brittany to form the grave of king taramis. the "sea of the seven islands" lay to the north. one guesses it to be the ridge formed by the arree mountains. "the lady of the fountain" appears to have been present, suggesting the deep green pool from which the river d'argent takes its source. roughly speaking, one would place it halfway between the modern towns of morlaix and callac. pedestrians, even of the present day, speak of the still loneliness of that high plateau, treeless, houseless, with no sign of human hand there but that high, towering monolith round which the shrill winds moan incessantly. there, possibly on some broken fragment of those great grey stones, queen harbundia sat in judgment. and the judgment was--and from it there was no appeal--that the fairy malvina should be cast out from among the community of the white ladies of brittany. over the face of the earth she should wander, alone and unforgiven. solemnly from the book of the roll-call of the white ladies the name of malvina was struck out for ever. the blow must have fallen upon malvina as heavily as it was unexpected. without a word, without one backward look, she seems to have departed. one pictures the white, frozen face, the wide-open, unseeing eyes, the trembling, uncertain steps, the groping hands, the deathlike silence clinging like grave-clothes round about her. from that night the fairy malvina disappears from the book of the chroniclers of the white ladies of brittany, from legend and from folklore whatsoever. she does not appear again in history till the year a.d. . ii. how it came about. it was on an evening towards the end of june, , that flight commander raffleton, temporarily attached to the french squadron then harboured at brest, received instructions by wireless to return at once to the british air service headquarters at farnborough, in hampshire. the night, thanks to a glorious full moon, would afford all the light he required, and young raffleton determined to set out at once. he appears to have left the flying ground just outside the arsenal at brest about nine o'clock. a little beyond huelgoat he began to experience trouble with the carburettor. his idea at first was to push on to lannion, where he would be able to secure expert assistance; but matters only getting worse, and noticing beneath him a convenient stretch of level ground, he decided to descend and attend to it himself. he alighted without difficulty and proceeded to investigate. the job took him, unaided, longer than he had anticipated. it was a warm, close night, with hardly a breath of wind, and when he had finished he was feeling hot and tired. he had drawn on his helmet and was on the point of stepping into his seat, when the beauty of the night suggested to him that it would be pleasant, before starting off again, to stretch his legs and cool himself a little. he lit a cigar and looked round about him. the plateau on which he had alighted was a table-land standing high above the surrounding country. it stretched around him, treeless, houseless. there was nothing to break the lines of the horizon but a group of gaunt grey stones, the remains, so he told himself, of some ancient menhir, common enough to the lonely desert lands of brittany. in general the stones lie overthrown and scattered, but this particular specimen had by some strange chance remained undisturbed through all the centuries. mildly interested, flight commander raffleton strolled leisurely towards it. the moon was at its zenith. how still the quiet night must have been was impressed upon him by the fact that he distinctly heard, and counted, the strokes of a church clock which must have been at least six miles away. he remembers looking at his watch and noting that there was a slight difference between his own and the church time. he made it eight minutes past twelve. with the dying away of the last vibrations of the distant bell the silence and the solitude of the place seemed to return and settle down upon it with increased insistence. while he was working it had not troubled him, but beside the black shadows thrown by those hoary stones it had the effect almost of a presence. it was with a sense of relief that he contemplated returning to his machine and starting up his engine. it would whir and buzz and give back to him a comfortable feeling of life and security. he would walk round the stones just once and then be off. it was wonderful how they had defied old time. as they had been placed there, quite possibly ten thousand years ago, so they still stood, the altar of that vast, empty sky-roofed temple. and while he was gazing at them, his cigar between his lips, struggling with a strange forgotten impulse that was tugging at his knees, there came from the very heart of the great grey stones the measured rise and fall of a soft, even breathing. young raffleton frankly confesses that his first impulse was to cut and run. only his soldier's training kept his feet firm on the heather. of course, the explanation was simple. some animal had made the place its nest. but then what animal was ever known to sleep so soundly as not to be disturbed by human footsteps? if wounded, and so unable to escape, it would not be breathing with that quiet, soft regularity, contrasting so strangely with the stillness and the silence all round. possibly an owl's nest. young owlets make that sort of noise--the "snorers," so country people call them. young raffleton threw away his cigar and went down upon his knees to grope among the shadows, and, doing so, he touched something warm and soft and yielding. but it wasn't an owl. he must have touched her very lightly, for even then she did not wake. she lay there with her head upon her arm. and now close to her, his eyes growing used to the shadows, he saw her quite plainly, the wonder of the parted lips, the gleam of the white limbs beneath their flimsy covering. of course, what he ought to have done was to have risen gently and moved away. then he could have coughed. and if that did not wake her he might have touched her lightly, say, on the shoulder, and have called to her, first softly, then a little louder, "mademoiselle," or "mon enfant." even better, he might have stolen away on tiptoe and left her there sleeping. this idea does not seem to have occurred to him. one makes the excuse for him that he was but three-and-twenty, that, framed in the purple moonlight, she seemed to him the most beautiful creature his eyes had ever seen. and then there was the brooding mystery of it all, that atmosphere of far-off primeval times from which the roots of life still draw their sap. one takes it he forgot that he was flight commander raffleton, officer and gentleman; forgot the proper etiquette applying to the case of ladies found sleeping upon lonely moors without a chaperon. greater still, the possibility that he never thought of anything at all, but, just impelled by a power beyond himself, bent down and kissed her. not a platonic kiss upon the brow, not a brotherly kiss upon the cheek, but a kiss full upon the parted lips, a kiss of worship and amazement, such as that with which adam in all probability awakened eve. her eyes opened, and, just a little sleepily, she looked at him. there could have been no doubt in her mind as to what had happened. his lips were still pressing hers. but she did not seem in the least surprised, and most certainly not angry. raising herself to a sitting posture, she smiled and held out her hand that he might help her up. and, alone in that vast temple, star-roofed and moon-illumined, beside that grim grey altar of forgotten rites, hand in hand they stood and looked at one another. "i beg your pardon," said commander raffleton. "i'm afraid i have disturbed you." he remembered afterwards that in his confusion he had spoken to her in english. but she answered him in french, a quaint, old-fashioned french such as one rarely finds but in the pages of old missals. he would have had some difficulty in translating it literally, but the meaning of it was, adapted to our modern idiom: "don't mention it. i'm so glad you've come." he gathered she had been expecting him. he was not quite sure whether he ought not to apologise for being apparently a little late. true, he had no recollection of any such appointment. but then at that particular moment commander raffleton may be said to have had no consciousness of anything beyond just himself and the wondrous other beside him. somewhere outside was moonlight and a world; but all that seemed unimportant. it was she who broke the silence. "how did you get here?" she asked. he did not mean to be enigmatical. he was chiefly concerned with still gazing at her. "i flew here," he answered. her eyes opened wider at that, but with interest, not doubt. "where are your wings?" she asked. she was leaning sideways, trying to get a view of his back. he laughed. it made her seem more human, that curiosity about his back. "over there," he answered. she looked, and for the first time saw the great shimmering sails gleaming like silver under the moonlight. she moved towards it, and he followed, noticing without surprise that the heather seemed to make no sign of yielding to the pressure of her white feet. she halted a little away from it, and he came and stood beside her. even to commander raffleton himself it looked as if the great wings were quivering, like the outstretched pinions of a bird preening itself before flight. "is it alive?" she asked. "not till i whisper to it," he answered. he was losing a little of his fear of her. she turned to him. "shall we go?" she asked. he stared at her. she was quite serious, that was evident. she was to put her hand in his and go away with him. it was all settled. that is why he had come. to her it did not matter where. that was his affair. but where he went she was to go. that was quite clearly the programme in her mind. to his credit, let it be recorded, he did make an effort. against all the forces of nature, against his twenty-three years and the red blood pulsing in his veins, against the fumes of the midsummer moonlight encompassing him and the voices of the stars, against the demons of poetry and romance and mystery chanting their witches' music in his ears, against the marvel and the glory of her as she stood beside him, clothed in the purple of the night, flight commander raffleton fought the good fight for common sense. young persons who, scantily clad, go to sleep on the heather, five miles from the nearest human habitation, are to be avoided by well-brought-up young officers of his majesty's aerial service. the incidence of their being uncannily beautiful and alluring should serve as an additional note of warning. the girl had had a row with her mother and wanted to get away. it was this infernal moonlight that was chiefly responsible. no wonder dogs bayed at it. he almost fancied he could hear one now. nice, respectable, wholesome-minded things, dogs. no damned sentiment about them. what if he had kissed her! one is not bound for life to every woman one kisses. not the first time she had been kissed, unless all the young men in brittany were blind or white blooded. all this pretended innocence and simplicity! it was just put on. if not, she must be a lunatic. the proper thing to do was to say good-bye with a laugh and a jest, start up his machine and be off to england--dear old practical, merry england, where he could get breakfast and a bath. it wasn't a fair fight; one feels it. poor little prim common sense, with her defiant, turned-up nose and her shrill giggle and her innate vulgarity. and against her the stillness of the night, and the music of the ages, and the beating of his heart. so it all fell down about his feet, a little crumbled dust that a passing breath of wind seemed to scatter, leaving him helpless, spellbound by the magic of her eyes. "who are you?" he asked her. "malvina," she answered him. "i am a fairy." iii. how cousin christopher became mixed up with it. it did just occur to him that maybe he had not made that descent quite as successfully as he had thought he had; that maybe he had come down on his head; that in consequence he had done with the experiences of flight commander raffleton and was now about to enter on a new and less circumscribed existence. if so, the beginning, to an adventuresome young spirit, seemed promising. it was malvina's voice that recalled him from this train of musing. "shall we go?" she repeated, and this time the note in her voice suggested command rather than question. why not? whatever had happened to him, at whatever plane of existence he was now arrived, the machine apparently had followed him. mechanically he started it up. the familiar whir of the engine brought back to him the possibility of his being alive in the ordinary acceptation of the term. it also suggested to him the practical advisability of insisting that malvina should put on his spare coat. malvina being five feet three, and the coat having been built for a man of six feet one, the effect under ordinary circumstances would have been comic. what finally convinced commander raffleton that malvina really was a fairy was that, in that coat, with the collar standing up some six inches above her head, she looked more like one than ever. neither of them spoke. somehow it did not seem to be needed. he helped her to climb into her seat and tucked the coat about her feet. she answered by the same smile with which she had first stretched out her hand to him. it was just a smile of endless content, as if all her troubles were now over. commander raffleton sincerely hoped they were. a momentary flash of intelligence suggested to him that his were just beginning. commander raffleton's subconscious self it must have been that took charge of the machine. he seems, keeping a few miles inland, to have followed the line of the coast to a little south of the hague lighthouse. thereabouts he remembers descending for the purpose of replenishing his tank. not having anticipated a passenger, he had filled up before starting with a spare supply of petrol, an incident that was fortunate. malvina appears to have been interested in watching what she probably regarded as some novel breed of dragon being nourished from tins extricated from under her feet, but to have accepted this, together with all other details of the flight, as in the natural scheme of things. the monster refreshed, tugged, spurned the ground, and rose again with a roar; and the creeping sea rushed down. one has the notion that for flight commander raffleton, as for the rest of us, there lies in wait to test the heart of him the ugly and the commonplace. so large a portion of the years will be for him a business of mean hopes and fears, of sordid struggle, of low cares and vulgar fret. but also one has the conviction that there will always remain with him, to make life wonderful, the memory of that night when, godlike, he rode upon the winds of heaven crowned with the glory of the world's desire. now and again he turned his head to look at her, and still, as ever, her eyes answered him with that strange deep content that seemed to wrap them both around as with a garment of immortality. one gathers dimly something of what he felt from the look that would unconsciously come into his eyes when speaking of that enchanted journey, from the sudden dumbness with which the commonplace words would die away upon his lips. well for him that his lesser self kept firm hold upon the wheel or maybe a few broken spars, tossing upon the waves, would have been all that was left to tell of a promising young aviator who, on a summer night of june, had thought he could reach the stars. half-way across the dawn came flaming up over the needles, and later there stole from east to west a long, low line of mist-enshrouded land. one by one headland and cliff, flashing with gold, rose out of the sea, and the white-winged gulls flew out to meet them. almost he expected them to turn into spirits, circling round malvina with cries of welcome. nearer and nearer they drew, while gradually the mist rose upward as the moonlight grew fainter. and all at once the sweep of the chesil bank stood out before them, with weymouth sheltering behind it. it may have been the bathing-machines, or the gasometer beyond the railway station, or the flag above the royal hotel. the curtains of the night fell suddenly away from him. the workaday world came knocking at the door. he looked at his watch. it was a little after four. he had wired them at the camp to expect him in the morning. they would be looking out for him. by continuing his course he and malvina could be there about breakfast-time. he could introduce her to the colonel: "allow me, colonel goodyer, the fairy malvina." it was either that or dropping malvina somewhere between weymouth and farnborough. he decided, without much consideration, that this latter course would be preferable. but where? what was he to do with her? there was aunt emily. hadn't she said something about wanting a french governess for georgina? true, malvina's french was a trifle old-fashioned in form, but her accent was charming. and as for salary--- there presented itself the thought of uncle felix and the three elder boys. instinctively he felt that malvina would not be aunt emily's idea. his father, had the dear old gentleman been alive, would have been a safe refuge. they had always understood one another, he and his father. but his mother! he was not at all sure. he visualised the scene: the drawing-room at chester terrace. his mother's soft, rustling entrance. her affectionate but well-bred greeting. and then the disconcerting silence with which she would await his explanation of malvina. the fact that she was a fairy he would probably omit to mention. faced by his mother's gold-rimmed pince-nez, he did not see himself insisting upon that detail: "a young lady i happened to find asleep on a moor in brittany. and seeing it was a fine night, and there being just room in the machine. and she--i mean i--well, here we are." there would follow such a painful silence, and then the raising of the delicately arched eyebrows: "you mean, my dear lad, that you have allowed this"--there would be a slight hesitation here--"this young person to leave her home, her people, her friends and relations in brittany, in order to attach herself to you. may i ask in what capacity?" for that was precisely how it would look, and not only to his mother. suppose by a miracle it really represented the facts. suppose that, in spite of the overwhelming evidence in her favour--of the night and the moon and the stars, and the feeling that had come to him from the moment he had kissed her--suppose that, in spite of all this, it turned out that she wasn't a fairy. suppose that suggestion of vulgar common sense, that she was just a little minx that had run away from home, had really hit the mark. suppose inquiries were already on foot. a hundred horse-power aeroplane does not go about unnoticed. wasn't there a law about this sort of thing--something about "decoying" and "young girls"? he hadn't "decoyed" her. if anything, it was the other way about. but would her consent be a valid defence? how old was she? that would be the question. in reality he supposed about a thousand years or so. possibly more. unfortunately, she didn't look it. a coldly suspicious magistrate would probably consider sixteen a much better guess. quite possibly he was going to get into a devil of a mess over this business. he cast a glance behind him. malvina responded with her changeless smile of ineffable content. for the first time it caused him a distinct feeling of irritation. they were almost over weymouth by this time. he could read plainly the advertisement posters outside the cinema theatre facing the esplanade: "wilkins and the mermaid. comic drama." there was a picture of the lady combing her hair; also of wilkins, a stoutish gentleman in striped bathing costume. that mad impulse that had come to him with the first breath of dawn, to shake the dwindling world from his pinions, to plunge upward towards the stars never to return--he wished to heaven he had yielded to it. and then suddenly there leapt to him the thought of cousin christopher. dear old cousin christopher, fifty-eight and a bachelor. why had it not occurred to him before? out of the sky there appeared to commander raffleton the vision of "cousin christopher" as a plump, rubicund angel in a panama hat and a pepper-and-salt tweed suit holding out a lifebelt. cousin christopher would take to malvina as some motherly hen to an orphaned duckling. a fairy discovered asleep beside one of the ancient menhirs of brittany. his only fear would be that you might want to take her away before he had written a paper about her. he would be down from oxford at his cottage. commander raffleton could not for the moment remember the name of the village. it would come to him. it was northwest of newbury. you crossed salisbury plain and made straight for magdalen tower. the downs reached almost to the orchard gate. there was a level stretch of sward nearly half a mile long. it seemed to commander raffleton that cousin christopher had been created and carefully preserved by providence for this particular job. he was no longer the moonstruck youth of the previous night, on whom phantasy and imagination could play what pranks they chose. that part of him the keen, fresh morning air had driven back into its cell. he was commander raffleton, an eager and alert young engineer with all his wits about him. at this point that has to be remembered. descending on a lonely reach of shore he proceeded to again disturb malvina for the purpose of extracting tins. he expected his passenger would in broad daylight prove to be a pretty, childish-looking girl, somewhat dishevelled, with, maybe, a tinge of blue about the nose, the natural result of a three-hours' flight at fifty miles an hour. it was with a startling return of his original sensations when first she had come to life beneath his kiss that he halted a few feet away and stared at her. the night was gone, and the silence. she stood there facing the sunlight, clad in a burberry overcoat half a dozen sizes too large for her. beyond her was a row of bathing-machines, and beyond that again a gasometer. a goods train half a mile away was noisily shunting trucks. and yet the glamour was about her still; something indescribable but quite palpable--something out of which she looked at you as from another world. he took her proffered hand, and she leapt out lightly. she was not in the least dishevelled. it seemed as if the air must be her proper element. she looked about her, interested, but not curious. her first thought was for the machine. "poor thing!" she said. "he must be tired." that faint tremor of fear that had come to him when beneath the menhir's shadow he had watched the opening of her eyes, returned to him. it was not an unpleasant sensation. rather it added a piquancy to their relationship. but it was distinctly real. she watched the feeding of the monster; and then he came again and stood beside her on the yellow sands. "england!" he explained with a wave of his hand. one fancies she had the impression that it belonged to him. graciously she repeated the name. and somehow, as it fell from her lips, it conjured up to commander raffleton a land of wonder and romance. "i have heard of it," she added. "i think i shall like it." he answered that he hoped she would. he was deadly serious about it. he possessed, generally speaking, a sense of humour; but for the moment this must have deserted him. he told her he was going to leave her in the care of a wise and learned man called "cousin christopher"; his description no doubt suggesting to malvina a friendly magician. he himself would have to go away for a little while, but would return. it did not seem to matter to malvina, these minor details. it was evident--the idea in her mind--that he had been appointed to her. whether as master or servant it was less easy to conjecture: probably a mixture of both, with preference towards the latter. he mentioned again that he would not be away for longer than he could help. there was no necessity for this repetition. she wasn't doubting it. weymouth with its bathing machines and its gasometer faded away. king rufus was out a-hunting as they passed over the new forest, and from salisbury plain, as they looked down, the pixies waved their hands and laughed. later, they heard the clang of the anvil, telling them they were in the neighbourhood of wayland smith's cave; and so planed down sweetly and without a jar just beyond cousin christopher's orchard gate. a shepherd's boy was whistling somewhere upon the downs, and in the valley a ploughman had just harnessed his team; but the village was hidden from them by the sweep of the hills, and no other being was in sight. he helped malvina out, and leaving her seated on a fallen branch beneath a walnut tree, proceeded cautiously towards the house. he found a little maid in the garden. she had run out of the house on hearing the sound of his propeller and was staring up into the sky, so that she never saw him until he put his hand upon her shoulder, and then was fortunately too frightened to scream. he gave her hasty instructions. she was to knock at the professor's door and tell him that his cousin, commander raffleton, was there, and would he come down at once, by himself, into the orchard. commander raffleton would rather not come in. would the professor come down at once and speak to commander raffleton in the orchard. she went back into the house, repeating it all to herself, a little scared. "good god!" said cousin christopher from beneath the bedclothes. "he isn't hurt, is he?" the little maid, through the jar of the door, thought not. anyhow, he didn't look it. but would the professor kindly come at once? commander raffleton was waiting for him--in the orchard. so cousin christopher, in bedroom slippers, without socks, wearing a mustard-coloured dressing-gown and a black skull cap upon his head--the very picture of a friendly magician--trotted hastily downstairs and through the garden, talking to himself about "foolhardy boys" and "knowing it would happen"; and was much relieved to meet young arthur raffleton coming towards him, evidently sound in wind and limb. and then began to wonder why the devil he had been frightened out of bed at six o'clock in the morning if nothing was the matter. but something clearly was. before speaking arthur raffleton looked carefully about him in a manner suggestive of mystery, if not of crime; and still without a word, taking cousin christopher by the arm, led the way to the farther end of the orchard. and there, on a fallen branch beneath the walnut tree, cousin christopher saw apparently a khaki coat, with nothing in it, which, as they approached it, rose up. but it did not rise very high. the back of the coat was towards them. its collar stood out against the sky line. but there wasn't any head. standing upright, it turned round, and peeping out of its folds cousin christopher saw a child's face. and then looking closer saw that it wasn't a child. and then wasn't quite sure what it was; so that coming to a sudden halt in front of it, cousin christopher stared at it with round wide eyes, and then at flight commander raffleton. it was to malvina that flight commander raffleton addressed himself. "this," he said, "is professor littlecherry, my cousin christopher, about whom i told you." it was obvious that malvina regarded the professor as a person of importance. evidently her intention was to curtsy, an operation that, hampered by those trailing yards of clinging khaki, might prove--so it flashed upon the professor--not only difficult but dangerous. "allow me," said the professor. his idea was to help malvina out of commander raffleton's coat, and malvina was preparing to assist him. commander raffleton was only just in time. "i don't think," said commander raffleton. "if you don't mind i think we'd better leave that for mrs. muldoon." the professor let go the coat. malvina appeared a shade disappointed. one opines that not unreasonably she may have thought to make a better impression without it. but a smiling acquiescence in all arrangements made for her welfare seems to have been one of her charms. "perhaps," suggested commander raffleton to malvina while refastening a few of the more important buttons, "if you wouldn't mind explaining yourself to my cousin christopher just exactly who and what you are--you'd do it so much better than i should." (what commander raffleton was saying to himself was: "if i tell the dear old johnny, he'll think i'm pulling his leg. it will sound altogether different the way she will put it.") "you're sure you don't mind?" malvina hadn't the slightest objection. she accomplished her curtsy--or rather it looked as if the coat were curtsying--quite gracefully, and with a dignity one would not have expected from it. "i am the fairy malvina," she explained to the professor. "you may have heard of me. i was the favourite of harbundia, queen of the white ladies of brittany. but that was long ago." the friendly magician was staring at her with a pair of round eyes that in spite of their amazement looked kindly and understanding. they probably encouraged malvina to complete the confession of her sad brief history. "it was when king heremon ruled over ireland," she continued. "i did a very foolish and a wicked thing, and was punished for it by being cast out from the companionship of my fellows. since then"--the coat made the slightest of pathetic gestures--"i have wandered alone." it ought to have sounded so ridiculous to them both; told on english soil in the year one thousand nine hundred and fourteen to a smart young officer of engineers and an elderly oxford professor. across the road the doctor's odd man was opening garage doors; a noisy milk cart was clattering through the village a little late for the london train; a faint odour of eggs and bacon came wafted through the garden, mingled with the scent of lavender and pinks. for commander raffleton, maybe, there was excuse. this story, so far as it has gone, has tried to make that clear. but the professor! he ought to have exploded in a burst of homeric laughter, or else to have shaken his head at her and warned her where little girls go to who do this sort of thing. instead of which he stared from commander raffleton to malvina, and from malvina back to commander raffleton with eyes so astonishingly round that they might have been drawn with a compass. "god bless my soul!" said the professor. "but this is most extraordinary!" "was there a king heremon of ireland?" asked commander raffleton. the professor was a well-known authority on these matters. "of course there was a king heremon of ireland," answered the professor quite petulantly--as if the commander had wanted to know if there had ever been a julius caesar or a napoleon. "and so there was a queen harbundia. malvina is always spoken of in connection with her." "what did she do?" inquired commander raffleton. they both of them seemed to be oblivious of malvina's presence. "i forget for the moment," confessed the professor. "i must look it up. something, if i remember rightly, in connection with the daughter of king dancrat. he founded the norman dynasty. william the conqueror and all that lot. good lord!" "would you mind her staying with you for a time until i can make arrangements," suggested commander raffleton. "i'd be awfully obliged if you would." what the professor's answer might have been had he been allowed to exercise such stock of wits as he possessed, it is impossible to say. of course he was interested--excited, if you will. folklore, legend, tradition; these had been his lifelong hobbies. apart from anything else, here at least was a kindred spirit. seemed to know a thing or two. where had she learned it? might not there be sources unknown to the professor? but to take her in! to establish her in the only spare bedroom. to introduce her--as what? to english village society. to the new people at the manor house. to the member of parliament with his innocent young wife who had taken the vicarage for the summer. to dawson, r.a., and the calthorpes! he might, had he thought it worth his while, have found some respectable french family and boarded her out. there was a man he had known for years at oxford, a cabinetmaker; the wife a most worthy woman. he could have gone over there from time to time, his notebook in his pocket, and have interviewed her. left to himself, he might have behaved as a sane and rational citizen; or he might not. there are records favouring the latter possibility. the thing is not certain. but as regards this particular incident in his career he must be held exonerated. the decision was taken out of his hands. to malvina, on first landing in england, commander raffleton had stated his intention of leaving her temporarily in the care of the wise and learned christopher. to malvina, regarding the commander as a gift from the gods, that had settled the matter. the wise and learned christopher, of course, knew of this coming. in all probability it was he--under the guidance of the gods--who had arranged the whole sequence of events. there remained only to tender him her gratitude. she did not wait for the professor's reply. the coat a little hindered her but, on the other hand, added perhaps an appealing touch of its own. taking the wise and learned christopher's hand in both her own, she knelt and kissed it. and in that quaint archaic french of hers, that long study of the chronicles of froissart enabled the professor to understand: "i thank you," she said, "for your noble courtesy and hospitality." in some mysterious way the whole affair had suddenly become imbued with the dignity of an historical event. the professor had the sudden impression--and indeed it never altogether left him so long as malvina remained--that he was a great and powerful personage. a sister potentate; incidentally--though, of course, in high politics such points are immaterial--the most bewilderingly beautiful being he had ever seen; had graciously consented to become his guest. the professor, with a bow that might have been acquired at the court of king rene, expressed his sense of the honour done to him. what else could a self-respecting potentate do? the incident was closed. flight commander raffleton seems to have done nothing in the direction of re-opening it. on the contrary, he appears to have used this precise moment for explaining to the professor how absolutely necessary it was that he should depart for farnborough without another moment's loss of time. commander raffleton added that he would "look them both up again" the first afternoon he could get away; and was sure that if the professor would get malvina to speak slowly, he would soon find her french easy to understand. it did occur to the professor to ask commander raffleton where he had found malvina--that is, if he remembered. also what he was going to do about her--that is, if he happened to know. commander raffleton, regretting his great need of haste, explained that he had found malvina asleep beside a menhir not far from huelgoat, in brittany, and was afraid that he had woke her up. for further particulars, would the professor kindly apply to malvina? for himself, he would never, he felt sure, be able to thank the professor sufficiently. in conclusion, and without giving further opportunity for discussion, the commander seems to have shaken his cousin christopher by the hand with much enthusiasm; and then to have turned to malvina. she did not move, but her eyes were fixed on him. and he came to her slowly. and without a word he kissed her full upon the lips. "that is twice you have kissed me," said malvina--and a curious little smile played round her mouth. "the third time i shall become a woman." iv. how it was kept from mrs. arlington. what surprised the professor himself, when he came to think of it, was that, left alone with malvina, and in spite of all the circumstances, he felt neither embarrassment nor perplexity. it was as if, so far as they two were concerned, the whole thing was quite simple--almost humorous. it would be the other people who would have to worry. the little serving maid was hovering about the garden. she was evidently curious and trying to get a peep. mrs. muldoon's voice could be heard calling to her from the kitchen. there was this question of clothes. "you haven't brought anything with you?" asked the professor. "i mean, in the way of a frock of any sort." malvina, with a smile, gave a little gesture. it implied that all there was of her and hers stood before him. "we shall have to find you something," said the professor. "something in which you can go about--" the professor had intended to say "our world," but hesitated, not feeling positive at the moment to which he himself belonged; malvina's or mrs. muldoon's. so he made it "the" world instead. another gesture conveyed to him that malvina was entirely in his hands. "what really have you got on?" asked the professor. "i mean underneath. is it anything possible--for a day or two?" now commander raffleton, for some reason of his own not at all clear to malvina, had forbidden the taking off of the coat. but had said nothing about undoing it. so by way of response malvina undid it. upon which the professor, to malvina's surprise, acted precisely as commander raffleton had done. that is to say, he hastily re-closed the coat, returning the buttons to their buttonholes. the fear may have come to malvina that she was doomed never to be rid of commander raffleton's coat. "i wonder," mused the professor, "if anyone in the village--" the little serving maid flittering among the gooseberry bushes--she was pretending to be gathering goose-berries--caught the professor's eye. "we will consult my chatelaine, mrs. muldoon," suggested the professor. "i think we shall be able to manage." the professor tendered malvina his arm. with her other hand she gathered up the skirts of the commander's coat. "i think," said the professor with a sudden inspiration as they passed through the garden, "i think i shall explain to mrs. muldoon that you have just come straight from a fancy-dress ball." they found mrs. muldoon in the kitchen. a less convincing story than that by which the professor sought to account to mrs. muldoon for the how and the why of malvina it would be impossible to imagine. mrs. muldoon out of sheer kindness appears to have cut him short. "i'll not be asking ye any questions," said mrs. muldoon, "so there'll be no need for ye to imperil your immortal soul. if ye'll just give a thought to your own appearance and leave the colleen to me and drusilla, we'll make her maybe a bit dacent." the reference to his own appearance disconcerted the professor. he had not anticipated, when hastening into his dressing gown and slippers and not bothering about his socks, that he was on his way to meet the chief lady-in-waiting of queen harbundia. demanding that shaving water should be immediately sent up to him, he appears to have retired into the bathroom. it was while he was shaving that mrs. muldoon, knocking at the door, demanded to speak to him. from her tone the professor came to the conclusion that the house was on fire. he opened the door, and mrs. muldoon, seeing he was respectable, slipped in and closed it behind her. "where did ye find her? how did she get here?" demanded mrs. muldoon. never before had the professor seen mrs. muldoon other than a placid, good-humoured body. she was trembling from head to foot. "i told you," explained the professor. "young arthur--" "i'm not asking ye what ye told me," interrupted mrs. muldoon. "i'm asking ye for the truth, if ye know it." the professor put a chair for mrs. muldoon, and mrs. muldoon dropped down upon it. "what's the matter?" questioned the professor. "what's happened?" mrs. muldoon glanced round her, and her voice was an hysterical whisper. "it's no mortal woman ye've brought into the house," said mrs. muldoon. "it's a fairy." whether up to that moment the professor had really believed malvina's story, or whether lurking at the back of his mind there had all along been an innate conviction that the thing was absurd, the professor himself is now unable to say. to the front of the professor lay oxford--political economy, the higher criticism, the rise and progress of rationalism. behind him, fading away into the dim horizon of humanity, lay an unmapped land where for forty years he had loved to wander; a spirit-haunted land of buried mysteries, lost pathways, leading unto hidden gates of knowledge. and now upon the trembling balance descended mrs. muldoon plump. "how do you know?" demanded the professor. "shure, don't i know the mark?" replied mrs. muldoon almost contemptuously. "wasn't my own sister's child stolen away the very day of its birth and in its place--" the little serving maid tapped at the door. mademoiselle was "finished." what was to be done with her? "don't ask me," protested mrs. muldoon, still in a terrified whisper. "i couldn't do it. not if all the saints were to go down upon their knees and pray to me." common-sense argument would not have prevailed with mrs. muldoon. the professor felt that; added to which he had not any handy. he directed, through the door, that "mademoiselle" should be shown into the dining-room, and listened till drusilla's footsteps had died away. "have you ever heard of the white ladies?" whispered the professor to mrs. muldoon. there was not much in the fairy line, one takes it, that mrs. muldoon had not heard of and believed. was the professor sure? the professor gave mrs. muldoon his word of honour as a gentleman. the "white ladies," as mrs. muldoon was of course aware, belonged to the "good people." provided nobody offended her there was nothing to fear. "shure, it won't be meself that'll cross her," said mrs. muldoon. "she won't be staying very long," added the professor. "we will just be nice to her." "she's got a kind face," admitted mrs. muldoon, "and a pleasant way with her." the good body's spirits were perceptibly rising. the favour of a "white lady" might be worth cultivating. "we must make a friend of her," urged the professor, seizing his opportunity. "and mind," whispered the professor as he opened the door for mrs. muldoon to slip out, "not a word. she doesn't want it known." one is convinced that mrs. muldoon left the bathroom resolved that, so far as she could help it, no breath of suspicion that malvina was other than what in drusilla's holiday frock she would appear to be should escape into the village. it was quite a pleasant little frock of a summery character, with short sleeves and loose about the neck, and fitted malvina, in every sense, much better than the most elaborate confection would have done. the boots were not so successful. malvina solved the problem by leaving them behind her, together with the stockings, whenever she went out. that she knew this was wrong is proved by the fact that invariably she tried to hide them. they would be found in the most unlikely places; hidden behind books in the professor's study, crammed into empty tea canisters in mrs. muldoon's storeroom. mrs. muldoon was not to be persuaded even to abstract them. the canister with its contents would be placed in silence upon the professor's table. malvina on returning would be confronted by a pair of stern, unsympathetic boots. the corners of the fairy mouth would droop in lines suggestive of penitence and contrition. had the professor been firm she would have yielded. but from the black accusing boots the professor could not keep his eyes from wandering to the guilty white feet, and at once in his heart becoming "counsel for the defence." must get a pair of sandals next time he went to oxford. anyhow, something more dainty than those grim, uncompromising boots. besides, it was not often that malvina ventured beyond the orchard. at least not during the day time--perhaps one ought to say not during that part of the day time when the village was astir. for malvina appears to have been an early riser. somewhere about the middle of the night, as any christian body would have timed it, mrs. muldoon--waking and sleeping during this period in a state of high nervous tension--would hear the sound of a softly opened door; peeping from a raised corner of the blind, would catch a glimpse of fluttering garments that seemed to melt into the dawn; would hear coming fainter and fainter from the uplands an unknown song, mingling with the answering voices of the birds. it was on the uplands between dawn and sunrise that malvina made the acquaintance of the arlington twins. they ought, of course, to have been in bed--all three of them, for the matter of that. the excuse for the twins was their uncle george. he had been telling them all about the uffington spectre and wayland smith's cave, and had given them "puck" as a birthday present. they were always given their birthday presents between them, because otherwise they did not care for them. they had retired to their respective bedrooms at ten o'clock and taken it in turns to lie awake. at the first streak of dawn victoria, who had been watching by her window, woke victor, as arranged. victor was for giving it up and going to sleep again, but victoria reminding him of the "oath," they dressed themselves quite simply, and let themselves down by the ivy. they came across malvina close to the tail of the white horse. they knew she was a fairy the moment they saw her. but they were not frightened--at least not very much. it was victor who spoke first. taking off his hat and going down on one knee, he wished malvina good morning and hoped she was quite well. malvina, who seemed pleased to see them, made answer, and here it was that victoria took charge of the affair. the arlington twins until they were nine had shared a french nurse between them; and then victor, going to school, had gradually forgotten; while victoria, remaining at home, had continued her conversations with "madame." "oh!" said victoria. "then you must be a french fairy." now the professor had impressed upon malvina that for reasons needless to be explained--anyhow, he never had explained them--she was not to mention that she was a fairy. but he had not told her to deny it. indeed how could she? the most that could be expected from her was that she should maintain silence on the point. so in answer to victoria she explained that her name was malvina, and that she had flown across from brittany in company with "sir arthur," adding that she had often heard of england and had wished to see it. "how do you like it?" demanded victoria. malvina confessed herself charmed with it. nowhere had she ever met so many birds. malvina raised her hand and they all three stood in silence, listening. the sky was ablaze and the air seemed filled with their music. the twins were sure that there were millions of them. they must have come from miles and miles and miles, to sing to malvina. also the people. they were so good and kind and round. malvina for the present was staying with--accepting the protection, was how she put it, of the wise and learned christopher. the "habitation" could be seen from where they stood, its chimneys peeping from among the trees. the twins exchanged a meaning glance. had they not all along suspected the professor! his black skull cap, and his big hooked nose, and the yellow-leaved, worm-eaten books--of magic: all doubts were now removed--that for hours he would sit poring over through owlish gold-rimmed spectacles! victor's french was coming back to him. he was anxious to know if malvina had ever met sir launcelot--"to talk to." a little cloud gathered upon malvina's face. yes, she had known them all: king uthur and igraine and sir ulfias of the isles. talked with them, walked with them in the fair lands of france. (it ought to have been england, but malvina shook her head. maybe they had travelled.) it was she who had saved sir tristram from the wiles of morgan le fay. "though that, of course," explained malvina, "was never known." the twins were curious why it should have been "of course," but did not like to interrupt again. there were others before and after. most of them the twins had never heard of until they came to charlemagne, beyond which malvina's reminiscences appeared to fade. they had all of them been very courteous to her, and some of them indeed quite charming. but... one gathers they had never been to malvina more than mere acquaintances, such as one passes the time with while waiting--and longing. "but you liked sir launcelot," urged victor. he was wishful that malvina should admire sir launcelot, feeling how much there was in common between that early lamented knight and himself. that little affair with sir bedivere. it was just how he would have behaved himself. ah! yes, admitted malvina. she had "liked" him. he was always so--so "excellent." "but he was not--none of them were my own people, my own dear companions." the little cloud had settled down again. it was bruno who recalled the three of them to the period of contemporary history. polley the cowman's first duty in the morning was to let bruno loose for a run. he arrived panting and breathless, and evidently offended at not having been included in the escapade. he could have given them both away quite easily if he had not been the most forgiving of black-and-tan collies. as it was, he had been worrying himself crazy for the last half-hour, feeling sure they had forgotten the time. "don't you know it's nearly six o'clock? that in less than half an hour jane will be knocking at your doors with glasses of hot milk, and will probably drop them and scream when she finds your beds empty and the window wide open." that is what he had intended should be his first words, but on scenting malvina they went from him entirely. he gave her one look and flopped down flat, wriggling towards her, whining and wagging his tail at the same time. malvina acknowledged his homage by laughing and patting his head with her foot, and that sent him into the seventh heaven of delight. they all four descended the hill together and parted at the orchard gate. the twins expressed a polite but quite sincere hope that they would have the pleasure of seeing malvina again; but malvina, seized maybe with sudden doubts as to whether she had behaved with discretion, appears to have replied evasively. ten minutes later she was lying asleep, the golden head pillowed on the round white arm; as mrs. muldoon on her way down to the kitchen saw for herself. and the twins, fortunate enough to find a side door open, slipped into the house unnoticed and scrambled back into their beds. it was quarter past nine when mrs. arlington came in herself and woke them up. she was short-tempered with them both and had evidently been crying. they had their breakfast in the kitchen. during lunch hardly a word was spoken. and there was no pudding. mr. arlington, a stout, florid gentleman, had no time for pudding. the rest might sit and enjoy it at their leisure, but not so mr. arlington. somebody had to see to things--that is, if they were not to be allowed to go to rack and ruin. if other people could not be relied upon to do their duty, so that everything inside the house and out of it was thrown upon one pair of shoulders, then it followed as a natural consequence that that pair of shoulders could not spare the necessary time to properly finish its meals. this it was that was at the root of the decay of english farming. when farmers' wives, to say nothing of sons and daughters old enough one might imagine to be anxious to do something in repayment for the money and care lavished upon them, had all put their shoulders to the wheel, then english farming had prospered. when, on the other hand, other people shirked their fair share of labour and responsibility, leaving to one pair of hands... it was the eldest arlington girl's quite audible remark that pa could have eaten two helpings of pudding while he had been talking, that caused mr. arlington to lose the thread of his discourse. to put it quite bluntly, what mr. arlington meant to say was this: he had never wanted to be a farmer--at least not in the beginning. other men in his position, having acquired competency by years of self-sacrificing labour, would have retired to a well-earned leisure. having yielded to persuasion and taken on the job, he was going to see it through; and everybody else was going to do their share or there would be trouble. mr. arlington, swallowing the remains of his glass in a single gulp, spoilt a dignified exit by violently hiccoughing, and mrs. arlington rang the bell furiously for the parlourmaid to clear away. the pudding passed untouched from before the very eyes of the twins. it was a black-currant pudding with brown sugar. that night mrs. arlington appears to have confided in the twins, partly for her own relief and partly for their moral benefit. if mrs. arlington had enjoyed the blessing in disguise of a less indulgent mother, all might have been well. by nature mrs. arlington had been endowed with an active and energetic temperament. "miss can't-sit-still-a-minute," her nurse had always called her. unfortunately it had been allowed to sink into disuse; was now in all probability beyond hope of recovery. their father was quite right. when they had lived in bayswater and the business was in mincing lane it did not matter. now it was different. a farmer's wife ought to be up at six; she ought to see that everybody else was up at six; servants looked after, kept up to the mark; children encouraged by their mother's example. organisation. that was what was wanted. the day mapped out; to every hour its appointed task. then, instead of the morning being gone before you could turn yourself round, and confusion made worse confounded by your leaving off what you were doing and trying to do six things at once that you couldn't remember whether you had done or whether you hadn't... here mrs. arlington appears to have dissolved into tears. generally speaking, she was a placid, smiling, most amiable lady, quite delightful to have about the house provided all you demanded of her were pleasant looks and a sunny disposition. the twins appear to have joined their tears to hers. tucked in and left to themselves, one imagines the problem being discussed with grave seriousness, much whispered conversation, then slept upon, the morning bringing with it ideas. the result being that the next evening, between high tea and supper, mrs. muldoon, answering herself the knock at the door, found twin figures standing hand in hand on the professor's step. they asked her if "the fairy" was in. v. how it was told to mrs. marigold. there was no need of the proverbial feather. mrs. muldoon made a grab at the settle but missed it. she caught at a chair, but that gave way. it was the floor that finally stopped her. "we're so sorry," apologised victor. "we thought you knew. we ought to have said mademoiselle malvina." mrs. muldoon regained her feet, and without answering walked straight into the study. "they want to know," said mrs. muldoon, "if the fairy's in." the professor, with his back to the window, was reading. the light in the room was somewhat faint. "who wants to know?" demanded the professor. "the twins from the manor house," explained mrs. muldoon. "but what?--but who?" began the professor. "shall i say 'not at home'?" suggested mrs. muldoon. "or hadn't you better see them yourself." "show them in," directed the professor. they came in, looking a little scared and still holding one another by the hand. they wished the professor good evening, and when he rose they backed away from him. the professor shook hands with them, but they did not let go, so that victoria gave him her right hand and victor his left, and then at the professor's invitation they sat themselves down on the extreme edge of the sofa. "i hope we do not disturb you," said victor. "we wanted to see mademoiselle malvina." "why do you want to see mademoiselle malvina?" inquired the professor. "it is something very private," said victor. "we wanted to ask her a great favour," said victoria. "i'm sorry," said the professor, "but she isn't in. at least, i don't think so." (the professor never was quite sure. "she slips in and out making no more noise than a wind-driven rose leaf," was mrs. muldoon's explanation.) "hadn't you better tell me? leave me to put it to her." they looked at one another. it would never do to offend the wise and learned christopher. besides, a magician, it is to be assumed, has more ways than one of learning what people are thinking. "it is about mamma," explained victoria. "we wondered if malvina would mind changing her." the professor had been reading up malvina. it flashed across him that this had always been her speciality: changing people. how had the arlington twins discovered it? and why did they want their mother changed? and what did they want her changed into? it was shocking when you come to think of it! the professor became suddenly so stern, that if the twins could have seen his expression--which, owing to the fading light, they couldn't--they would have been too frightened to answer. "why do you want your mother changed?" demanded the professor. even as it was his voice alarmed them. "it's for her own good," faltered victoria. "of course we don't mean into anything," explained victor. "only her inside," added victoria. "we thought that malvina might be able to improve her," completed victor. it was still very disgraceful. what were we coming to when children went about clamouring for their mothers to be "improved"! the atmosphere was charged with indignation. the twins felt it. "she wants to be," persisted victoria. "she wants to be energetic and to get up early in the morning and do things." "you see," added victor, "she was never properly brought up." the professor maintains stoutly that his only intention was a joke. it was not even as if anything objectionable had been suggested. the professor himself had on occasions been made the confidant of both. "best woman that ever lived, if only one could graft a little energy upon her. no sense of time. too easy-going. no idea of keeping people up to the mark." so mr. arlington, over the nuts and wine. "it's pure laziness. oh, yes, it is. my friends say i'm so 'restful'; but that's the proper explanation of it--born laziness. and yet i try. you have no idea, professor littlecherry, how much i try." so mrs. arlington, laughingly, while admiring the professor's roses. besides, how absurd to believe that malvina could possibly change anybody! way back, when the human brain was yet in process of evolution, such things may have been possible. hypnotic suggestion, mesmeric influence, dormant brain cells quickened into activity by magnetic vibration. all that had been lost. these were the days of george the fifth, not of king heremon. what the professor was really after was: how would malvina receive the proposal? of course she would try to get out of it. a dear little thing. but could any sane man, professor of mathematics... malvina was standing beside him. no one had remarked her entrance. the eyes of the twins had been glued upon the wise and learned christopher. the professor, when he was thinking, never saw anything. still, it was rather startling. "we should never change what the good god has once fashioned," said malvina. she spoke very gravely. the childishness seemed to have fallen from her. "you didn't always think so," said the professor. it nettled the professor that all idea of this being a good joke had departed with the sound of malvina's voice. she had that way with her. she made a little gesture. it conveyed to the professor that his remark had not been altogether in good taste. "i speak as one who has learned," said malvina. "i beg your pardon," said the professor. "i ought not to have said that." malvina accepted the professor's apology with a bow. "but this is something very different," continued the professor. quite another interest had taken hold of the professor. it was easy enough to summon dame commonsense to one's aid when malvina was not present. before those strange eyes the good lady had a habit of sneaking away. suppose--of course the idea was ridiculous, but suppose--something did happen! as a psychological experiment was not one justified? what was the beginning of all science but applied curiosity? malvina might be able--and willing--to explain how it was done. that is, if anything did happen, which, of course, it wouldn't, and so much the better. this thing had got to be ended. "it would be using a gift not for one's own purposes, but to help others," urged the professor. "you see," urged victor, "mamma really wants to be changed." "and papa wants it too," urged victoria. "it seems to me, if i may so express it," added the professor, "that really it would be in the nature of making amends for--well, for--for our youthful follies," concluded the professor a little nervously. malvina's eyes were fixed on the professor. in the dim light of the low-ceilinged room, those eyes seemed all of her that was visible. "you wish it?" said malvina. it was not at all fair, as the professor told himself afterwards, her laying the responsibility on him. if she really was the original malvina, lady-in-waiting to queen harbundia, then she was quite old enough to have decided for herself. from the professor's calculations she must now be about three thousand eight hundred. the professor himself was not yet sixty; in comparison a mere babe! but malvina's eyes were compelling. "well, it can't do any harm," said the professor. and malvina seems to have accepted that as her authority. "let her come to the cross stones at sundown," directed malvina. the professor saw the twins to the door. for some reason the professor could not have explained, they all three walked out on tiptoe. old mr. brent, the postman, was passing, and the twins ran after him and each took a hand. malvina was still standing where the professor had left her. it was very absurd, but the professor felt frightened. he went into the kitchen, where it was light and cheerful, and started mrs. muldoon on home rule. when he returned to the parlour malvina was gone. the twins did not talk that night, and decided next morning not to say a word, but just to ask their mother to come for an evening walk with them. the fear was that she might demand reasons. but, quite oddly, she consented without question. it seemed to the twins that it was mrs. arlington herself who took the pathway leading past the cave, and when they reached the cross stones she sat down and apparently had forgotten their existence. they stole away without her noticing them, but did not quite know what to do with themselves. they ran for half a mile till they came to the wood; there they remained awhile, careful not to venture within; and then they crept back. they found their mother sitting just as they had left her. they thought she was asleep, but her eyes were wide open. they were tremendously relieved, though what they had feared they never knew. they sat down, one on each side of her, and each took a hand, but in spite of her eyes being open, it was quite a time before she seemed conscious of their return. she rose and slowly looked about her, and as she did so the church clock struck nine. she could not at first believe it was so late. convinced by looking at her watch--there was just light enough for her to see it--she became all at once more angry than the twins had ever known her, and for the first time in their lives they both experienced the sensation of having their ears boxed. nine o'clock was the proper time for supper and they were half an hour from home, and it was all their fault. it did not take them half an hour. it took them twenty minutes, mrs. arlington striding ahead and the twins panting breathless behind her. mr. arlington had not yet returned. he came in five minutes afterwards, and mrs. arlington told him what she thought of him. it was the shortest supper within the twins' recollection. they found themselves in bed ten minutes in advance of the record. they could hear their mother's voice from the kitchen. a jug of milk had been overlooked and had gone sour. she had given jane a week's notice before the clock struck ten. it was from mr. arlington that the professor heard the news. mr. arlington could not stop an instant, dinner being at twelve sharp and it wanting but ten minutes to; but seems to have yielded to temptation. the breakfast hour at the manor farm was now six a.m., had been so since thursday; the whole family fully dressed and mrs. arlington presiding. if the professor did not believe it he could come round any morning and see for himself. the professor appears to have taken mr. arlington's word for it. by six-thirty everybody at their job and mrs. arlington at hers, consisting chiefly of seeing to it for the rest of the day that everybody was. lights out at ten and everybody in bed; most of them only too glad to be there. "quite right; keeps us all up to the mark," was mr. arlington's opinion (this was on saturday). just what was wanted. not perhaps for a permanency; and, of course, there were drawbacks. the strenuous life--seeing to it that everybody else leads the strenuous life; it does not go with unmixed amiability. particularly in the beginning. new-born zeal: must expect it to outrun discretion. does not do to discourage it. modifications to be suggested later. taken all round, mr. arlington's view was that the thing must be regarded almost as the answer to a prayer. mr. arlington's eyes on their way to higher levels, appear to have been arrested by the church clock. it decided mr. arlington to resume his homeward way without further loss of time. at the bend of the lane the professor, looking back, observed that mr. arlington had broken into a trot. this seems to have been the end of the professor, regarded as a sane and intelligent member of modern society. he had not been sure at the time, but it was now revealed to him that when he had urged malvina to test her strength, so to express it, on the unfortunate mrs. arlington, it was with the conviction that the result would restore him to his mental equilibrium. that malvina with a wave of her wand--or whatever the hocus-pocus may have been--would be able to transform the hitherto incorrigibly indolent and easy-going mrs. arlington into a sort of feminine lloyd george, had not really entered into his calculations. forgetting his lunch, he must have wandered aimlessly about, not returning home until late in the afternoon. during dinner he appears to have been rather restless and nervous--"jumpy," according to the evidence of the little serving maid. once he sprang out of his chair as if shot when the little serving maid accidentally let fall a table-spoon; and twice he upset the salt. it was at mealtime that, as a rule, the professor found his attitude towards malvina most sceptical. a fairy who could put away quite a respectable cut from the joint, followed by two helpings of pie, does take a bit of believing in. to-night the professor found no difficulty. the white ladies had never been averse to accepting mortal hospitality. there must always have been a certain adaptability. malvina, since that fateful night of her banishment, had, one supposes, passed through varied experiences. for present purposes she had assumed the form of a jeune fille of the twentieth century (anno domini). an appreciation of mrs. muldoon's excellent cooking, together with a glass of light sound claret, would naturally go with it. one takes it that he could not for a moment get mrs. arlington out of his mind. more than once, stealing a covert glance across the table, it seemed to him that malvina was regarding him with a mocking smile. some impish spirit it must have been that had prompted him. for thousands of years malvina had led--at all events so far as was known--a reformed and blameless existence; had subdued and put behind her that fatal passion of hers for change: in other people. what madness to have revived it! and no queen harbundia handy now to keep her in check. the professor had a distinct sensation, while peeling a pear, that he was being turned into a guinea-pig--a curious feeling of shrinking about the legs. so vivid was the impression, that involuntarily the professor jumped off his chair and ran to look at himself in the mirror over the sideboard. he was not fully relieved even then. it may have been the mirror. it was very old; one of those things with little gilt balls all round it; and it looked to the professor as if his nose was growing straight out of his face. malvina, trusting he had not been taken suddenly ill, asked if there was anything she could do for him. he seems to have earnestly begged her not to think of it. the professor had taught malvina cribbage, and usually of an evening they played a hand or two. but to-night the professor was not in the mood, and malvina had contented herself with a book. she was particularly fond of the old chroniclers. the professor had an entire shelf of them, many in the original french. making believe to be reading himself, he heard malvina break into a cheerful laugh, and went and looked over her shoulder. she was reading the history of her own encounter with the proprietor of tin mines, an elderly gentleman disliking late hours, whom she had turned into a nightingale. it occurred to the professor that prior to the arlington case the recalling of this incident would have brought to her shame and remorse. now she seemed to think it funny. "a silly trick," commented the professor. he spoke quite heatedly. "no one has any right to go about changing people. muddling up things they don't understand. no right whatever." malvina looked up. she gave a little sigh. "not for one's own pleasure or revenge," she made answer. her tone was filled with meekness. it had a touch of self-reproach. "that is very wrong, of course. but changing them for their own good--at least, not changing, improving." "little hypocrite!" muttered the professor to himself. "she's got back a taste for her old tricks, and lord knows now where she'll stop." the professor spent the rest of the evening among his indexes in search of the latest information regarding queen harbundia. meanwhile the arlington affair had got about the village. the twins in all probability had been unable to keep their secret. jane, the dismissed, had looked in to give mrs. muldoon her version of thursday night's scene in the arlington kitchen, and mrs. muldoon, with a sense of things impending, may unconsciously have dropped hints. the marigolds met the arlingtons on sunday, after morning service, and heard all about it. that is to say, they met mr. arlington and the other children; mrs. arlington, with the two elder girls, having already attended early communion at seven. mrs. marigold was a pretty, fluffy, engaging little woman, ten years younger than her husband. she could not have been altogether a fool, or she would not have known it. marigold, rising politician, ought, of course, to have married a woman able to help him; but seems to have fallen in love with her a few miles out of brussels, over a convent wall. mr. arlington was not a regular church-goer, but felt on this occasion that he owed it to his maker. he was still in love with his new wife. but not blindly. later on a guiding hand might be necessary. but first let the new seed get firmly rooted. marigold's engagements necessitated his returning to town on sunday afternoon, and mrs. marigold walked part of the way with him to the station. on her way back across the fields she picked up the arlington twins. later, she seems to have called in at the cottage and spoken to mrs. muldoon about jane, who, she had heard, was in want of a place. a little before sunset she was seen by the doctor climbing the path to the warren. malvina that evening was missing for dinner. when she returned she seemed pleased with herself. vi. and how it was finished too soon. some days later--it may have been the next week; the exact date appears to have got mislaid--marigold, m.p., looked in on the professor. they talked about tariff reform, and then marigold got up and made sure for himself that the door was tight closed. "you know my wife," he said. "we've been married six years, and there's never been a cloud between us except one. of course, she's not brainy. that is, at least..." the professor jumped out of his chair. "if you take my advice," he said, "you'll leave her alone." he spoke with passion and conviction. marigold looked up. "it's just what i wish to goodness i had done," he answered. "i blame myself entirely." "so long as we see our own mistakes," said the professor, "there is hope for us all. you go straight home, young man, and tell her you've changed your mind. tell her you don't want her with brains. tell her you like her best without. you get that into her head before anything else happens." "i've tried to," said marigold. "she says it's too late. that the light has come to her and she can't help it." it was the professor's turn to stare. he had not heard anything of sunday's transactions. he had been hoping against hope that the arlington affair would remain a locked secret between himself and the twins, and had done his best to think about everything else. "she's joined the fabian society," continued marigold gloomily. "they've put her in the nursery. and the w.s.p.u. if it gets about before the next election i'll have to look out for another constituency--that's all." "how did you hear about her?" asked the professor. "i didn't hear about her," answered marigold. "if i had i mightn't have gone up to town. you think it right," he added, "to--to encourage such people?" "who's encouraging her?" demanded the professor. "if fools didn't go about thinking they could improve every other fool but themselves, this sort of thing wouldn't happen. arlington had an amiable, sweet-tempered wife, and instead of thanking god and keeping quiet about it, he worries her out of her life because she is not the managing woman. well, now he's got the managing woman. i met him on wednesday with a bump on his forehead as big as an egg. says he fell over the mat. it can't be done. you can't have a person changed just as far as you want them changed and there stop. you let 'em alone or you change them altogether, and then they don't know themselves what they're going to turn out. a sensible man in your position would have been only too thankful for a wife who didn't poke her nose into his affairs, and with whom he could get away from his confounded politics. you've been hinting to her about once a month, i expect, what a tragedy it was that you hadn't married a woman with brains. well, now she's found her brains and is using them. why shouldn't she belong to the fabian society and the w.s.p.u? shows independence of character. best thing for you to do is to join them yourself. then you'll be able to work together." "i'm sorry," said marigold rising. "i didn't know you agreed with her." "who said i agreed with her?" snapped the professor. "i'm in a very awkward position." "i suppose," said marigold--he was hesitating with the door in his hand--"it wouldn't be of any use my seeing her myself?" "i believe," said the professor, "that she is fond of the neighbourhood of the cross stones towards sundown. you can choose for yourself, but if i were you i should think twice about it." "i was wondering," said marigold, "whether, if i put it to her as a personal favour, she might not be willing to see edith again and persuade her that she was only joking?" a light began to break upon the professor. "what do you think has happened?" he asked. "well," explained marigold, "i take it that your young foreign friend has met my wife and talked politics to her, and that what has happened is the result. she must be a young person of extraordinary ability; but it would be only losing one convert, and i could make it up to her in--in other ways." he spoke with unconscious pathos. it rather touched the professor. "it might mean," said the professor--"that is, assuming that it can be done at all--mrs. marigold's returning to her former self entirely, taking no further interest in politics whatever." "i should be so very grateful," answered marigold. the professor had mislaid his spectacles, but thinks there was a tear in marigold's eye. "i'll do what i can," said the professor. "of course, you mustn't count on it. it may be easier to start a woman thinking than to stop her, even for a--" the professor checked himself just in time. "i'll talk to her," he said; and marigold gripped his hand and departed. it was about time he did. the full extent of malvina's activities during those few midsummer weeks, till the return of flight commander raffleton, will never perhaps be fully revealed. according to the doctor, the whole business has been grossly exaggerated. there are those who talk as if half the village had been taken to pieces, altered and improved and sent back home again in a mental state unrecognisable by their own mothers. certain it is that dawson, r.a., generally described by everybody except his wife as "a lovable little man," and whose only fault was an incurable habit of punning, both in season--if such a period there be--and more often out, suddenly one morning smashed a dutch interior, fifteen inches by nine, over the astonished head of mrs. dawson. it clung round her neck, recalling biblical pictures of the head of john the baptist, and the frame-work had to be sawn through before she could get it off. as to the story about his having been caught by mrs. dawson's aunt kissing the housemaid behind the waterbutt, that, as the doctor admits, is a bit of bad luck that might have happened to anyone. but whether there was really any evidence connecting him with dolly calthorpe's unaccountable missing of the last train home, is of course, a more serious matter. mrs. dawson, a handsome, high-spirited woman herself, may have found dawson, as originally fashioned, trying to the nerves; though even then the question arises: why have married him? but there is a difference, as mrs. dawson has pointed out, between a husband who hasn't enough of the natural man in him and a husband who has a deal too much. it is difficult to regulate these matters. altogether, and taking an outside estimate, the doctor's opinion is that there may have been half a dozen, who, with malvina's assistance, succeeded in hypnotising themselves into temporary insanity. when malvina, a little disappointed, but yielding quite sweetly her own judgment to that of the wise and learned christopher, consented to "restore" them, the explanation was that, having spent their burst of ill-acquired energy, they fell back at the first suggestion to their former selves. mrs. arlington does not agree with the doctor. she had been trying to reform herself for quite a long time and had miserably failed. there was something about them--it might almost be described as an aroma--that prompted her that evening to take the twins into her confidence; a sort of intuition that in some way they could help her. it remained with her all the next day; and when the twins returned in the evening, in company with the postman, she knew instinctively that they had been about her business. it was this same intuitive desire that drew her to the downs. she is confident she would have taken that walk to the cross stones even if the twins had not proposed it. indeed, according to her own account, she was not aware that the twins had accompanied her. there was something about the stones; a sense as of a presence. she knew when she reached them that she had arrived at the appointed place; and when there appeared to her--coming from where she could not tell--a diminutive figure that seemed in some mysterious way as if it were clothed merely in the fading light, she remembered distinctly that she was neither surprised nor alarmed. the diminutive lady sat down beside her and took mrs. arlington's hands in both her own. she spoke in a strange language, but mrs. arlington at the time understood it, though now the meaning of it had passed from her. mrs. arlington felt as if her body were being taken away from her. she had a sense of falling, a feeling that she must make some desperate effort to rise again. the strange little lady was helping her, assisting her to make this supreme effort. it was as if ages were passing. she was wrestling with unknown powers. suddenly she seemed to slip from them. the little lady was holding her up. clasping each other, they rose and rose and rose. mrs. arlington had a firm conviction that she must always be struggling upward, or they would overtake her and drag her down again. when she awoke the little lady had gone, but that feeling remained with her; that passionate acceptance of ceaseless struggle, activity, contention, as now the end and aim of her existence. at first she did not recollect where she was. a strange colourless light was around her, and a strange singing as of myriads of birds. and then the clock struck nine and life came back to her with a rush. but with it still that conviction that she must seize hold of herself and everybody else and get things done. its immediate expression, as already has been mentioned, was experienced by the twins. when, after a talk with the professor, aided and abetted by mr. arlington and the eldest arlington girl, she consented to pay that second visit to the stones, it was with very different sensations that she climbed the grass-grown path. the little lady had met her as before, but the curious deep eyes looked sadly, and mrs. arlington had the impression, generally speaking, that she was about to assist at her own funeral. again the little lady took her by the hands, and again she experienced that terror of falling. but instead of ending with contest and effort she seemed to pass into a sleep, and when she opened her eyes she was again alone. feeling a little chilly and unreasonably tired, she walked slowly home, and not being hungry, retired supperless to bed. quite unable to explain why, she seems to have cried herself to sleep. one supposes that something of a similar nature may have occurred to the others--with the exception of mrs. marigold. it was the case of mrs. marigold that, as the doctor grudgingly admits, went far to weaken his hypothesis. mrs. marigold, having emerged, was spreading herself, much to her own satisfaction. she had discarded her wedding ring as a relic of barbarism--of the days when women were mere goods and chattels, and had made her first speech at a meeting in favour of marriage reform. subterfuge, in her case, had to be resorted to. malvina had tearfully consented, and marigold, m.p., was to bring mrs. marigold to the cross stones that same evening and there leave her, explaining to her that malvina had expressed a wish to see her again--"just for a chat." all might have ended well if only commander raffleton had not appeared framed in the parlour door just as malvina was starting. his cousin christopher had written to the commander. indeed, after the arlington affair, quite pressingly, and once or twice had thought he heard the sound of flight commander raffleton's propeller, but on each occasion had been disappointed. "affairs of state," cousin christopher had explained to malvina, who, familiar one takes it with the calls upon knights and warriors through all the ages, had approved. he stood there with his helmet in his hand. "only arrived this afternoon from france," he explained. "haven't a moment to spare." but he had just time to go straight to malvina. he laughed as he took her in his arms and kissed her full upon the lips. when last he had kissed her--it had been in the orchard; the professor had been witness to it--malvina had remained quite passive, only that curious little smile about her lips. but now an odd thing happened. a quivering seemed to pass through all her body, so that it swayed and trembled. the professor feared she was going to fall; and, maybe to save herself, she put up her arms about commander raffleton's neck, and with a strange low cry--it sounded to the professor like the cry one sometimes hears at night from some little dying creature of the woods--she clung to him sobbing. it must have been a while later when the chiming of the clock recalled to the professor the appointment with mrs. marigold. "you will only just have time," he said, gently seeking to release her. "i'll promise to keep him till you come back." and as malvina did not seem to understand, he reminded her. but still she made no movement, save for a little gesture of the hands as if she were seeking to lay hold of something unseen. and then she dropped her arms and looked from one of them to the other. the professor did not think of it at the time, but remembered afterwards; that strange aloofness of hers, as if she were looking at you from another world. one no longer felt it. "i am so sorry," she said. "it is too late. i am only a woman." and mrs. marigold is still thinking. the prologue. and here follows the prologue. it ought, of course, to have been written first, but nobody knew of it until quite the end entirely. it was told to commander raffleton by a french comrade, who in days of peace had been a painter, mingling with others of his kind, especially such as found their inspiration in the wide horizons and legend-haunted dells of old-world brittany. afterwards the commander told it to the professor, and the professor's only stipulation was that it should not be told to the doctor, at least for a time. for the doctor would see in it only confirmation for his own narrow sense-bound theories, while to the professor it confirmed beyond a doubt the absolute truth of this story. it commenced in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-eight (anno domini), on a particularly unpleasant evening in late february--"a stormy winter's night," one would describe it, were one writing mere romance. it came to the lonely cottage of madame lavigne on the edge of the moor that surrounds the sunken village of aven-a-christ. madame lavigne, who was knitting stockings--for she lived by knitting stockings--heard, as she thought, a passing of feet, and what seemed like a tap at the door. she dismissed the idea, for who would be passing at such an hour, and where there was no road? but a few minutes later the tapping came again, and madame lavigne, taking her candle in her hand, went to see who was there. the instant she released the latch a gust of wind blew out the candle, and madame lavigne could see no one. she called, but there was no answer. she was about to close the door again when she heard a faint sound. it was not exactly a cry. it was as if someone she could not see, in the tiniest of voices, had said something she could not understand. madame lavigne crossed herself and muttered a prayer, and then she heard it again. it seemed to come from close at her feet, and feeling with her hands--for she thought it might be a stray cat--she found quite a large parcel, it was warm and soft, though, of course, a bit wet, and madame lavigne brought it in, and having closed the door and re-lit her candle, laid it on the table. and then she saw it was the tiniest of babies. it must always be a difficult situation. madame lavigne did what most people would have done in the case. she unrolled the wrappings, and taking the little thing on her lap, sat down in front of the dull peat fire and considered. it seemed wonderfully contented, and madame lavigne thought the best thing to do would be to undress it and put it to bed, and then go on with her knitting. she would consult father jean in the morning and take his advice. she had never seen such fine clothes. she took them off one by one, lovingly feeling their texture, and when she finally removed the last little shift and the little white thing lay exposed, madame lavigne sprang up with a cry and all but dropped it into the fire. for she saw by the mark that every breton peasant knows that it was not a child but a fairy. her proper course, as she well knew, was to have opened the door and flung it out into the darkness. most women of the village would have done so, and spent the rest of the night on their knees. but someone must have chosen with foresight. there came to madame lavigne the memory of her good man and her three tall sons, taken from her one by one by the jealous sea, and, come what might of it, she could not do it. the little thing understood, that was clear, for it smiled quite knowingly and stretched out its little hands, touching madame lavigne's brown withered skin, and stirring forgotten beatings of her heart. father jean--one takes him to have been a tolerant, gently wise old gentleman--could see no harm. that is, if madame lavigne could afford the luxury. maybe it was a good fairy. would bring her luck. and certain it is that the cackling of madame's hens was heard more often than before, and the weeds seemed fewer in the little patch of garden that madame lavigne had rescued from the moor. of course, the news spread. one gathers that madame lavigne rather gave herself airs. but the neighbours shook their heads, and the child grew up lonely and avoided. fortunately, the cottage was far from other houses, and there was always the great moor with its deep hiding-places. father jean was her sole playmate. he would take her with him on his long tramps through his scattered district, leaving her screened among the furze and bracken near to the solitary farmsteads where he made his visitations. he had learnt it was useless: all attempt of mother church to scold out of this sea and moor-girt flock their pagan superstitions. he would leave it to time. later, perhaps opportunity might occur to place the child in some convent, where she would learn to forget, and grow into a good catholic. meanwhile, one had to take pity on the little lonely creature. not entirely for her own sake maybe; a dear affectionate little soul strangely wise; so she seemed to father jean. under the shade of trees or sharing warm shelter with the soft-eyed cows, he would teach her from his small stock of knowledge. every now and then she would startle him with an intuition, a comment strangely unchildlike. it was as if she had known all about it, long ago. father jean would steal a swift glance at her from under his shaggy eyebrows and fall into a silence. it was curious also how the wild things of the field and wood seemed unafraid of her. at times, returning to where he had left her hidden, he would pause, wondering to whom she was talking, and then as he drew nearer would hear the stealing away of little feet, the startled flutter of wings. she had elfish ways, of which it seemed impossible to cure her. often the good man, returning from some late visit of mercy with his lantern and his stout oak cudgel, would pause and listen to a wandering voice. it was never near enough for him to hear the words, and the voice was strange to him, though he knew it could be no one else. madame lavigne would shrug her shoulders. how could she help it? it was not for her to cross the "child," even supposing bolts and bars likely to be of any use. father jean gave it up in despair. neither was it for him either to be too often forbidding and lecturing. maybe the cunning tender ways had wove their web about the childless old gentleman's heart, making him also somewhat afraid. perhaps other distractions! for madame lavigne would never allow her to do anything but the lightest of work. he would teach her to read. so quickly she learnt that it seemed to father jean she must be making believe not to have known it already. but he had his reward in watching the joy with which she would devour, for preference, the quaint printed volumes of romance and history that he would bring home to her from his rare journeyings to the distant town. it was when she was about thirteen that the ladies and gentlemen came from paris. of course they were not real ladies and gentlemen. only a little company of artists seeking new fields. they had "done" the coast and the timbered houses of the narrow streets, and one of them had suggested exploring the solitary, unknown inlands. they came across her seated on an old grey stone reading from an ancient-looking book, and she had risen and curtsied to them. she was never afraid. it was she who excited fear. often she would look after the children flying from her, feeling a little sad. but, of course, it could not be helped. she was a fairy. she would have done them no harm, but this they could not be expected to understand. it was a delightful change; meeting human beings who neither screamed nor hastily recited their paternosters, but who, instead, returned one's smile. they asked her where she lived, and she showed them. they were staying at aven-a-christ; and one of the ladies was brave enough even to kiss her. laughing and talking they all walked down the hill together. they found madame lavigne working in her garden. madame lavigne washed her hands of all responsibility. it was for suzanne to decide. it seemed they wanted to make a picture of her, sitting on the grey stone where they had found her. it was surely only kind to let them; so next morning she was there again waiting for them. they gave her a five-franc piece. madame lavigne was doubtful of handling it, but father jean vouched for it as being good republican money; and as the days went by madame lavigne's black stocking grew heavier and heavier as she hung it again each night in the chimney. it was the lady who had first kissed her that discovered who she was. they had all of them felt sure from the beginning that she was a fairy, and that "suzanne" could not be her real name. they found it in the "heptameron of friar bonnet. in which is recorded the numerous adventures of the valiant and puissant king ryence of bretagne," which one of them had picked up on the quai aux fleurs and brought with him. it told all about the white ladies, and therein she was described. there could be no mistaking her; the fair body that was like to a willow swayed by the wind. the white feet that could pass, leaving the dew unshaken from the grass. the eyes blue and deep as mountain lakes. the golden locks of which the sun was jealous. it was all quite clear. she was malvina, once favourite to harbundia, queen of the white ladies of brittany. for reasons--further allusion to which politeness forbade--she had been a wanderer, no one knowing what had become of her. and now the whim had taken her to reappear as a little breton peasant girl, near to the scene of her past glories. they knelt before her, offering her homage, and all the ladies kissed her. the gentlemen of the party thought their turn would follow. but it never did. it was not their own shyness that stood in their way: one must do them that justice. it was as if some youthful queen, exiled and unknown amongst strangers, had been suddenly recognised by a little band of her faithful subjects, passing by chance that way. so that, instead of frolic and laughter, as had been intended, they remained standing with bared heads; and no one liked to be the first to speak. she put them at their ease--or tried to--with a gracious gesture. but enjoined upon them all her wish for secrecy. and so dismissed they seem to have returned to the village a marvellously sober little party, experiencing all the sensations of honest folk admitted to their first glimpse of high society. they came again next year--at least a few of them--bringing with them a dress more worthy of malvina's wearing. it was as near as paris could achieve to the true and original costume as described by the good friar bonnet, the which had been woven in a single night by the wizard spider karai out of moonlight. malvina accepted it with gracious thanks, and was evidently pleased to find herself again in fit and proper clothes. it was hidden away for rare occasions where only malvina knew. but the lady who had first kissed her, and whose speciality was fairies, craving permission, malvina consented to wear it while sitting for her portrait. the picture one may still see in the palais des beaux arts at nantes (the bretonne room). it represents her standing straight as an arrow, a lone little figure in the centre of a treeless moor. the painting of the robe is said to be very wonderful. "malvina of brittany" is the inscription, the date being nineteen hundred and thirteen. the next year malvina was no longer there. madame lavigne, folding knotted hands, had muttered her last paternoster. pere jean had urged the convent. but for the first time, with him, she had been frankly obstinate. some fancy seemed to have got into the child's head. something that she evidently connected with the vast treeless moor rising southward to where the ancient menhir of king taramis crowned its summit. the good man yielded, as usual. for the present there were madame lavigne's small savings. suzanne's wants were but few. the rare shopping necessary father jean could see to himself. with the coming of winter he would broach the subject again, and then be quite firm. just these were the summer nights when suzanne loved to roam; and as for danger! there was not a lad for ten leagues round who would not have run a mile to avoid passing, even in daylight, that cottage standing where the moor dips down to the sealands. but one surmises that even a fairy may feel lonesome. especially a banished fairy, hanging as it were between earth and air, knowing mortal maidens kissed and courted, while one's own companions kept away from one in hiding. maybe the fancy came to her that, after all these years, they might forgive her. still, it was their meeting place, so legend ran, especially of midsummer nights. rare it was now for human eye to catch a glimpse of the shimmering robes, but high on the treeless moor to the music of the lady of the fountain, one might still hear, were one brave enough to venture, the rhythm of their dancing feet. if she sought them, softly calling, might they not reveal themselves to her, make room for her once again in the whirling circle? one has the idea that the moonlight frock may have added to her hopes. philosophy admits that feeling oneself well dressed gives confidence. if all of them had not disappeared--been kissed three times upon the lips by mortal man and so become a woman? it seems to have been a possibility for which your white lady had to be prepared. that is, if she chose to suffer it. if not, it was unfortunate for the too daring mortal. but if he gained favour in her eyes! that he was brave, his wooing proved. if, added thereto, he were comely, with kind strong ways, and eyes that drew you? history proves that such dreams must have come even to white ladies. maybe more especially on midsummer nights when the moon is at its full. it was on such a night that sir gerylon had woke malvina's sister sighile with a kiss. a true white lady must always dare to face her fate. it seems to have befallen malvina. some told father jean how he had arrived in a chariot drawn by winged horses, the thunder of his passing waking many in the sleeping villages beneath. and others how he had come in the form of a great bird. father jean had heard strange sounds himself, and certain it was that suzanne had disappeared. father jean heard another version a few weeks later, told him by an english officer of engineers who had ridden from the nearest station on a bicycle and who arrived hot and ravenously thirsty. and father jean, under promise of seeing suzanne on the first opportunity, believed it. but to most of his flock it sounded an impossible rigmarole, told for the purpose of disguising the truth. so ends my story--or rather the story i have pieced together from information of a contradictory nature received. whatever you make of it; whether with the doctor you explain it away; or whether with professor littlecherry, ll.d., f.r.s., you believe the world not altogether explored and mapped, the fact remains that malvina of brittany has passed away. to the younger mrs. raffleton, listening on the sussex downs to dull, distant sounds that make her heart beat, and very nervous of telegraph boys, has come already some of the disadvantages attendant on her new rank of womanhood. and yet one gathers, looking down into those strange deep eyes, that she would not change anything about her, even if now she could. the street of the blank wall. i had turned off from the edgware road into a street leading west, the atmosphere of which had appealed to me. it was a place of quiet houses standing behind little gardens. they had the usual names printed on the stuccoed gateposts. the fading twilight was just sufficient to enable one to read them. there was a laburnum villa, and the cedars, and a cairngorm, rising to the height of three storeys, with a curious little turret that branched out at the top, and was crowned with a conical roof, so that it looked as if wearing a witch's hat. especially when two small windows just below the eaves sprang suddenly into light, and gave one the feeling of a pair of wicked eyes suddenly flashed upon one. the street curved to the right, ending in an open space through which passed a canal beneath a low arched bridge. there were still the same quiet houses behind their small gardens, and i watched for a while the lamplighter picking out the shape of the canal, that widened just above the bridge into a lake with an island in the middle. after that i must have wandered in a circle, for later on i found myself back in the same spot, though i do not suppose i had passed a dozen people on my way; and then i set to work to find my way back to paddington. i thought i had taken the road by which i had come, but the half light must have deceived me. not that it mattered. they had a lurking mystery about them, these silent streets with their suggestion of hushed movement behind drawn curtains, of whispered voices behind the flimsy walls. occasionally there would escape the sound of laughter, suddenly stifled as it seemed, and once the sudden cry of a child. it was in a short street of semi-detached villas facing a high blank wall that, as i passed, i saw a blind move half-way up, revealing a woman's face. a gas lamp, the only one the street possessed, was nearly opposite. i thought at first it was the face of a girl, and then, as i looked again, it might have been the face of an old woman. one could not distinguish the colouring. in any case, the cold, blue gaslight would have made it seem pallid. the remarkable feature was the eyes. it might have been, of course, that they alone caught the light and held it, rendering them uncannily large and brilliant. or it might have been that the rest of the face was small and delicate, out of all proportion to them. she may have seen me, for the blind was drawn down again, and i passed on. there was no particular reason why, but the incident lingered with me. the sudden raising of the blind, as of the curtain of some small theatre, the barely furnished room coming dimly into view, and the woman standing there, close to the footlights, as to my fancy it seemed. and then the sudden ringing down of the curtain before the play had begun. i turned at the corner of the street. the blind had been drawn up again, and i saw again the slight, girlish figure silhouetted against the side panes of the bow window. at the same moment a man knocked up against me. it was not his fault. i had stopped abruptly, not giving him time to avoid me. we both apologised, blaming the darkness. it may have been my fancy, but i had the feeling that, instead of going on his way, he had turned and was following me. i waited till the next corner, and then swung round on my heel. but there was no sign of him, and after a while i found myself back in the edgware road. once or twice, in idle mood, i sought the street again, but without success; and the thing would, i expect, have faded from my memory, but that one evening, on my way home from paddington, i came across the woman in the harrow road. there was no mistaking her. she almost touched me as she came out of a fishmonger's shop, and unconsciously, at the beginning, i found myself following her. this time i noticed the turnings, and five minutes' walking brought us to the street. half a dozen times i must have been within a hundred yards of it. i lingered at the corner. she had not noticed me, and just as she reached the house a man came out of the shadows beyond the lamp-post and joined her. i was due at a bachelor gathering that evening, and after dinner, the affair being fresh in my mind, i talked about it. i am not sure, but i think it was in connection with a discussion on maeterlinck. it was that sudden lifting of the blind that had caught hold of me. as if, blundering into an empty theatre, i had caught a glimpse of some drama being played in secret. we passed to other topics, and when i was leaving a fellow guest asked me which way i was going. i told him, and, it being a fine night, he proposed that we should walk together. and in the quiet of harley street he confessed that his desire had not been entirely the pleasure of my company. "it is rather curious," he said, "but today there suddenly came to my remembrance a case that for nearly eleven years i have never given a thought to. and now, on top of it, comes your description of that woman's face. i am wondering if it can be the same." "it was the eyes," i said, "that struck me as so remarkable." "it was the eyes that i chiefly remember her by," he replied. "would you know the street again?" we walked a little while in silence. "it may seem, perhaps, odd to you," i answered, "but it would trouble me, the idea of any harm coming to her through me. what was the case?" "you can feel quite safe on that point," he assured me. "i was her counsel--that is, if it is the same woman. how was she dressed?" i could not see the reason for his question. he could hardly expect her to be wearing the clothes of eleven years ago. "i don't think i noticed," i answered. "some sort of a blouse, i suppose." and then i recollected. "ah, yes, there was something uncommon," i added. "an unusually broad band of velvet, it looked like, round her neck." "i thought so," he said. "yes. it must be the same." we had reached marylebone road, where our ways parted. "i will look you up to-morrow afternoon, if i may," he said. "we might take a stroll round together." he called on me about half-past five, and we reached the street just as the one solitary gas-lamp had been lighted. i pointed out the house to him, and he crossed over and looked at the number. "quite right," he said, on returning. "i made inquiries this morning. she was released six weeks ago on ticket-of-leave." he took my arm. "not much use hanging about," he said. "the blind won't go up to-night. rather a clever idea, selecting a house just opposite a lamp-post." he had an engagement that evening; but later on he told me the story--that is, so far as he then knew it. * * * it was in the early days of the garden suburb movement. one of the first sites chosen was off the finchley road. the place was in the building, and one of the streets--laleham gardens--had only some half a dozen houses in it, all unoccupied save one. it was a lonely, loose end of the suburb, terminating suddenly in open fields. from the unfinished end of the road the ground sloped down somewhat steeply to a pond, and beyond that began a small wood. the one house occupied had been bought by a young married couple named hepworth. the husband was a good-looking, pleasant young fellow. being clean-shaven, his exact age was difficult to judge. the wife, it was quite evident, was little more than a girl. about the man there was a suggestion of weakness. at least, that was the impression left on the mind of the house-agent. to-day he would decide, and to-morrow he changed his mind. jetson, the agent, had almost given up hope of bringing off a deal. in the end it was mrs. hepworth who, taking the matter into her own hands, fixed upon the house in laleham gardens. young hepworth found fault with it on the ground of its isolation. he himself was often away for days at a time, travelling on business, and was afraid she would be nervous. he had been very persistent on this point; but in whispered conversations she had persuaded him out of his objection. it was one of those pretty, fussy little houses; and it seemed to have taken her fancy. added to which, according to her argument, it was just within their means, which none of the others were. young hepworth may have given the usual references, but if so they were never taken up. the house was sold on the company's usual terms. the deposit was paid by a cheque, which was duly cleared, and the house itself was security for the rest. the company's solicitor, with hepworth's consent, acted for both parties. it was early in june when the hepworths moved in. they furnished only one bedroom; and kept no servant, a charwoman coming in every morning and going away about six in the evening. jetson was their nearest neighbour. his wife and daughters called on them, and confess to have taken a liking to them both. indeed, between one of the jetson girls, the youngest, and mrs. hepworth there seems to have sprung up a close friendship. young hepworth, the husband, was always charming, and evidently took great pains to make himself agreeable. but with regard to him they had the feeling that he was never altogether at his ease. they described him--though that, of course, was after the event--as having left upon them the impression of a haunted man. there was one occasion in particular. it was about ten o'clock. the jetsons had been spending the evening with the hepworths, and were just on the point of leaving, when there came a sudden, clear knock at the door. it turned out to be jetson's foreman, who had to leave by an early train in the morning, and had found that he needed some further instructions. but the terror in hepworth's face was unmistakable. he had turned a look towards his wife that was almost of despair; and it had seemed to the jetsons--or, talking it over afterwards, they may have suggested the idea to each other--that there came a flash of contempt into her eyes, though it yielded the next instant to an expression of pity. she had risen, and already moved some steps towards the door, when young hepworth had stopped her, and gone out himself. but the curious thing was that, according to the foreman's account, hepworth never opened the front door, but came upon him stealthily from behind. he must have slipped out by the back and crept round the house. the incident had puzzled the jetsons, especially that involuntary flash of contempt that had come into mrs. hepworth's eyes. she had always appeared to adore her husband, and of the two, if possible, to be the one most in love with the other. they had no friends or acquaintances except the jetsons. no one else among their neighbours had taken the trouble to call on them, and no stranger to the suburb had, so far as was known, ever been seen in laleham gardens. until one evening a little before christmas. jetson was on his way home from his office in the finchley road. there had been a mist hanging about all day, and with nightfall it had settled down into a whitish fog. soon after leaving the finchley road, jetson noticed in front of him a man wearing a long, yellow mackintosh, and some sort of soft felt hat. he gave jetson the idea of being a sailor; it may have been merely the stiff, serviceable mackintosh. at the corner of laleham gardens the man turned, and glanced up at the name upon the lamp-post, so that jetson had a full view of him. evidently it was the street for which he was looking. jetson, somewhat curious, the hepworths' house being still the only one occupied, paused at the corner, and watched. the hepworths' house was, of course, the only one in the road that showed any light. the man, when he came to the gate, struck a match for the purpose of reading the number. satisfied it was the house he wanted, he pushed open the gate and went up the path. but, instead of using the bell or knocker, jetson was surprised to hear him give three raps on the door with his stick. there was no answer, and jetson, whose interest was now thoroughly aroused, crossed to the other corner, from where he could command a better view. twice the man repeated his three raps on the door, each time a little louder, and the third time the door was opened. jetson could not tell by whom, for whoever it was kept behind it. he could just see one wall of the passage, with a pair of old naval cutlasses crossed above the picture of a three-masted schooner that he knew hung there. the door was opened just sufficient, and the man slipped in, and the door was closed behind him. jetson had turned to continue his way, when the fancy seized him to give one glance back. the house was in complete darkness, though a moment before jetson was positive there had been a light in the ground floor window. it all sounded very important afterwards, but at the time there was nothing to suggest to jetson anything very much out of the common. because for six months no friend or relation had called to see them, that was no reason why one never should. in the fog, a stranger may have thought it simpler to knock at the door with his stick than to fumble in search of a bell. the hepworths lived chiefly in the room at the back. the light in the drawing-room may have been switched off for economy's sake. jetson recounted the incident on reaching home, not as anything remarkable, but just as one mentions an item of gossip. the only one who appears to have attached any meaning to the affair was jetson's youngest daughter, then a girl of eighteen. she asked one or two questions about the man, and, during the evening, slipped out by herself and ran round to the hepworths. she found the house empty. at all events, she could obtain no answer, and the place, back and front, seemed to her to be uncannily silent. jetson called the next morning, something of his daughter's uneasiness having communicated itself to him. mrs. hepworth herself opened the door to him. in his evidence at the trial, jetson admitted that her appearance had startled him. she seems to have anticipated his questions by at once explaining that she had had news of an unpleasant nature, and had been worrying over it all night. her husband had been called away suddenly to america, where it would be necessary for her to join him as soon as possible. she would come round to jetson's office later in the day to make arrangements about getting rid of the house and furniture. the story seemed to reasonably account for the stranger's visit, and jetson, expressing his sympathy and promising all help in his power, continued his way to the office. she called in the afternoon and handed him over the keys, retaining one for herself. she wished the furniture to be sold by auction, and he was to accept almost any offer for the house. she would try and see him again before sailing; if not, she would write him with her address. she was perfectly cool and collected. she had called on his wife and daughters in the afternoon, and had wished them good-bye. outside jetson's office she hailed a cab, and returned in it to laleham gardens to collect her boxes. the next time jetson saw her she was in the dock, charged with being an accomplice in the murder of her husband. * * * the body had been discovered in a pond some hundred yards from the unfinished end of laleham gardens. a house was in course of erection on a neighbouring plot, and a workman, in dipping up a pail of water, had dropped in his watch. he and his mate, worrying round with a rake, had drawn up pieces of torn clothing, and this, of course, had led to the pond being properly dragged. otherwise the discovery might never have been made. the body, heavily weighted with a number of flat-irons fastened to it by a chain and padlock, had sunk deep into the soft mud, and might have remained there till it rotted. a valuable gold repeater, that jetson remembered young hepworth having told him had been a presentation to his father, was in its usual pocket, and a cameo ring that hepworth had always worn on his third finger was likewise fished up from the mud. evidently the murder belonged to the category of crimes passionel. the theory of the prosecution was that it had been committed by a man who, before her marriage, had been mrs. hepworth's lover. the evidence, contrasted with the almost spiritually beautiful face of the woman in the dock, came as a surprise to everyone in court. originally connected with an english circus troupe touring in holland, she appears, about seventeen, to have been engaged as a "song and dance artiste" at a particularly shady cafe chantant in rotterdam, frequented chiefly by sailors. from there a man, an english sailor known as charlie martin, took her away, and for some months she had lived with him at a small estaminet the other side of the river. later, they left rotterdam and came to london, where they took lodgings in poplar, near to the docks. it was from this address in poplar that, some ten months before the murder, she had married young hepworth. what had become of martin was not known. the natural assumption was that, his money being exhausted, he had returned to his calling, though his name, for some reason, could not be found in any ship's list. that he was one and the same with the man that jetson had watched till the door of the hepworths' house had closed upon him there could be no doubt. jetson described him as a thick-set, handsome-looking man, with a reddish beard and moustache. earlier in the day he had been seen at hampstead, where he had dined at a small coffee-shop in the high street. the girl who had waited on him had also been struck by the bold, piercing eyes and the curly red beard. it had been an off-time, between two and three, when he had dined there, and the girl admitted that she had found him a "pleasant-spoken gentleman," and "inclined to be merry." he had told her that he had arrived in england only three days ago, and that he hoped that evening to see his sweetheart. he had accompanied the words with a laugh, and the girl thought--though, of course, this may have been after-suggestion--that an ugly look followed the laugh. one imagines that it was this man's return that had been the fear constantly haunting young hepworth. the three raps on the door, it was urged by the prosecution, was a pre-arranged or pre-understood signal, and the door had been opened by the woman. whether the husband was in the house, or whether they waited for him, could not be said. he had been killed by a bullet entering through the back of the neck; the man had evidently come prepared. ten days had elapsed between the murder and the finding of the body, and the man was never traced. a postman had met him coming from the neighbourhood of laleham gardens at about half-past nine. in the fog, they had all but bumped into one another, and the man had immediately turned away his face. about the soft felt hat there was nothing to excite attention, but the long, stiff, yellow mackintosh was quite unusual. the postman had caught only a momentary glimpse of the face, but was certain it was clean shaven. this made a sensation in court for the moment, but only until the calling of the next witness. the charwoman usually employed by the hepworths had not been admitted to the house on the morning of mrs. hepworth's departure. mrs. hepworth had met her at the door and paid her a week's money in lieu of notice, explaining to her that she would not be wanted any more. jetson, thinking he might possibly do better by letting the house furnished, had sent for this woman, and instructed her to give the place a thorough cleaning. sweeping the carpet in the dining-room with a dustpan and brush, she had discovered a number of short red hairs. the man, before leaving the house, had shaved himself. that he had still retained the long, yellow mackintosh may have been with the idea of starting a false clue. having served its purpose, it could be discarded. the beard would not have been so easy. what roundabout way he may have taken one cannot say, but it must have been some time during the night or early morning that he reached young hepworth's office in fenchurch street. mrs. hepworth had evidently provided him with the key. there he seems to have hidden the hat and mackintosh and to have taken in exchange some clothes belonging to the murdered man. hepworth's clerk, ellenby, an elderly man--of the type that one generally describes as of gentlemanly appearance--was accustomed to his master being away unexpectedly on business, which was that of a ships' furnisher. he always kept an overcoat and a bag ready packed in the office. missing them, ellenby had assumed that his master had been called away by an early train. he would have been worried after a few days, but that he had received a telegram--as he then supposed from his master--explaining that young hepworth had gone to ireland and would be away for some days. it was nothing unusual for hepworth to be absent, superintending the furnishing of a ship, for a fortnight at a time, and nothing had transpired in the office necessitating special instructions. the telegram had been handed in at charing cross, but the time chosen had been a busy period of the day, and no one had any recollection of the sender. hepworth's clerk unhesitatingly identified the body as that of his employer, for whom it was evident that he had entertained a feeling of affection. about mrs. hepworth he said as little as he could. while she was awaiting her trial it had been necessary for him to see her once or twice with reference to the business. previous to this, he knew nothing about her. the woman's own attitude throughout the trial had been quite unexplainable. beyond agreeing to a formal plea of "not guilty," she had made no attempt to defend herself. what little assistance her solicitors had obtained had been given them, not by the woman herself, but by hepworth's clerk, more for the sake of his dead master than out of any sympathy towards the wife. she herself appeared utterly indifferent. only once had she been betrayed into a momentary emotion. it was when her solicitors were urging her almost angrily to give them some particulars upon a point they thought might be helpful to her case. "he's dead!" she had cried out almost with a note of exultation. "dead! dead! what else matters?" the next moment she had apologised for her outburst. "nothing can do any good," she had said. "let the thing take its course." it was the astounding callousness of the woman that told against her both with the judge and the jury. that shaving in the dining-room, the murdered man's body not yet cold! it must have been done with hepworth's safety-razor. she must have brought it down to him, found him a looking-glass, brought him soap and water and a towel, afterwards removing all traces. except those few red hairs that had clung, unnoticed, to the carpet. that nest of flat-irons used to weight the body! it must have been she who had thought of them. the idea would never have occurred to a man. the chain and padlock with which to fasten them. she only could have known that such things were in the house. it must have been she who had planned the exchange of clothes in hepworth's office, giving him the key. she it must have been who had thought of the pond, holding open the door while the man had staggered out under his ghastly burden; waited, keeping watch, listening to hear the splash. evidently it had been her intention to go off with the murderer--to live with him! that story about america. if all had gone well, it would have accounted for everything. after leaving laleham gardens she had taken lodgings in a small house in kentish town under the name of howard, giving herself out to be a chorus singer, her husband being an actor on tour. to make the thing plausible, she had obtained employment in one of the pantomimes. not for a moment had she lost her head. no one had ever called at her lodgings, and there had come no letters for her. every hour of her day could be accounted for. their plans must have been worked out over the corpse of her murdered husband. she was found guilty of being an "accessory after the fact," and sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude. that brought the story up to eleven years ago. after the trial, interested in spite of himself, my friend had ferreted out some further particulars. inquiries at liverpool had procured him the information that hepworth's father, a shipowner in a small way, had been well known and highly respected. he was retired from business when he died, some three years previous to the date of the murder. his wife had survived him by only a few months. besides michael, the murdered son, there were two other children--an elder brother, who was thought to have gone abroad to one of the colonies, and a sister who had married a french naval officer. either they had not heard of the case or had not wished to have their names dragged into it. young michael had started life as an architect, and was supposed to have been doing well, but after the death of his parents had disappeared from the neighbourhood, and, until the trial, none of his acquaintances up north ever knew what had become of him. but a further item of knowledge that my friend's inquiries had elicited had somewhat puzzled him. hepworth's clerk, ellenby, had been the confidential clerk of hepworth's father! he had entered the service of the firm as a boy; and when hepworth senior retired, ellenby--with the old gentleman's assistance--had started in business for himself as a ships' furnisher! nothing of all this came out at the trial. ellenby had not been cross-examined. there was no need for it. but it seemed odd, under all the circumstances, that he had not volunteered the information. it may, of course, have been for the sake of the brother and sister. hepworth is a common enough name in the north. he may have hoped to keep the family out of connection with the case. as regards the woman, my friend could learn nothing further beyond the fact that, in her contract with the music-hall agent in rotterdam, she had described herself as the daughter of an english musician, and had stated that both her parents were dead. she may have engaged herself without knowing the character of the hall, and the man, charlie martin, with his handsome face and pleasing sailor ways, and at least an englishman, may have seemed to her a welcome escape. she may have been passionately fond of him, and young hepworth--crazy about her, for she was beautiful enough to turn any man's head--may in martin's absence have lied to her, told her he was dead--lord knows what!--to induce her to marry him. the murder may have seemed to her a sort of grim justice. but even so, her cold-blooded callousness was surely abnormal! she had married him, lived with him for nearly a year. to the jetsons she had given the impression of being a woman deeply in love with her husband. it could not have been mere acting kept up day after day. "there was something else." we were discussing the case in my friend's chambers. his brief of eleven years ago was open before him. he was pacing up and down with his hands in his pockets, thinking as he talked. "something that never came out. there was a curious feeling she gave me in that moment when sentence was pronounced upon her. it was as if, instead of being condemned, she had triumphed. acting! if she had acted during the trial, pretended remorse, even pity, i could have got her off with five years. she seemed to be unable to disguise the absolute physical relief she felt at the thought that he was dead, that his hand would never again touch her. there must have been something that had suddenly been revealed to her, something that had turned her love to hate. "there must be something fine about the man, too." that was another suggestion that came to him as he stood staring out of the window across the river. "she's paid and has got her receipt, but he is still 'wanted.' he is risking his neck every evening he watches for the raising of that blind." his thought took another turn. "yet how could he have let her go through those ten years of living death while he walked the streets scot free? some time during the trial--the evidence piling up against her day by day--why didn't he come forward, if only to stand beside her? get himself hanged, if only out of mere decency?" he sat down, took the brief up in his hand without looking at it. "or was that the reward that she claimed? that he should wait, keeping alive the one hope that would make the suffering possible to her? yes," he continued, musing, "i can see a man who cared for a woman taking that as his punishment." now that his interest in the case had been revived he seemed unable to keep it out of his mind. since our joint visit i had once or twice passed through the street by myself, and on the last occasion had again seen the raising of the blind. it obsessed him--the desire to meet the man face to face. a handsome, bold, masterful man, he conceived him. but there must be something more for such a woman to have sold her soul--almost, one might say--for the sake of him. there was just one chance of succeeding. each time he had come from the direction of the edgware road. by keeping well out of sight at the other end of the street, and watching till he entered it, one might time oneself to come upon him just under the lamp. he would hardly be likely to turn and go back; that would be to give himself away. he would probably content himself with pretending to be like ourselves, merely hurrying through, and in his turn watching till we had disappeared. fortune seemed inclined to favour us. about the usual time the blind was gently raised, and very soon afterwards there came round the corner the figure of a man. we entered the street ourselves a few seconds later, and it seemed likely that, as we had planned, we should come face to face with him under the gaslight. he walked towards us, stooping and with bent head. we expected him to pass the house by. to our surprise he stopped when he came to it, and pushed open the gate. in another moment we should have lost all chance of seeing anything more of him except his bent back. with a couple of strides my friend was behind him. he laid his hand on the man's shoulder and forced him to turn round. it was an old, wrinkled face with gentle, rather watery eyes. we were both so taken aback that for a moment we could say nothing. my friend stammered out an apology about having mistaken the house, and rejoined me. at the corner we burst out laughing almost simultaneously. and then my friend suddenly stopped and stared at me. "hepworth's old clerk!" he said. "ellenby!" * * * it seemed to him monstrous. the man had been more than a clerk. the family had treated him as a friend. hepworth's father had set him up in business. for the murdered lad he had had a sincere attachment; he had left that conviction on all of them. what was the meaning of it? a directory was on the mantelpiece. it was the next afternoon. i had called upon him in his chambers. it was just an idea that came to me. i crossed over and opened it, and there was his name, "ellenby and co., ships' furnishers," in a court off the minories. was he helping her for the sake of his dead master--trying to get her away from the man. but why? the woman had stood by and watched the lad murdered. how could he bear even to look on her again? unless there had been that something that had not come out--something he had learnt later--that excused even that monstrous callousness of hers. yet what could there be? it had all been so planned, so cold-blooded. that shaving in the dining-room! it was that seemed most to stick in his throat. she must have brought him down a looking-glass; there was not one in the room. why couldn't he have gone upstairs into the bathroom, where hepworth always shaved himself, where he would have found everything to his hand? he had been moving about the room, talking disjointedly as he paced, and suddenly he stopped and looked at me. "why in the dining-room?" he demanded of me. he was jingling some keys in his pocket. it was a habit of his when cross-examining, and i felt as if somehow i knew; and, without thinking--so it seemed to me--i answered him. "perhaps," i said, "it was easier to bring a razor down than to carry a dead man up." he leant with his arms across the table, his eyes glittering with excitement. "can't you see it?" he said. "that little back parlour with its fussy ornaments. the three of them standing round the table, hepworth's hands nervously clutching a chair. the reproaches, the taunts, the threats. young hepworth--he struck everyone as a weak man, a man physically afraid--white, stammering, not knowing which way to look. the woman's eyes turning from one to the other. that flash of contempt again--she could not help it--followed, worse still, by pity. if only he could have answered back, held his own! if only he had not been afraid! and then that fatal turning away with a sneering laugh one imagines, the bold, dominating eyes no longer there to cower him. "that must have been the moment. the bullet, if you remember, entered through the back of the man's neck. hepworth must always have been picturing to himself this meeting--tenants of garden suburbs do not carry loaded revolvers as a habit--dwelling upon it till he had worked himself up into a frenzy of hate and fear. weak men always fly to extremes. if there was no other way, he would kill him. "can't you hear the silence? after the reverberations had died away! and then they are both down on their knees, patting him, feeling for his heart. the man must have gone down like a felled ox; there were no traces of blood on the carpet. the house is far from any neighbour; the shot in all probability has not been heard. if only they can get rid of the body! the pond--not a hundred yards away!" he reached for the brief, still lying among his papers; hurriedly turned the scored pages. "what easier? a house being built on the very next plot. wheelbarrows to be had for the taking. a line of planks reaching down to the edge. depth of water where the body was discovered four feet six inches. nothing to do but just tip up the barrow. "think a minute. must weigh him down, lest he rise to accuse us; weight him heavily, so that he will sink lower and lower into the soft mud, lie there till he rots. "think again. think it out to the end. suppose, in spite of all our precautions, he does rise? suppose the chain slips? the workmen going to and fro for water--suppose they do discover him? "he is lying on his back, remember. they would have turned him over to feel for his heart. have closed his eyes, most probably, not liking their stare. "it would be the woman who first thought of it. she has seen them both lying with closed eyes beside her. it may have always been in her mind, the likeness between them. with hepworth's watch in his pocket, hepworth's ring on his finger! if only it was not for the beard--that fierce, curling, red beard! "they creep to the window and peer out. fog still thick as soup. not a soul, not a sound. plenty of time. "then to get away, to hide till one is sure. put on the mackintosh. a man in a yellow mackintosh may have been seen to enter; let him be seen to go away. in some dark corner or some empty railway carriage take it off and roll it up. then make for the office. wait there for ellenby. true as steel, ellenby; good business man. be guided by ellenby." he flung the brief from him with a laugh. "why, there's not a missing link!" he cried. "and to think that not a fool among us ever thought of it!" "everything fitting into its place," i suggested, "except young hepworth. can you see him, from your description of him, sitting down and coolly elaborating plans for escape, the corpse of the murdered man stretched beside him on the hearthrug?" "no," he answered. "but i can see her doing it, a woman who for week after week kept silence while we raged and stormed at her, a woman who for three hours sat like a statue while old cutbush painted her to a crowded court as a modern jezebel, who rose up from her seat when that sentence of fifteen years' penal servitude was pronounced upon her with a look of triumph in her eyes, and walked out of court as if she had been a girl going to meet her lover. "i'll wager," he added, "it was she who did the shaving. hepworth would have cut him, even with a safety-razor." "it must have been the other one, martin," i said, "that she loathed. that almost exultation at the thought that he was dead," i reminded him. "yes," he mused. "she made no attempt to disguise it. curious there having been that likeness between them." he looked at his watch. "do you care to come with me?" he said. "where are you going?" i asked him. "we may just catch him," he answered. "ellenby and co." * * * the office was on the top floor of an old-fashioned house in a cul-de-sac off the minories. mr. ellenby was out, so the lanky office-boy informed us, but would be sure to return before evening; and we sat and waited by the meagre fire till, as the dusk was falling, we heard his footsteps on the creaking stairs. he halted a moment in the doorway, recognising us apparently without surprise; and then, with a hope that we had not been kept waiting long, he led the way into an inner room. "i do not suppose you remember me," said my friend, as soon as the door was closed. "i fancy that, until last night, you never saw me without my wig and gown. it makes a difference. i was mrs. hepworth's senior counsel." it was unmistakable, the look of relief that came into the old, dim eyes. evidently the incident of the previous evening had suggested to him an enemy. "you were very good," he murmured. "mrs. hepworth was overwrought at the time, but she was very grateful, i know, for all your efforts." i thought i detected a faint smile on my friend's lips. "i must apologise for my rudeness to you of last night," he continued. "i expected, when i took the liberty of turning you round, that i was going to find myself face to face with a much younger man." "i took you to be a detective," answered ellenby, in his soft, gentle voice. "you will forgive me, i'm sure. i am rather short-sighted. of course, i can only conjecture, but if you will take my word, i can assure you that mrs. hepworth has never seen or heard from the man charlie martin since the date of"--he hesitated a moment--"of the murder." "it would have been difficult," agreed my friend, "seeing that charlie martin lies buried in highgate cemetery." old as he was, he sprang from his chair, white and trembling. "what have you come here for?" he demanded. "i took more than a professional interest in the case," answered my friend. "ten years ago i was younger than i am now. it may have been her youth--her extreme beauty. i think mrs. hepworth, in allowing her husband to visit her--here where her address is known to the police, and watch at any moment may be set upon her--is placing him in a position of grave danger. if you care to lay before me any facts that will allow me to judge of the case, i am prepared to put my experience, and, if need be, my assistance, at her service." his self-possession had returned to him. "if you will excuse me," he said, "i will tell the boy that he can go." we heard him, a moment later, turn the key in the outer door; and when he came back and had made up the fire, he told us the beginning of the story. the name of the man buried in highgate cemetery was hepworth, after all. not michael, but alex, the elder brother. from boyhood he had been violent, brutal, unscrupulous. judging from ellenby's story, it was difficult to accept him as a product of modern civilisation. rather he would seem to have been a throwback to some savage, buccaneering ancestor. to expect him to work, while he could live in vicious idleness at somebody else's expense, was found to be hopeless. his debts were paid for about the third or fourth time, and he was shipped off to the colonies. unfortunately, there were no means of keeping him there. so soon as the money provided him had been squandered, he returned, demanding more by menaces and threats. meeting with unexpected firmness, he seems to have regarded theft and forgery as the only alternative left to him. to save him from punishment and the family name from disgrace, his parents' savings were sacrificed. it was grief and shame that, according to ellenby, killed them both within a few months of one another. deprived by this blow of what he no doubt had come to consider his natural means of support, and his sister, fortunately for herself, being well out of his reach, he next fixed upon his brother michael as his stay-by. michael, weak, timid, and not perhaps without some remains of boyish affection for a strong, handsome, elder brother, foolishly yielded. the demands, of course, increased, until, in the end, it came almost as a relief when the man's vicious life led to his getting mixed up with a crime of a particularly odious nature. he was anxious now for his own sake to get away, and michael, with little enough to spare for himself, provided him with the means, on the solemn understanding that he would never return. but the worry and misery of it all had left young michael a broken man. unable to concentrate his mind any longer upon his profession, his craving was to get away from all his old associations--to make a fresh start in life. it was ellenby who suggested london and the ship furnishing business, where michael's small remaining capital would be of service. the name of hepworth would be valuable in shipping circles, and ellenby, arguing this consideration, but chiefly with the hope of giving young michael more interest in the business, had insisted that the firm should be hepworth and co. they had not been started a year before the man returned, as usual demanding more money. michael, acting under ellenby's guidance, refused in terms that convinced his brother that the game of bullying was up. he waited a while, and then wrote pathetically that he was ill and starving. if only for the sake of his young wife, would not michael come and see them? this was the first they had heard of his marriage. there was just a faint hope that it might have effected a change, and michael, against ellenby's advice, decided to go. in a miserable lodging-house in the east end he found the young wife, but not his brother, who did not return till he was on the point of leaving. in the interval the girl seems to have confided her story to michael. she had been a singer, engaged at a music-hall in rotterdam. there alex hepworth, calling himself charlie martin, had met her and made love to her. when he chose, he could be agreeable enough, and no doubt her youth and beauty had given to his protestations, for the time being, a genuine ring of admiration and desire. it was to escape from her surroundings, more than anything else, that she had consented. she was little more than a child, and anything seemed preferable to the nightly horror to which her life exposed her. he had never married her. at least, that was her belief at the time. during his first drunken bout he had flung it in her face that the form they had gone through was mere bunkum. unfortunately for her, this was a lie. he had always been coolly calculating. it was probably with the idea of a safe investment that he had seen to it that the ceremony had been strictly legal. her life with him, so soon as the first novelty of her had worn off, had been unspeakable. the band that she wore round her neck was to hide where, in a fit of savagery, because she had refused to earn money for him on the streets, he had tried to cut her throat. now that she had got back to england she intended to leave him. if he followed and killed her she did not care. it was for her sake that young hepworth eventually offered to help his brother again, on the condition that he would go away by himself. to this the other agreed. he seems to have given a short display of remorse. there must have been a grin on his face as he turned away. his cunning eyes had foreseen what was likely to happen. the idea of blackmail was no doubt in his mind from the beginning. with the charge of bigamy as a weapon in his hand, he might rely for the rest of his life upon a steady and increasing income. michael saw his brother off as a second-class passenger on a ship bound for the cape. of course, there was little chance of his keeping his word, but there was always the chance of his getting himself knocked on the head in some brawl. anyhow, he would be out of the way for a season, and the girl, lola, would be left. a month later he married her, and four months after that received a letter from his brother containing messages to mrs. martin, "from her loving husband, charlie," who hoped before long to have the pleasure of seeing her again. inquiries through the english consul in rotterdam proved that the threat was no mere bluff. the marriage had been legal and binding. what happened on the night of the murder, was very much as my friend had reconstructed it. ellenby, reaching the office at his usual time the next morning, had found hepworth waiting for him. there he had remained in hiding until one morning, with dyed hair and a slight moustache, he had ventured forth. had the man's death been brought about by any other means, ellenby would have counselled his coming forward and facing his trial, as he himself was anxious to do; but, viewed in conjunction with the relief the man's death must have been to both of them, that loaded revolver was too suggestive of premeditation. the isolation of the house, that conveniently near pond, would look as if thought of beforehand. even if pleading extreme provocation, michael escaped the rope, a long term of penal servitude would be inevitable. nor was it certain that even then the woman would go free. the murdered man would still, by a strange freak, be her husband; the murderer--in the eye of the law--her lover. her passionate will had prevailed. young hepworth had sailed for america. there he had no difficulty in obtaining employment--of course, under another name--in an architects office; and later had set up for himself. since the night of the murder they had not seen each other till some three weeks ago. * * * i never saw the woman again. my friend, i believe, called on her. hepworth had already returned to america, and my friend had succeeded in obtaining for her some sort of a police permit that practically left her free. sometimes of an evening i find myself passing through the street. and always i have the feeling of having blundered into an empty theatre--where the play is ended. his evening out. the evidence of the park-keeper, david bristow, of gilder street, camden town, is as follows: i was on duty in st. james's park on thursday evening, my sphere extending from the mall to the northern shore of the ornamental water east of the suspension bridge. at five-and-twenty to seven i took up a position between the peninsula and the bridge to await my colleague. he ought to have relieved me at half-past six, but did not arrive until a few minutes before seven, owing, so he explained, to the breaking down of his motor-'bus--which may have been true or may not, as the saying is. i had just come to a halt, when my attention was arrested by a lady. i am unable to explain why the presence of a lady in st. james's park should have seemed in any way worthy of notice except that, for certain reasons, she reminded me of my first wife. i observed that she hesitated between one of the public seats and two vacant chairs standing by themselves a little farther to the east. eventually she selected one of the chairs, and, having cleaned it with an evening paper--the birds in this portion of the park being extremely prolific--sat down upon it. there was plenty of room upon the public seat close to it, except for some children who were playing touch; and in consequence of this i judged her to be a person of means. i walked to a point from where i could command the southern approaches to the bridge, my colleague arriving sometimes by way of birdcage walk and sometimes by way of the horse guards parade. not seeing any signs of him in the direction of the bridge, i turned back. a little way past the chair where the lady was sitting i met mr. parable. i know mr. parable quite well by sight. he was wearing the usual grey suit and soft felt hat with which the pictures in the newspapers have made us all familiar. i judged that mr. parable had come from the houses of parliament, and the next morning my suspicions were confirmed by reading that he had been present at a tea-party given on the terrace by mr. will crooks. mr. parable conveyed to me the suggestion of a man absorbed in thought, and not quite aware of what he was doing; but in this, of course, i may have been mistaken. he paused for a moment to look over the railings at the pelican. mr. parable said something to the pelican which i was not near enough to overhear; and then, still apparently in a state of abstraction, crossed the path and seated himself on the chair next to that occupied by the young lady. from the tree against which i was standing i was able to watch the subsequent proceedings unobserved. the lady looked at mr. parable and then turned away and smiled to herself. it was a peculiar smile, and, again in some way i am unable to explain, reminded me of my first wife. it was not till the pelican put down his other leg and walked away that mr. parable, turning his gaze westward, became aware of the lady's presence. from information that has subsequently come to my knowledge, i am prepared to believe that mr. parable, from the beginning, really thought the lady was a friend of his. what the lady thought is a matter for conjecture; i can only speak to the facts. mr. parable looked at the lady once or twice. indeed, one might say with truth that he kept on doing it. the lady, it must be admitted, behaved for a while with extreme propriety; but after a time, as i felt must happen, their eyes met, and then it was i heard her say: "good evening, mr. parable." she accompanied the words with the same peculiar smile to which i have already alluded. the exact words of mr. parable's reply i cannot remember. but it was to the effect that he had thought from the first that he had known her but had not been quite sure. it was at this point that, thinking i saw my colleague approaching, i went to meet him. i found i was mistaken, and slowly retraced my steps. i passed mr. parable and the lady. they were talking together with what i should describe as animation. i went as far as the southern extremity of the suspension bridge, and must have waited there quite ten minutes before returning eastward. it was while i was passing behind them on the grass, partially screened by the rhododendrons, that i heard mr. parable say to the lady: "why shouldn't we have it together?" to which the lady replied: "but what about miss clebb?" i could not overhear what followed, owing to their sinking their voices. it seemed to be an argument. it ended with the young lady laughing and then rising. mr. parable also rose, and they walked off together. as they passed me i heard the lady say: "i wonder if there's any place in london where you're not likely to be recognised." mr. parable, who gave me the idea of being in a state of growing excitement, replied quite loudly: "oh, let 'em!" i was following behind them when the lady suddenly stopped. "i know!" she said. "the popular cafe." the park-keeper said he was convinced he would know the lady again, having taken particular notice of her. she had brown eyes and was wearing a black hat supplemented with poppies. * * * arthur horton, waiter at the popular cafe, states as follows: i know mr. john parable by sight. have often heard him speak at public meetings. am a bit of a socialist myself. remember his dining at the popular cafe on the evening of thursday. didn't recognise him immediately on his entrance for two reasons. one was his hat, and the other was his girl. i took it from him and hung it up. i mean, of course, the hat. it was a brand-new bowler, a trifle ikey about the brim. have always associated him with a soft grey felt. but never with girls. females, yes, to any extent. but this was the real article. you know what i mean--the sort of girl that you turn round to look after. it was she who selected the table in the corner behind the door. been there before, i should say. i should, in the ordinary course of business, have addressed mr. parable by name, such being our instructions in the case of customers known to us. but, putting the hat and the girl together, i decided not to. mr. parable was all for our three-and-six-penny table d'hote; he evidently not wanting to think. but the lady wouldn't hear of it. "remember miss clebb," she reminded him. of course, at the time i did not know what was meant. she ordered thin soup, a grilled sole, and cutlets au gratin. it certainly couldn't have been the dinner. with regard to the champagne, he would have his own way. i picked him out a dry ' , that you might have weaned a baby on. i suppose it was the whole thing combined. it was after the sole that i heard mr. parable laugh. i could hardly credit my ears, but half-way through the cutlets he did it again. there are two kinds of women. there is the woman who, the more she eats and drinks, the stodgier she gets, and the woman who lights up after it. i suggested a peche melba between them, and when i returned with it, mr. parable was sitting with his elbows on the table gazing across at her with an expression that i can only describe as quite human. it was when i brought the coffee that he turned to me and asked: "what's doing? nothing stuffy," he added. "is there an exhibition anywhere--something in the open air?" "you are forgetting miss clebb," the lady reminded him. "for two pins," said mr. parable, "i would get up at the meeting and tell miss clebb what i really think about her." i suggested the earl's court exhibition, little thinking at the time what it was going to lead to; but the lady at first wouldn't hear of it, and the party at the next table calling for their bill (they had asked for it once or twice before, when i came to think of it), i had to go across to them. when i got back the argument had just concluded, and the lady was holding up her finger. "on condition that we leave at half-past nine, and that you go straight to caxton hall," she said. "we'll see about it," said mr. parable, and offered me half a crown. tips being against the rules, i couldn't take it. besides, one of the jumpers had his eye on me. i explained to him, jocosely, that i was doing it for a bet. he was surprised when i handed him his hat, but, the lady whispering to him, he remembered himself in time. as they went out together i heard mr. parable say to the lady: "it's funny what a shocking memory i have for names." to which the lady replied: "you'll think it funnier still to-morrow." and then she laughed. mr. horton thought he would know the lady again. he puts down her age at about twenty-six, describing her--to use his own piquant expression--as "a bit of all right." she had brown eyes and a taking way with her. * * * miss ida jenks, in charge of the eastern cigarette kiosk at the earl's court exhibition, gives the following particulars: from where i generally stand i can easily command a view of the interior of the victoria hall; that is, of course, to say when the doors are open, as on a warm night is usually the case. on the evening of thursday, the twenty-seventh, it was fairly well occupied, but not to any great extent. one couple attracted my attention by reason of the gentleman's erratic steering. had he been my partner i should have suggested a polka, the tango not being the sort of dance that can be picked up in an evening. what i mean to say is, that he struck me as being more willing than experienced. some of the bumps she got would have made me cross; but we all have our fancies, and, so far as i could judge, they both appeared to be enjoying themselves. it was after the "hitchy koo" that they came outside. the seat to the left of the door is popular by reason of its being partly screened by bushes, but by leaning forward a little it is quite possible for me to see what goes on there. they were the first couple out, having had a bad collision near the bandstand, so easily secured it. the gentleman was laughing. there was something about him from the first that made me think i knew him, and when he took off his hat to wipe his head it came to me all of a sudden, he being the exact image of his effigy at madame tussaud's, which, by a curious coincidence, i happened to have visited with a friend that very afternoon. the lady was what some people would call good-looking, and others mightn't. i was watching them, naturally a little interested. mr. parable, in helping the lady to adjust her cloak, drew her--it may have been by accident--towards him; and then it was that a florid gentleman with a short pipe in his mouth stepped forward and addressed the lady. he raised his hat and, remarking "good evening," added that he hoped she was "having a pleasant time." his tone, i should explain, was sarcastic. the young woman, whatever else may be said of her, struck me as behaving quite correctly. replying to his salutation with a cold and distant bow, she rose, and, turning to mr. parable, observed that she thought it was perhaps time for them to be going. the gentleman, who had taken his pipe from his mouth, said--again in a sarcastic tone--that he thought so too, and offered the lady his arm. "i don't think we need trouble you," said mr. parable, and stepped between them. to describe what followed i, being a lady, am hampered for words. i remember seeing mr. parable's hat go up into the air, and then the next moment the florid gentleman's head was lying on my counter smothered in cigarettes. i naturally screamed for the police, but the crowd was dead against me; and it was only after what i believe in technical language would be termed "the fourth round" that they appeared upon the scene. the last i saw of mr. parable he was shaking a young constable who had lost his helmet, while three other policemen had hold of him from behind. the florid gentleman's hat i found on the floor of my kiosk and returned to him; but after a useless attempt to get it on his head, he disappeared with it in his hand. the lady was nowhere to be seen. miss jenks thinks she would know her again. she was wearing a hat trimmed with black chiffon and a spray of poppies, and was slightly freckled. * * * superintendent s. wade, in answer to questions put to him by our representative, vouchsafed the following replies: yes. i was in charge at the vine street police station on the night of thursday, the twenty-seventh. no. i have no recollection of a charge of any description being preferred against any gentleman of the name of parable. yes. a gentleman was brought in about ten o'clock charged with brawling at the earl's court exhibition and assaulting a constable in the discharge of his duty. the gentleman gave the name of mr. archibald quincey, harcourt buildings, temple. no. the gentleman made no application respecting bail, electing to pass the night in the cells. a certain amount of discretion is permitted to us, and we made him as comfortable as possible. yes. a lady. no. about a gentleman who had got himself into trouble at the earl's court exhibition. she mentioned no name. i showed her the charge sheet. she thanked me and went away. that i cannot say. i can only tell you that at nine-fifteen on friday morning bail was tendered, and, after inquiries, accepted in the person of julius addison tupp, of the sunnybrook steam laundry, twickenham. that is no business of ours. the accused who, i had seen to it, had had a cup of tea and a little toast at seven-thirty, left in company with mr. tupp soon after ten. superintendent wade admitted he had known cases where accused parties, to avoid unpleasantness, had stated their names to be other than their own, but declined to discuss the matter further. superintendent wade, while expressing his regret that he had no more time to bestow upon our representative, thought it highly probable that he would know the lady again if he saw her. without professing to be a judge of such matters, superintendent wade thinks she might be described as a highly intelligent young woman, and of exceptionally prepossessing appearance. * * * from mr. julius tupp, of the sunnybrook steam laundry, twickenham, upon whom our representative next called, we have been unable to obtain much assistance, mr. tupp replying to all questions put to him by the one formula, "not talking." fortunately, our representative, on his way out through the drying ground, was able to obtain a brief interview with mrs. tupp. mrs. tupp remembers admitting a young lady to the house on the morning of friday, the twenty-eighth, when she opened the door to take in the milk. the lady, mrs. tupp remembers, spoke in a husky voice, the result, as the young lady explained with a pleasant laugh, of having passed the night wandering about ham common, she having been misdirected the previous evening by a fool of a railway porter, and not wishing to disturb the neighbourhood by waking people up at two o'clock in the morning, which, in mrs. tupp's opinion, was sensible of her. mrs. tupp describes the young lady as of agreeable manners, but looking, naturally, a bit washed out. the lady asked for mr. tupp, explaining that a friend of his was in trouble, which did not in the least surprise mrs. tupp, she herself not holding with socialists and such like. mr. tupp, on being informed, dressed hastily and went downstairs, and he and the young lady left the house together. mr. tupp, on being questioned as to the name of his friend, had called up that it was no one mrs. tupp would know, a mr. quince--it may have been quincey. mrs. tupp is aware that mr. parable is also a socialist, and is acquainted with the saying about thieves hanging together. but has worked for mr. parable for years and has always found him a most satisfactory client; and, mr. tupp appearing at this point, our representative thanked mrs. tupp for her information and took his departure. * * * mr. horatius condor, junior, who consented to partake of luncheon in company with our representative at the holborn restaurant, was at first disinclined to be of much assistance, but eventually supplied our representative with the following information: my relationship to mr. archibald quincey, harcourt buildings, temple, is perhaps a little difficult to define. how he himself regards me i am never quite sure. there will be days together when we will be quite friendly like, and at other times he will be that offhanded and peremptory you might think i was his blooming office boy. on friday morning, the twenty-eighth, i didn't get to harcourt buildings at the usual time, knowing that mr. quincey would not be there himself, he having arranged to interview mr. parable for the daily chronicle at ten o'clock. i allowed him half an hour, to be quite safe, and he came in at a quarter past eleven. he took no notice of me. for about ten minutes--it may have been less--he walked up and down the room, cursing and swearing and kicking the furniture about. he landed an occasional walnut table in the middle of my shins, upon which i took the opportunity of wishing him "good morning," and he sort of woke up, as you might say. "how did the interview go off?" i says. "got anything interesting?" "yes," he says; "quite interesting. oh, yes, decidedly interesting." he was holding himself in, if you understand, speaking with horrible slowness and deliberation. "d'you know where he was last night?" he asks me. "yes," i says; "caxton hall, wasn't it?--meeting to demand the release of miss clebb." he leans across the table till his face was within a few inches of mine. "guess again," he says. i wasn't doing any guessing. he had hurt me with the walnut table, and i was feeling a bit short-tempered. "oh! don't make a game of it," i says. "it's too early in the morning." "at the earl's court exhibition," he says; "dancing the tango with a lady that he picked up in st. james's park." "well," i says, "why not? he don't often get much fun." i thought it best to treat it lightly. he takes no notice of my observation. "a rival comes upon the scene," he continues--"a fatheaded ass, according to my information--and they have a stand-up fight. he gets run in and spends the night in a vine street police cell." i suppose i was grinning without knowing it. "funny, ain't it?" he says. "well," i says, "it has its humorous side, hasn't it? what'll he get?" "i am not worrying about what he is going to get," he answers back. "i am worrying about what _i_ am going to get." i thought he had gone dotty. "what's it got to do with you?" i says. "if old wotherspoon is in a good humour," he continues, "and the constable's head has gone down a bit between now and wednesday, i may get off with forty shillings and a public reprimand. "on the other hand," he goes on--he was working himself into a sort of fit--"if the constable's head goes on swelling, and old wotherspoon's liver gets worse, i've got to be prepared for a month without the option. that is, if i am fool enough--" he had left both the doors open, which in the daytime we generally do, our chambers being at the top. miss dorton--that's mr. parable's secretary--barges into the room. she didn't seem to notice me. she staggers to a chair and bursts into tears. "he's gone," she says; "he's taken cook with him and gone." "gone!" says the guv'nor. "where's he gone?" "to fingest," she says through her sobs--"to the cottage. miss bulstrode came in just after you had left," she says. "he wants to get away from everyone and have a few days' quiet. and then he is coming back, and he is going to do it himself." "do what?" says the guv'nor, irritable like. "fourteen days," she wails. "it'll kill him." "but the case doesn't come on till wednesday," says the guv'nor. "how do you know it's going to be fourteen days?" "miss bulstrode," she says, "she's seen the magistrate. he says he always gives fourteen days in cases of unprovoked assault." "but it wasn't unprovoked," says the guv'nor. "the other man began it by knocking off his hat. it was self-defence." "she put that to him," she says, "and he agreed that that would alter his view of the case. but, you see," she continues, "we can't find the other man. he isn't likely to come forward of his own accord." "the girl must know," says the guv'nor--"this girl he picks up in st. james's park, and goes dancing with. the man must have been some friend of hers." "but we can't find her either," she says. "he doesn't even know her name--he can't remember it." "you will do it, won't you?" she says. "do what?" says the guv'nor again. "the fourteen days," she says. "but i thought you said he was going to do it himself?" he says. "but he mustn't," she says. "miss bulstrode is coming round to see you. think of it! think of the headlines in the papers," she says. "think of the fabian society. think of the suffrage cause. we mustn't let him." "what about me?" says the guv'nor. "doesn't anybody care for me?" "you don't matter," she says. "besides," she says, "with your influence you'll be able to keep it out of the papers. if it comes out that it was mr. parable, nothing on earth will be able to." the guv'nor was almost as much excited by this time as she was. "i'll see the fabian society and the women's vote and the home for lost cats at battersea, and all the rest of the blessed bag of tricks--" i'd been thinking to myself, and had just worked it out. "what's he want to take his cook down with him for?" i says. "to cook for him," says the guv'nor. "what d'you generally want a cook for?" "rats!" i says. "does he usually take his cook with him?" "no," answered miss dorton. "now i come to think of it, he has always hitherto put up with mrs. meadows." "you will find the lady down at fingest," i says, "sitting opposite him and enjoying a recherche dinner for two." the guv'nor slaps me on the back, and lifts miss dorton out of her chair. "you get on back," he says, "and telephone to miss bulstrode. i'll be round at half-past twelve." miss dorton went out in a dazed sort of condition, and the guv'nor gives me a sovereign, and tells me i can have the rest of the day to myself. mr. condor, junior, considers that what happened subsequently goes to prove that he was right more than it proves that he was wrong. mr. condor, junior, also promised to send us a photograph of himself for reproduction, but, unfortunately, up to the time of going to press it had not arrived. * * * from mrs. meadows, widow of the late corporal john meadows, v.c., turberville, bucks, the following further particulars were obtained by our local representative: i have done for mr. parable now for some years past, my cottage being only a mile off, which makes it easy for me to look after him. mr. parable likes the place to be always ready so that he can drop in when he chooses, he sometimes giving me warning and sometimes not. it was about the end of last month--on a friday, if i remember rightly--that he suddenly turned up. as a rule, he walks from henley station, but on this occasion he arrived in a fly, he having a young woman with him, and she having a bag--his cook, as he explained to me. as a rule, i do everything for mr. parable, sleeping in the cottage when he is there; but to tell the truth, i was glad to see her. i never was much of a cook myself, as my poor dead husband has remarked on more than one occasion, and i don't pretend to be. mr. parable added, apologetic like, that he had been suffering lately from indigestion. "i am only too pleased to see her," i says. "there are the two beds in my room, and we shan't quarrel." she was quite a sensible young woman, as i had judged from the first look at her, though suffering at the time from a cold. she hires a bicycle from emma tidd, who only uses it on a sunday, and, taking a market basket, off she starts for henley, mr. parable saying he would go with her to show her the way. they were gone a goodish time, which, seeing it's eight miles, didn't so much surprise me; and when they got back we all three had dinner together, mr. parable arguing that it made for what he called "labour saving." afterwards i cleared away, leaving them talking together; and later on they had a walk round the garden, it being a moonlight night, but a bit too cold for my fancy. in the morning i had a chat with her before he was down. she seemed a bit worried. "i hope people won't get talking," she says. "he would insist on my coming." "well," i says, "surely a gent can bring his cook along with him to cook for him. and as for people talking, what i always say is, one may just as well give them something to talk about and save them the trouble of making it up." "if only i was a plain, middle-aged woman," she says, "it would be all right." "perhaps you will be, all in good time," i says, but, of course, i could see what she was driving at. a nice, clean, pleasant-faced young woman she was, and not of the ordinary class. "meanwhile," i says, "if you don't mind taking a bit of motherly advice, you might remember that your place is the kitchen, and his the parlour. he's a dear good man, i know, but human nature is human nature, and it's no good pretending it isn't." she and i had our breakfast together before he was up, so that when he came down he had to have his alone, but afterwards she comes into the kitchen and closes the door. "he wants to show me the way to high wycombe," she says. "he will have it there are better shops at wycombe. what ought i to do?" my experience is that advising folks to do what they don't want to do isn't the way to do it. "what d'you think yourself?" i asked her. "i feel like going with him," she says, "and making the most of every mile." and then she began to cry. "what's the harm!" she says. "i have heard him from a dozen platforms ridiculing class distinctions. besides," she says, "my people have been farmers for generations. what was miss bulstrode's father but a grocer? he ran a hundred shops instead of one. what difference does that make?" "when did it all begin?" i says. "when did he first take notice of you like?" "the day before yesterday," she answers. "he had never seen me before," she says. "i was just 'cook'--something in a cap and apron that he passed occasionally on the stairs. on thursday he saw me in my best clothes, and fell in love with me. he doesn't know it himself, poor dear, not yet, but that's what he's done." well, i couldn't contradict her, not after the way i had seen him looking at her across the table. "what are your feelings towards him," i says, "to be quite honest? he's rather a good catch for a young person in your position." "that's my trouble," she says. "i can't help thinking of that. and then to be 'mrs. john parable'! that's enough to turn a woman's head." "he'd be a bit difficult to live with," i says. "geniuses always are," she says; "it's easy enough if you just think of them as children. he'd be a bit fractious at times, that's all. underneath, he's just the kindest, dearest--" "oh, you take your basket and go to high wycombe," i says. "he might do worse." i wasn't expecting them back soon, and they didn't come back soon. in the afternoon a motor stops at the gate, and out of it steps miss bulstrode, miss dorton--that's the young lady that writes for him--and mr. quincey. i told them i couldn't say when he'd be back, and they said it didn't matter, they just happening to be passing. "did anybody call on him yesterday?" asks miss bulstrode, careless like--"a lady?" "no," i says; "you are the first as yet." "he's brought his cook down with him, hasn't he?" says mr. quincey. "yes," i says, "and a very good cook too," which was the truth. "i'd like just to speak a few words with her," says miss bulstrode. "sorry, m'am," i says, "but she's out at present; she's gone to wycombe." "gone to wycombe!" they all says together. "to market," i says. "it's a little farther, but, of course, it stands to reason the shops there are better." they looked at one another. "that settles it," says mr. quincey. "delicacies worthy to be set before her not available nearer than wycombe, but must be had. there's going to be a pleasant little dinner here to-night." "the hussy!" says miss bulstrode, under her breath. they whispered together for a moment, then they turns to me. "good afternoon, mrs. meadows," says mr. quincey. "you needn't say we called. he wanted to be alone, and it might vex him." i said i wouldn't, and i didn't. they climbed back into the motor and went off. before dinner i had call to go into the woodshed. i heard a scuttling as i opened the door. if i am not mistaken, miss dorton was hiding in the corner where we keep the coke. i didn't see any good in making a fuss, so i left her there. when i got back to the kitchen, cook asked me if we'd got any parsley. "you'll find a bit in the front," i says, "to the left of the gate," and she went out. she came back looking scared. "anybody keep goats round here?" she asked me. "not that i know of, nearer than ibstone common," i says. "i could have sworn i saw a goat's face looking at me out of the gooseberry bushes while i was picking the parsley," she says. "it had a beard." "it's the half light," i says. "one can imagine anything." "i do hope i'm not getting nervy," she says. i thought i'd have another look round, and made the excuse that i wanted a pail of water. i was stooping over the well, which is just under the mulberry tree, when something fell close to me and lodged upon the bricks. it was a hairpin. i fixed the cover carefully upon the well in case of accident, and when i got in i went round myself and was careful to see that all the curtains were drawn. just before we three sat down to dinner again i took cook aside. "i shouldn't go for any stroll in the garden to-night," i says. "people from the village may be about, and we don't want them gossiping." and she thanked me. next night they were there again. i thought i wouldn't spoil the dinner, but mention it afterwards. i saw to it again that the curtains were drawn, and slipped the catch of both the doors. and just as well that i did. i had always heard that mr. parable was an amusing speaker, but on previous visits had not myself noticed it. but this time he seemed ten years younger than i had ever known him before; and during dinner, while we were talking and laughing quite merry like, i had the feeling more than once that people were meandering about outside. i had just finished clearing away, and cook was making the coffee, when there came a knock at the door. "who's that?" says mr. parable. "i am not at home to anyone." "i'll see," i says. and on my way i slipped into the kitchen. "coffee for one, cook," i says, and she understood. her cap and apron were hanging behind the door. i flung them across to her, and she caught them; and then i opened the front door. they pushed past me without speaking, and went straight into the parlour. and they didn't waste many words on him either. "where is she?" asked miss bulstrode. "where's who?" says mr. parable. "don't lie about it," said miss bulstrode, making no effort to control herself. "the hussy you've been dining with?" "do you mean mrs. meadows?" says mr. parable. i thought she was going to shake him. "where have you hidden her?" she says. it was at that moment cook entered with the coffee. if they had taken the trouble to look at her they might have had an idea. the tray was trembling in her hands, and in her haste and excitement she had put on her cap the wrong way round. but she kept control of her voice, and asked if she should bring some more coffee. "ah, yes! you'd all like some coffee, wouldn't you?" says mr. parable. miss bulstrode did not reply, but mr. quincey said he was cold and would like it. it was a nasty night, with a thin rain. "thank you, sir," says cook, and we went out together. cottages are only cottages, and if people in the parlour persist in talking loudly, people in the kitchen can't very well help overhearing. there was a good deal of talk about "fourteen days," which mr. parable said he was going to do himself, and which miss dorton said he mustn't, because, if he did, it would be a victory for the enemies of humanity. mr. parable said something about "humanity," which i didn't rightly hear, but, whatever it was, it started miss dorton crying; and miss bulstrode called mr. parable a "blind samson," who had had his hair cut by a designing minx who had been hired to do it. it was all french to me, but cook was drinking in every word, and when she returned from taking them in their coffee she made no bones about it, but took up her place at the door with her ear to the keyhole. it was mr. quincey who got them all quiet, and then he began to explain things. it seemed that if they could only find a certain gentleman and persuade him to come forward and acknowledge that he began a row, that then all would be well. mr. quincey would be fined forty shillings, and mr. parable's name would never appear. failing that, mr. parable, according to mr. quincey, could do his fourteen days himself. "i've told you once," says mr. parable, "and i tell you again, that i don't know the man's name, and can't give it you." "we are not asking you to," says mr. quincey. "you give us the name of your tango partner, and we'll do the rest." i could see cook's face; i had got a bit interested myself, and we were both close to the door. she hardly seemed to be breathing. "i am sorry," says mr. parable, speaking very deliberate-like, "but i am not going to have her name dragged into this business." "it wouldn't be," says mr. quincey. "all we want to get out of her is the name and address of the gentleman who was so anxious to see her home." "who was he?" says miss bulstrode. "her husband?" "no," says mr. parable; "he wasn't." "then who was he?" says miss bulstrode. "he must have been something to her--fiance?" "i am going to do the fourteen days myself," says mr. parable. "i shall come out all the fresher after a fortnight's complete rest and change." cook leaves the door with a smile on her face that made her look quite beautiful, and, taking some paper from the dresser drawer, began to write a letter. they went on talking in the other room for another ten minutes, and then mr. parable lets them out himself, and goes a little way with them. when he came back we could hear him walking up and down the other room. she had written and stamped the envelope; it was lying on the table. "'joseph onions, esq.,'" i says, reading the address. "'auctioneer and house agent, broadway, hammersmith.' is that the young man?" "that is the young man," she says, folding her letter and putting it in the envelope. "and was he your fiance?" i asked. "no," she says. "but he will be if he does what i'm telling him to do." "and what about mr. parable?" i says. "a little joke that will amuse him later on," she says, slipping a cloak on her shoulders. "how once he nearly married his cook." "i shan't be a minute," she says. and, with the letter in her hand, she slips out. mrs. meadows, we understand, has expressed indignation at our publication of this interview, she being under the impression that she was simply having a friendly gossip with a neighbour. our representative, however, is sure he explained to mrs. meadows that his visit was official; and, in any case, our duty to the public must be held to exonerate us from all blame in the matter. * * * mr. joseph onions, of the broadway, hammersmith, auctioneer and house agent, expressed himself to our representative as most surprised at the turn that events had subsequently taken. the letter that mr. onions received from miss comfort price was explicit and definite. it was to the effect that if he would call upon a certain mr. quincey, of harcourt buildings, temple, and acknowledge that it was he who began the row at the earl's court exhibition on the evening of the twenty-seventh, that then the engagement between himself and miss price, hitherto unacknowledged by the lady, might be regarded as a fact. mr. onions, who describes himself as essentially a business man, decided before complying with miss price's request to take a few preliminary steps. as the result of judiciously conducted inquiries, first at the vine street police station, and secondly at twickenham, mr. onions arrived later in the day at mr. quincey's chambers, with, to use his own expression, all the cards in his hand. it was mr. quincey who, professing himself unable to comply with mr. onion's suggestion, arranged the interview with miss bulstrode. and it was miss bulstrode herself who, on condition that mr. onions added to the undertaking the further condition that he would marry miss price before the end of the month, offered to make it two hundred. it was in their joint interest--mr. onions regarding himself and miss price as now one--that mr. onions suggested her making it three, using such arguments as, under the circumstances, naturally occurred to him--as, for example, the damage caused to the lady's reputation by the whole proceedings, culminating in a night spent by the lady, according to her own account, on ham common. that the price demanded was reasonable mr. onions considers as proved by miss bulstrode's eventual acceptance of his terms. that, having got out of him all that he wanted, mr. quincey should have "considered it his duty" to communicate the entire details of the transaction to miss price, through the medium of mr. andrews, thinking it "as well she should know the character of the man she proposed to marry," mr. onions considers a gross breach of etiquette as between gentlemen; and having regard to miss price's after behaviour, mr. onions can only say that she is not the girl he took her for. mr. aaron andrews, on whom our representative called, was desirous at first of not being drawn into the matter; but on our representative explaining to him that our only desire was to contradict false rumours likely to be harmful to mr. parable's reputation, mr. andrews saw the necessity of putting our representative in possession of the truth. she came back on tuesday afternoon, explained mr. andrews, and i had a talk with her. "it is all right, mr. andrews," she told me; "they've been in communication with my young man, and miss bulstrode has seen the magistrate privately. the case will be dismissed with a fine of forty shillings, and mr. quincey has arranged to keep it out of the papers." "well, all's well that ends well," i answered; "but it might have been better, my girl, if you had mentioned that young man of yours a bit earlier." "i did not know it was of any importance," she explained. "mr. parable told me nothing. if it hadn't been for chance, i should never have known what was happening." i had always liked the young woman. mr. quincey had suggested my waiting till after wednesday. but there seemed to me no particular object in delay. "are you fond of him?" i asked her. "yes," she answered. "i am fonder than--" and then she stopped herself suddenly and flared scarlet. "who are you talking about?" she demanded. "this young man of yours," i said. "mr.--what's his name--onions?" "oh, that?" she answered. "oh, yes; he's all right." "and if he wasn't?" i said, and she looked at me hard. "i told him," she said, "that if he would do what i asked him to do, i'd marry him. and he seems to have done it." "there are ways of doing everything," i said; and, seeing it wasn't going to break her heart, i told her just the plain facts. she listened without a word, and when i had finished she put her arms round my neck and kissed me. i am old enough to be her grandfather, but twenty years ago it might have upset me. "i think i shall be able to save miss bulstrode that three hundred pounds," she laughed, and ran upstairs and changed her things. when later i looked into the kitchen she was humming. mr. john came up by the car, and i could see he was in one of his moods. "pack me some things for a walking tour," he said. "don't forget the knapsack. i am going to scotland by the eight-thirty." "will you be away long?" i asked him. "it depends upon how long it takes me," he answered. "when i come back i am going to be married." "who is the lady?" i asked, though, of course, i knew. "miss bulstrode," he said. "well," i said, "she--" "that will do," he said; "i have had all that from the three of them for the last two days. she is a socialist, and a suffragist, and all the rest of it, and my ideal helpmate. she is well off, and that will enable me to devote all my time to putting the world to rights without bothering about anything else. our home will be the nursery of advanced ideas. we shall share together the joys and delights of the public platform. what more can any man want?" "you will want your dinner early," i said, "if you are going by the eight-thirty. i had better tell cook--" he interrupted me again. "you can tell cook to go to the devil," he said. i naturally stared at him. "she is going to marry a beastly little rotter of a rent collector that she doesn't care a damn for," he went on. i could not understand why he seemed so mad about it. "i don't see, in any case, what it's got to do with you," i said, "but, as a matter of fact, she isn't." "isn't what?" he said, stopping short and turning on me. "isn't going to marry him," i answered. "why not?" he demanded. "better ask her," i suggested. i didn't know at the time that it was a silly thing to say, and i am not sure that i should not have said it if i had. when he is in one of his moods i always seem to get into one of mine. i have looked after mr. john ever since he was a baby, so that we do not either of us treat the other quite as perhaps we ought to. "tell cook i want her," he said. "she is just in the middle--" i began. "i don't care where she is," he said. he seemed determined never to let me finish a sentence. "send her up here." she was in the kitchen by herself. "he wants to see you at once," i said. "who does?" she asked. "mr. john," i said. "what's he want to see me for?" she asked. "how do i know?" i answered. "but you do," she said. she always had an obstinate twist in her, and, feeling it would save time, i told her what had happened. "well," i said, "aren't you going?" she was standing stock still staring at the pastry she was making. she turned to me, and there was a curious smile about her lips. "do you know what you ought to be wearing?" she said. "wings, and a little bow and arrow." she didn't even think to wipe her hands, but went straight upstairs. it was about half an hour later when the bell rang. mr. john was standing by the window. "is that bag ready?" he said. "it will be," i said. i went out into the hall and returned with the clothes brush. "what are you going to do?" he said. "perhaps you don't know it," i said, "but you are all over flour." "cook's going with me to scotland," he said. i have looked after mr. john ever since he was a boy. he was forty-two last birthday, but when i shook hands with him through the cab window i could have sworn he was twenty-five again. the lesson. the first time i met him, to my knowledge, was on an evil-smelling, one-funnelled steam boat that in those days plied between london bridge and antwerp. he was walking the deck arm-in-arm with a showily dressed but decidedly attractive young woman; both of them talking and laughing loudly. it struck me as odd, finding him a fellow-traveller by such a route. the passage occupied eighteen hours, and the first-class return fare was one pound twelve and six, including three meals each way; drinks, as the contract was careful to explain, being extra. i was earning thirty shillings a week at the time as clerk with a firm of agents in fenchurch street. our business was the purchasing of articles on commission for customers in india, and i had learned to be a judge of values. the beaver lined coat he was wearing--for the evening, although it was late summer, was chilly--must have cost him a couple of hundred pounds, while his carelessly displayed jewellery he could easily have pawned for a thousand or more. i could not help staring at him, and once, as they passed, he returned my look. after dinner, as i was leaning with my back against the gunwale on the starboard side, he came out of the only private cabin that the vessel boasted, and taking up a position opposite to me, with his legs well apart and a big cigar between his thick lips, stood coolly regarding me, as if appraising me. "treating yourself to a little holiday on the continent?" he inquired. i had not been quite sure before he spoke, but his lisp, though slight, betrayed the jew. his features were coarse, almost brutal; but the restless eyes were so brilliant, the whole face so suggestive of power and character, that, taking him as a whole, the feeling he inspired was admiration, tempered by fear. his tone was one of kindly contempt--the tone of a man accustomed to find most people his inferiors, and too used to the discovery to be conceited about it. behind it was a note of authority that it did not occur to me to dispute. "yes," i answered, adding the information that i had never been abroad before, and had heard that antwerp was an interesting town. "how long have you got?" he asked. "a fortnight," i told him. "like to see a bit more than antwerp, if you could afford it, wouldn't you?" he suggested. "fascinating little country holland. just long enough--a fortnight--to do the whole of it. i'm a dutchman, a dutch jew." "you speak english just like an englishman," i told him. it was somehow in my mind to please him. i could hardly have explained why. "and half a dozen other languages equally well," he answered, laughing. "i left amsterdam when i was eighteen as steerage passenger in an emigrant ship. i haven't seen it since." he closed the cabin door behind him, and, crossing over, laid a strong hand on my shoulder. "i will make a proposal to you," he said. "my business is not of the kind that can be put out of mind, even for a few days, and there are reasons"--he glanced over his shoulder towards the cabin door, and gave vent to a short laugh--"why i did not want to bring any of my own staff with me. if you care for a short tour, all expenses paid at slap-up hotels and a ten-pound note in your pocket at the end, you can have it for two hours' work a day." i suppose my face expressed my acceptance, for he did not wait for me to speak. "only one thing i stipulate for," he added, "that you mind your own business and keep your mouth shut. you're by yourself, aren't you?" "yes," i told him. he wrote on a sheet of his notebook, and, tearing it out, handed it to me. "that's your hotel at antwerp," he said. "you are mr. horatio jones's secretary." he chuckled to himself as he repeated the name, which certainly did not fit him. "knock at my sitting-room door at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. good night!" he ended the conversation as abruptly as he had begun it, and returned to his cabin. i got a glimpse of him next morning, coming out of the hotel bureau. he was speaking to the manager in french, and had evidently given instructions concerning me, for i found myself preceded by an obsequious waiter to quite a charming bedroom on the second floor, while the "english breakfast" placed before me later in the coffee-room was of a size and character that in those days i did not often enjoy. about the work, also, he was as good as his word. i was rarely occupied for more than two hours each morning. the duties consisted chiefly of writing letters and sending off telegrams. the letters he signed and had posted himself, so that i never learnt his real name--not during that fortnight--but i gathered enough to be aware that he was a man whose business interests must have been colossal and world-wide. he never introduced me to "mrs. horatio jones," and after a few days he seemed to be bored with her, so that often i would take her place as his companion in afternoon excursions. i could not help liking the man. strength always compels the adoration of youth; and there was something big and heroic about him. his daring, his swift decisions, his utter unscrupulousness, his occasional cruelty when necessity seemed to demand it. one could imagine him in earlier days a born leader of savage hordes, a lover of fighting for its own sake, meeting all obstacles with fierce welcome, forcing his way onward, indifferent to the misery and destruction caused by his progress, his eyes never swerving from their goal; yet not without a sense of rough justice, not altogether without kindliness when it could be indulged in without danger. one afternoon he took me with him into the jewish quarter of amsterdam, and threading his way without hesitation through its maze of unsavoury slums, paused before a narrow three-storeyed house overlooking a stagnant backwater. "the room i was born in," he explained. "window with the broken pane on the second floor. it has never been mended." i stole a glance at him. his face betrayed no suggestion of sentiment, but rather of amusement. he offered me a cigar, which i was glad of, for the stench from the offal-laden water behind us was distracting, and for a while we both smoked in silence: he with his eyes half-closed; it was a trick of his when working out a business problem. "curious, my making such a choice," he remarked. "a butcher's assistant for my father and a consumptive buttonhole-maker for my mother. i suppose i knew what i was about. quite the right thing for me to have done, as it turned out." i stared at him, wondering whether he was speaking seriously or in grim jest. he was given at times to making odd remarks. there was a vein of the fantastic in him that was continually cropping out and astonishing me. "it was a bit risky," i suggested. "better choose something a little safer next time." he looked round at me sharply, and, not quite sure of his mood, i kept a grave face. "perhaps you are right," he agreed, with a laugh. "we must have a talk about it one day." after that visit to the goortgasse he was less reserved with me, and would often talk to me on subjects that i should never have guessed would have interested him. i found him a curious mixture. behind the shrewd, cynical man of business i caught continual glimpses of the visionary. i parted from him at the hague. he paid my fare back to london, and gave me an extra pound for travelling expenses, together with the ten-pound note he had promised me. he had packed off "mrs. horatio jones" some days before, to the relief, i imagine, of both of them, and he himself continued his journey to berlin. i never expected to see him again, although for the next few months i often thought of him, and even tried to discover him by inquiries in the city. i had, however, very little to go upon, and after i had left fenchurch street behind me, and drifted into literature, i forgot him. until one day i received a letter addressed to the care of my publishers. it bore the swiss postmark, and opening it and turning to the signature i sat wondering for the moment where i had met "horatio jones." and then i remembered. he was lying bruised and broken in a woodcutter's hut on the slopes of the jungfrau. had been playing a fool's trick, so he described it, thinking he could climb mountains at his age. they would carry him down to lauterbrunnen as soon as he could be moved farther with safety, but for the present he had no one to talk to but the nurse and a swiss doctor who climbed up to see him every third day. he begged me, if i could spare the time, to come over and spend a week with him. he enclosed a hundred-pound cheque for my expenses, making no apology for doing so. he was complimentary about my first book, which he had been reading, and asked me to telegraph him my reply, giving me his real name, which, as i had guessed it would, proved to be one of the best known in the financial world. my time was my own now, and i wired him that i would be with him the following monday. he was lying in the sun outside the hut when i arrived late in the afternoon, after a three-hours' climb followed by a porter carrying my small amount of luggage. he could not raise his hand, but his strangely brilliant eyes spoke their welcome. "i am glad you were able to come," he said. "i have no near relations, and my friends--if that is the right term--are business men who would be bored to tears. besides, they are not the people i feel i want to talk to, now." he was entirely reconciled to the coming of death. indeed, there were moments when he gave me the idea that he was looking forward to it with an awed curiosity. with the conventional notion of cheering him, i talked of staying till he was able to return with me to civilisation, but he only laughed. "i am not going back," he said. "not that way. what they may do afterwards with these broken bones does not much concern either you or me. "it's a good place to die in," he continued. "a man can think up here." it was difficult to feel sorry for him, his own fate appearing to make so little difference to himself. the world was still full of interest to him--not his own particular corner of it: that, he gave me to understand, he had tidied up and dismissed from his mind. it was the future, its coming problems, its possibilities, its new developments, about which he seemed eager to talk. one might have imagined him a young man with the years before him. one evening--it was near the end--we were alone together. the woodcutter and his wife had gone down into the valley to see their children, and the nurse, leaving him in my charge, had gone for a walk. we had carried him round to his favourite side of the hut facing the towering mass of the jungfrau. as the shadows lengthened it seemed to come nearer to us, and there fell a silence upon us. gradually i became aware that his piercing eyes were fixed on me, and in answer i turned and looked at him. "i wonder if we shall meet again," he said, "or, what is more important, if we shall remember one another." i was puzzled for the moment. we had discussed more than once the various religions of mankind, and his attitude towards the orthodox beliefs had always been that of amused contempt. "it has been growing upon me these last few days," he continued. "it flashed across me the first time i saw you on the boat. we were fellow-students. something, i don't know what, drew us very close together. there was a woman. they were burning her. and then there was a rush of people and a sudden darkness, and your eyes close to mine." i suppose it was some form of hypnotism, for, as he spoke, his searching eyes fixed on mine, there came to me a dream of narrow streets filled with a strange crowd, of painted houses such as i had never seen, and a haunting fear that seemed to be always lurking behind each shadow. i shook myself free, but not without an effort. "so that's what you meant," i said, "that evening in the goortgasse. you believe in it?" "a curious thing happened to me," he said, "when i was a child. i could hardly have been six years old. i had gone to ghent with my parents. i think it was to visit some relative. one day we went into the castle. it was in ruins then, but has since been restored. we were in what was once the council chamber. i stole away by myself to the other end of the great room and, not knowing why i did so, i touched a spring concealed in the masonry, and a door swung open with a harsh, grinding noise. i remember peering round the opening. the others had their backs towards me, and i slipped through and closed the door behind me. i seemed instinctively to know my way. i ran down a flight of steps and along dark corridors through which i had to feel my way with my hands, till i came to a small door in an angle of the wall. i knew the room that lay the other side. a photograph was taken of it and published years afterwards, when the place was discovered, and it was exactly as i knew it with its way out underneath the city wall through one of the small houses in the aussermarkt. "i could not open the door. some stones had fallen against it, and fearing to get punished, i made my way back into the council room. it was empty when i reached it. they were searching for me in the other rooms, and i never told them of my adventure." at any other time i might have laughed. later, recalling his talk that evening, i dismissed the whole story as mere suggestion, based upon the imagination of a child; but at the time those strangely brilliant eyes had taken possession of me. they remained still fixed upon me as i sat on the low rail of the veranda watching his white face, into which the hues of death seemed already to be creeping. i had a feeling that, through them, he was trying to force remembrance of himself upon me. the man himself--the very soul of him--seemed to be concentrated in them. something formless and yet distinct was visualising itself before me. it came to me as a physical relief when a spasm of pain caused him to turn his eyes away from me. "you will find a letter when i am gone," he went on, after a moment's silence. "i thought that you might come too late, or that i might not have strength enough to tell you. i felt that out of the few people i have met outside business, you would be the most likely not to dismiss the matter as mere nonsense. what i am glad of myself, and what i wish you to remember, is that i am dying with all my faculties about me. the one thing i have always feared through life was old age, with its gradual mental decay. it has always seemed to me that i have died more or less suddenly while still in possession of my will. i have always thanked god for that." he closed his eyes, but i do not think he was sleeping; and a little later the nurse returned, and we carried him indoors. i had no further conversation with him, though at his wish during the following two days i continued to read to him, and on the third day he died. i found the letter he had spoken of. he had told me where it would be. it contained a bundle of banknotes which he was giving me--so he wrote--with the advice to get rid of them as quickly as possible. "if i had not loved you," the letter continued, "i would have left you an income, and you would have blessed me, instead of cursing me, as you should have done, for spoiling your life." this world was a school, so he viewed it, for the making of men; and the one thing essential to a man was strength. one gathered the impression of a deeply religious man. in these days he would, no doubt, have been claimed as a theosophist; but his beliefs he had made for, and adapted to, himself--to his vehement, conquering temperament. god needed men to serve him--to help him. so, through many changes, through many ages, god gave men life: that by contest and by struggle they might ever increase in strength; to those who proved themselves most fit the sterner task, the humbler beginnings, the greater obstacles. and the crown of well-doing was ever victory. he appeared to have convinced himself that he was one of the chosen, that he was destined for great ends. he had been a slave in the time of the pharaohs; a priest in babylon; had clung to the swaying ladders in the sack of rome; had won his way into the councils when europe was a battlefield of contending tribes; had climbed to power in the days of the borgias. to most of us, i suppose, there come at odd moments haunting thoughts of strangely familiar, far-off things; and one wonders whether they are memories or dreams. we dismiss them as we grow older and the present with its crowding interests shuts them out; but in youth they were more persistent. with him they appeared to have remained, growing in reality. his recent existence, closed under the white sheet in the hut behind me as i read, was only one chapter of the story; he was looking forward to the next. he wondered, so the letter ran, whether he would have any voice in choosing it. in either event he was curious of the result. what he anticipated confidently were new opportunities, wider experience. in what shape would these come to him? the letter ended with a strange request. it was that, on returning to england, i should continue to think of him: not of the dead man i had known, the jewish banker, the voice familiar to me, the trick of speech, of manner--all such being but the changing clothes--but of the man himself, the soul of him, that would seek and perhaps succeed in revealing itself to me. a postscript concluded the letter, to which at the time i attached no importance. he had made a purchase of the hut in which he had died. after his removal it was to remain empty. i folded the letter and placed it among other papers, and passing into the hut took a farewell glance at the massive, rugged face. the mask might have served a sculptor for the embodiment of strength. he gave one the feeling that having conquered death he was sleeping. i did what he had requested of me. indeed, i could not help it. i thought of him constantly. that may have been the explanation of it. i was bicycling through norfolk, and one afternoon, to escape a coming thunderstorm, i knocked at the door of a lonely cottage on the outskirts of a common. the woman, a kindly bustling person, asked me in; and hoping i would excuse her, as she was busy ironing, returned to her work in another room. i thought myself alone, and was standing at the window watching the pouring rain. after a while, without knowing why, i turned. and then i saw a child seated on a high chair behind a table in a dark corner of the room. a book of pictures was open before it, but it was looking at me. i could hear the sound of the woman at her ironing in the other room. outside there was the steady thrashing of the rain. the child was looking at me with large, round eyes filled with a terrible pathos. i noticed that the little body was misshapen. it never moved; it made no sound; but i had the feeling that out of those strangely wistful eyes something was trying to speak to me. something was forming itself before me--not visible to my sight; but it was there, in the room. it was the man i had last looked upon as, dying, he sat beside me in the hut below the jungfrau. but something had happened to him. moved by instinct i went over to him and lifted him out of his chair, and with a sob the little wizened arms closed round my neck and he clung to me crying--a pitiful, low, wailing cry. hearing his cry, the woman came back. a comely, healthy-looking woman. she took him from my arms and comforted him. "he gets a bit sorry for himself at times," she explained. "at least, so i fancy. you see, he can't run about like other children, or do anything without getting pains." "was it an accident?" i asked. "no," she answered, "and his father as fine a man as you would find in a day's march. just a visitation of god, as they tell me. sure i don't know why. there never was a better little lad, and clever, too, when he's not in pain. draws wonderfully." the storm had passed. he grew quieter in her arms, and when i had promised to come again and bring him a new picture-book, a little grateful smile flickered across the drawn face, but he would not talk. i kept in touch with him. mere curiosity would have made me do that. he grew more normal as the years went by, and gradually the fancy that had come to me at our first meeting faded farther into the background. sometimes, using the very language of the dead man's letter, i would talk to him, wondering if by any chance some flash of memory would come back to him, and once or twice it seemed to me that into the mild, pathetic eyes there came a look that i had seen before, but it passed away, and indeed, it was difficult to think of this sad little human oddity, with its pleading helplessness, in connection with the strong, swift, conquering spirit that i had watched passing away amid the silence of the mountains. the one thing that brought joy to him was his art. i cannot help thinking that, but for his health, he would have made a name for himself. his work was always clever and original, but it was the work of an invalid. "i shall never be great," he said to me once. "i have such wonderful dreams, but when it comes to working them out there is something that hampers me. it always seems to me as if at the last moment a hand was stretched out that clutched me by the feet. i long so, but i have not the strength. it is terrible to be one of the weaklings." it clung to me, that word he had used. for a man to know he is weak; it sounds a paradox, but a man must be strong to know that. and dwelling upon this, and upon his patience and his gentleness, there came to me suddenly remembrance of that postscript, the significance of which i had not understood. he was a young man of about three- or four-and-twenty at the time. his father had died, and he was living in poor lodgings in the south of london, supporting himself and his mother by strenuous, ill-paid work. "i want you to come with me for a few days' holiday," i told him. i had some difficulty in getting him to accept my help, for he was very proud in his sensitive, apologetic way. but i succeeded eventually, persuading him it would be good for his work. physically the journey must have cost him dear, for he could never move his body without pain, but the changing landscapes and the strange cities more than repaid him; and when one morning i woke him early and he saw for the first time the distant mountains clothed in dawn, there came a new light into his eyes. we reached the hut late in the afternoon. i had made my arrangements so that we should be there alone. our needs were simple, and in various wanderings i had learnt to be independent. i did not tell him why i had brought him there, beyond the beauty and stillness of the place. purposely i left him much alone there, making ever-lengthening walks my excuse, and though he was always glad of my return i felt that the desire was growing upon him to be there by himself. one evening, having climbed farther than i had intended, i lost my way. it was not safe in that neighbourhood to try new pathways in the dark, and chancing upon a deserted shelter, i made myself a bed upon the straw. i found him seated outside the hut when i returned, and he greeted me as if he had been expecting me just at that moment and not before. he guessed just what had happened, he told me, and had not been alarmed. during the day i found him watching me, and in the evening, as we sat in his favourite place outside the hut, he turned to me. "you think it true?" he said. "that you and i sat here years ago and talked?" "i cannot tell," i answered. "i only know that he died here, if there be such a thing as death--that no one has ever lived here since. i doubt if the door has ever been opened till we came." "they have always been with me," he continued, "these dreams. but i have always dismissed them. they seemed so ludicrous. always there came to me wealth, power, victory. life was so easy." he laid his thin hand on mine. a strange new look came into his eyes--a look of hope, almost of joy. "do you know what it seems to me?" he said. "you will laugh perhaps, but the thought has come to me up here that god has some fine use for me. success was making me feeble. he has given me weakness and failure that i may learn strength. the great thing is to be strong." sylvia of the letters. old ab herrick, so most people called him. not that he was actually old; the term was an expression of liking rather than any reflection on his years. he lived in an old-fashioned house--old-fashioned, that is, for new york--on the south side of west twentieth street: once upon a time, but that was long ago, quite a fashionable quarter. the house, together with mrs. travers, had been left him by a maiden aunt. an "apartment" would, of course, have been more suitable to a bachelor of simple habits, but the situation was convenient from a journalistic point of view, and for fifteen years abner herrick had lived and worked there. then one evening, after a three days' absence, abner herrick returned to west twentieth street, bringing with him a little girl wrapped up in a shawl, and a wooden box tied with a piece of cord. he put the box on the table; and the young lady, loosening her shawl, walked to the window and sat down facing the room. mrs. travers took the box off the table and put it on the floor--it was quite a little box--and waited. "this young lady," explained abner herrick, "is miss ann kavanagh, daughter of--of an old friend of mine." "oh!" said mrs. travers, and remained still expectant. "miss kavanagh," continued abner herrick, "will be staying with us for--" he appeared to be uncertain of the length of miss kavanagh's visit. he left the sentence unfinished and took refuge in more pressing questions. "what about the bedroom on the second floor? is it ready? sheets aired--all that sort of thing?" "it can be," replied mrs. travers. the tone was suggestive of judgment reserved. "i think, if you don't mind, mrs. travers, that we'd like to go to bed as soon as possible." from force of habit abner s. herrick in speaking employed as a rule the editorial "we." "we have been travelling all day and we are very tired. to-morrow morning--" "i'd like some supper," said miss kavanagh from her seat in the window, without moving. "of course," agreed miss kavanagh's host, with a feeble pretence that the subject had been on the tip of his tongue. as a matter of fact, he really had forgotten all about it. "we might have it up here while the room is being got ready. perhaps a little--" "a soft boiled egg and a glass of milk, if you please, mrs. travers," interrupted miss kavanagh, still from her seat at the window. "i'll see about it," said mrs. travers, and went out, taking the quite small box with her. such was the coming into this story of ann kavanagh at the age of eight years; or, as miss kavanagh herself would have explained, had the question been put to her, eight years and seven months, for ann kavanagh was a precise young lady. she was not beautiful--not then. she was much too sharp featured; the little pointed chin protruding into space to quite a dangerous extent. her large dark eyes were her one redeeming feature. but the level brows above them were much too ready with their frown. a sallow complexion and nondescript hair deprived her of that charm of colouring on which youth can generally depend for attraction, whatever its faults of form. nor could it truthfully be said that sweetness of disposition afforded compensation. "a self-willed, cantankerous little imp i call her," was mrs. travers's comment, expressed after one of the many trials of strength between them, from which miss kavanagh had as usual emerged triumphant. "it's her father," explained abner herrick, feeling himself unable to contradict. "it's unfortunate," answered mrs. travers, "whatever it is." to uncle ab himself, as she had come to call him, she could on occasion be yielding and affectionate; but that, as mrs. travers took care to point out to her, was a small thing to her credit. "if you had the instincts of an ordinary christian child," explained mrs. travers to her, "you'd be thinking twenty-four hours a day of what you could do to repay him for all his loving kindness to you; instead of causing him, as you know you do, a dozen heartaches in a week. you're an ungrateful little monkey, and when he's gone you'll--" upon which miss kavanagh, not waiting to hear more, flew upstairs and, locking herself in her own room, gave herself up to howling and remorse; but was careful not to emerge until she felt bad tempered again; and able, should opportunity present itself, to renew the contest with mrs. travers unhampered by sentiment. but mrs. travers's words had sunk in deeper than that good lady herself had hoped for; and one evening, when abner herrick was seated at his desk penning a scathing indictment of the president for lack of firmness and decision on the tariff question, ann, putting her thin arms round his neck and rubbing her little sallow face against his right-hand whisker, took him to task on the subject. "you're not bringing me up properly--not as you ought to," explained ann. "you give way to me too much, and you never scold me." "not scold you!" exclaimed abner with a certain warmth of indignation. "why, i'm doing it all--" "not what _i_ call scolding," continued ann. "it's very wrong of you. i shall grow up horrid if you don't help me." as ann with great clearness pointed out to him, there was no one else to undertake the job with any chance of success. if abner failed her, then she supposed there was no hope for her: she would end by becoming a wicked woman, and everybody, including herself, would hate her. it was a sad prospect. the contemplation of it brought tears to ann's eyes. he saw the justice of her complaint and promised to turn over a new leaf. he honestly meant to do so; but, like many another repentant sinner, found himself feeble before the difficulties of performance. he might have succeeded better had it not been for her soft deep eyes beneath her level brows. "you're not much like your mother," so he explained to her one day, "except about the eyes. looking into your eyes i can almost see your mother." he was smoking a pipe beside the fire, and ann, who ought to have been in bed, had perched herself upon one of the arms of his chair and was kicking a hole in the worn leather with her little heels. "she was very beautiful, my mother, wasn't she?" suggested ann. abner herrick blew a cloud from his pipe and watched carefully the curling smoke. "in a way, yes," he answered. "quite beautiful." "what do you mean, 'in a way'?" demanded ann with some asperity. "it was a spiritual beauty, your mother's," abner explained. "the soul looking out of her eyes. i don't think it possible to imagine a more beautiful disposition than your mother's. whenever i think of your mother," continued abner after a pause, "wordsworth's lines always come into my mind." he murmured the quotation to himself, but loud enough to be heard by sharp ears. miss kavanagh was mollified. "you were in love with my mother, weren't you?" she questioned him kindly. "yes, i suppose i was," mused abner, still with his gaze upon the curling smoke. "what do you mean by 'you suppose you were'?" snapped ann. "didn't you know?" the tone recalled him from his dreams. "i was in love with your mother very much," he corrected himself, turning to her with a smile. "then why didn't you marry her?" asked ann. "wouldn't she have you?" "i never asked her," explained abner. "why not?" persisted ann, returning to asperity. he thought a moment. "you wouldn't understand," he told her. "yes, i would," retorted ann. "no, you wouldn't," he contradicted her quite shortly. they were both beginning to lose patience with one another. "no woman ever could." "i'm not a woman," explained ann, "and i'm very smart. you've said so yourself." "not so smart as all that," growled abner. "added to which, it's time for you to go to bed." her anger with him was such that it rendered her absolutely polite. it had that occasional effect upon her. she slid from the arm of his chair and stood beside him, a rigid figure of frozen femininity. "i think you are quite right, uncle herrick. good night!" but at the door she could not resist a parting shot: "you might have been my father, and then perhaps she wouldn't have died. i think it was very wicked of you." after she was gone abner sat gazing into the fire, and his pipe went out. eventually the beginnings of a smile stole to the corners of his mouth, but before it could spread any farther he dismissed it with a sigh. abner, for the next day or two, feared a renewal of the conversation, but ann appeared to have forgotten it; and as time went by it faded from abner's own memory. until one evening quite a while later. the morning had brought him his english mail. it had been arriving with some regularity, and ann had noticed that abner always opened it before his other correspondence. one letter he read through twice, and ann, who was pretending to be reading the newspaper, felt that he was looking at her. "i have been thinking, my dear," said abner, "that it must be rather lonely for you here, all by yourself." "it would be," answered ann, "if i were here all by myself." "i mean," said abner, "without any other young person to talk to and--and to play with." "you forget," said ann, "that i'm nearly thirteen." "god bless my soul," said abner. "how time does fly!" "who is she?" asked ann. "it isn't a 'she,'" explained abner. "it's a 'he.' poor little chap lost his mother two years ago, and now his father's dead. i thought--it occurred to me we might put him up for a time. look after him a bit. what do you think? it would make the house more lively, wouldn't it?" "it might," said ann. she sat very silent, and abner, whose conscience was troubling him, watched her a little anxiously. after a time she looked up. "what's he like?" she asked. "precisely what i am wondering myself," confessed abner. "we shall have to wait and see. but his mother--his mother," repeated abner, "was the most beautiful woman i have ever known. if he is anything like she was as a girl--" he left the sentence unfinished. "you have not seen her since--since she was young?" questioned ann. abner shook his head. "she married an englishman. he took her back with him to london." "i don't like englishmen," said ann. "they have their points," suggested abner. "besides, boys take after their mothers, they say." and abner rose and gathered his letters together. ann remained very thoughtful all that day. in the evening, when abner for a moment laid down his pen for the purpose of relighting his pipe, ann came to him, seating herself on the corner of the desk. "i suppose," she said, "that's why you never married mother?" abner's mind at the moment was much occupied with the panama canal. "what mother?" he asked. "whose mother?" "my mother," answered ann. "i suppose men are like that." "what are you talking about?" said abner, dismissing altogether the panama canal. "you loved my mother very much," explained ann with cold deliberation. "she always made you think of wordsworth's perfect woman." "who told you all that?" demanded abner. "you did." "i did?" "it was the day you took me away from miss carew's because she said she couldn't manage me," ann informed him. "good lord! why, that must be two years ago," mused abner. "three," ann corrected him. "all but a few days." "i wish you'd use your memory for things you're wanted to remember," growled abner. "you said you had never asked her to marry you," pursued ann relentlessly; "you wouldn't tell me why. you said i shouldn't understand." "my fault," muttered abner. "i forget you're a child. you ask all sorts of questions that never ought to enter your head, and i'm fool enough to answer you." one small tear that had made its escape unnoticed by her was stealing down her cheek. he wiped it away and took one of her small paws in both his hands. "i loved your mother very dearly," he said gravely. "i had loved her from a child. but no woman will ever understand the power that beauty has upon a man. you see we're built that way. it's nature's lure. later on, of course, i might have forgotten; but then it was too late. can you forgive me?" "but you still love her," reasoned ann through her tears, "or you wouldn't want him to come here." "she had such a hard time of it," pleaded abner. "it made things easier to her, my giving her my word that i would always look after the boy. you'll help me?" "i'll try," said ann. but there was not much promise in the tone. nor did matthew pole himself, when he arrived, do much to help matters. he was so hopelessly english. at least, that was the way ann put it. he was shy and sensitive. it is a trying combination. it made him appear stupid and conceited. a lonely childhood had rendered him unsociable, unadaptable. a dreamy, imaginative temperament imposed upon him long moods of silence: a liking for long solitary walks. for the first time ann and mrs. travers were in agreement. "a sulky young dog," commented mrs. travers. "if i were your uncle i'd look out for a job for him in san francisco." "you see," said ann in excuse for him, "it's such a foggy country, england. it makes them like that." "it's a pity they can't get out of it," said mrs. travers. also, sixteen is an awkward age for a boy. virtues, still in the chrysalis state, are struggling to escape from their parent vices. pride, an excellent quality making for courage and patience, still appears in the swathings of arrogance. sincerity still expresses itself in the language of rudeness. kindness itself is apt to be mistaken for amazing impertinence and love of interference. it was kindness--a genuine desire to be useful, that prompted him to point out to ann her undoubted faults and failings, nerved him to the task of bringing her up in the way she should go. mrs. travers had long since washed her hands of the entire business. uncle ab, as matthew also called him, had proved himself a weakling. providence, so it seemed to matthew, must have been waiting impatiently for his advent. ann at first thought it was some new school of humour. when she found he was serious she set herself to cure him. but she never did. he was too conscientious for that. the instincts of the guide, philosopher, and friend to humanity in general were already too strong in him. there were times when abner almost wished that matthew pole senior had lived a little longer. but he did not lose hope. at the back of his mind was the fancy that these two children of his loves would come together. nothing is quite so sentimental as a healthy old bachelor. he pictured them making unity from his confusions; in imagination heard the patter on the stairs of tiny feet. to all intents and purposes he would be a grandfather. priding himself on his cunning, he kept his dream to himself, as he thought, but under-estimated ann's smartness. for days together she would follow matthew with her eyes, watching him from behind her long lashes, listening in silence to everything he said, vainly seeking to find points in him. he was unaware of her generous intentions. he had a vague feeling he was being criticised. he resented it even in those days. "i do try," said ann suddenly one evening apropos of nothing at all. "no one will ever know how hard i try not to dislike him." abner looked up. "sometimes," continued ann, "i tell myself i have almost succeeded. and then he will go and do something that will bring it all on again." "what does he do?" asked abner. "oh, i can't tell you," confessed ann. "if i told you it would sound as if it was my fault. it's all so silly. and then he thinks such a lot of himself. if one only knew why! he can't tell you himself when you ask him." "you have asked him?" queried abner. "i wanted to know," explained ann. "i thought there might be something in him that i could like." "why do you want to like him?" asked abner, wondering how much she had guessed. "i know," wailed ann. "you are hoping that when i am grown up i shall marry him. and i don't want to. it's so ungrateful of me." "well, you're not grown up yet," abner consoled her. "and so long as you are feeling like that about it, i'm not likely to want you to marry him." "it would make you so happy," sobbed ann. "yes, but we've got to think of the boy, don't forget that," laughed abner. "perhaps he might object." "he would. i know he would," cried ann with conviction. "he's no better than i am." "have you been asking him to?" demanded abner, springing up from his chair. "not to marry me," explained ann. "but i told him he must be an unnatural little beast not to try to like me when he knew how you loved me." "helpful way of putting it," growled abner. "and what did he say to that?" "admitted it," flashed ann indignantly. "said he had tried." abner succeeded in persuading her that the path of dignity and virtue lay in her dismissing the whole subject from her mind. he had made a mistake, so he told himself. age may be attracted by contrast, but youth has no use for its opposite. he would send matthew away. he could return for week-ends. continually so close to one another, they saw only one another's specks and flaws; there is no beauty without perspective. matthew wanted the corners rubbed off him, that was all. mixing more with men, his priggishness would be laughed out of him. otherwise he was quite a decent youngster, clean minded, high principled. clever, too: he often said quite unexpected things. with approaching womanhood, changes were taking place in ann. seeing her every day one hardly noticed them; but there were times when, standing before him flushed from a walk or bending over him to kiss him before starting for some friendly dance, abner would blink his eyes and be puzzled. the thin arms were growing round and firm; the sallow complexion warming into olive; the once patchy, mouse-coloured hair darkening into a rich harmony of brown. the eyes beneath her level brows, that had always been her charm, still reminded abner of her mother; but there was more light in them, more danger. "i'll run down to albany and talk to jephson about him," decided abner. "he can come home on saturdays." the plot might have succeeded: one never can tell. but a new york blizzard put a stop to it. the cars broke down, and abner, walking home in thin shoes from a meeting, caught a chill, which, being neglected, proved fatal. abner was troubled as he lay upon his bed. the children were sitting very silent by the window. he sent matthew out on a message, and then beckoned ann to come to him. he loved the boy, too, but ann was nearer to him. "you haven't thought any more," he whispered, "about--" "no," answered ann. "you wished me not to." "you must never think," he said, "to show your love for my memory by doing anything that would not make you happy. if i am anywhere around," he continued with a smile, "it will be your good i shall be watching for, not my own way. you will remember that?" he had meant to do more for them, but the end had come so much sooner than he had expected. to ann he left the house (mrs. travers had already retired on a small pension) and a sum that, judiciously invested, the friend and attorney thought should be sufficient for her needs, even supposing--the friend and attorney, pausing to dwell upon the oval face with its dark eyes, left the sentence unfinished. to matthew he wrote a loving letter, enclosing a thousand dollars. he knew that matthew, now in a position to earn his living as a journalist, would rather have taken nothing. it was to be looked upon merely as a parting gift. matthew decided to spend it on travel. it would fit him the better for his journalistic career, so he explained to ann. but in his heart he had other ambitions. it would enable him to put them to the test. so there came an evening when ann stood waving a handkerchief as a great liner cast its moorings. she watched it till its lights grew dim, and then returned to west twentieth street. strangers would take possession of it on the morrow. ann had her supper in the kitchen in company with the nurse, who had stayed on at her request; and that night, slipping noiselessly from her room, she lay upon the floor, her head resting against the arm of the chair where abner had been wont to sit and smoke his evening pipe; somehow it seemed to comfort her. and matthew the while, beneath the stars, was pacing the silent deck of the great liner and planning out the future. to only one other being had he ever confided his dreams. she lay in the churchyard; and there was nothing left to encourage him but his own heart. but he had no doubts. he would be a great writer. his two hundred pounds would support him till he had gained a foothold. after that he would climb swiftly. he had done right, so he told himself, to turn his back on journalism: the grave of literature. he would see men and cities, writing as he went. looking back, years later, he was able to congratulate himself on having chosen the right road. he thought it would lead him by easy ascent to fame and fortune. it did better for him than that. it led him through poverty and loneliness, through hope deferred and heartache--through long nights of fear, when pride and confidence fell upon him, leaving him only the courage to endure. his great poems, his brilliant essays, had been rejected so often that even he himself had lost all love for them. at the suggestion of an editor more kindly than the general run, and urged by need, he had written some short pieces of a less ambitious nature. it was in bitter disappointment he commenced them, regarding them as mere pot-boilers. he would not give them his name. he signed them "aston rowant." it was the name of the village in oxfordshire where he had been born. it occurred to him by chance. it would serve the purpose as well as another. as the work progressed it grew upon him. he made his stories out of incidents and people he had seen; everyday comedies and tragedies that he had lived among, of things that he had felt; and when after their appearance in the magazine a publisher was found willing to make them into a book, hope revived in him. it was but short-lived. the few reviews that reached him contained nothing but ridicule. so he had no place even as a literary hack! he was living in paris at the time in a noisy, evil-smelling street leading out of the quai saint-michel. he thought of chatterton, and would loaf on the bridges looking down into the river where the drowned lights twinkled. and then one day there came to him a letter, sent on to him from the publisher of his one book. it was signed "sylvia," nothing else, and bore no address. matthew picked up the envelope. the postmark was "london, s.e." it was a childish letter. a prosperous, well-fed genius, familiar with such, might have smiled at it. to matthew in his despair it brought healing. she had found the book lying in an empty railway carriage; and undeterred by moral scruples had taken it home with her. it had remained forgotten for a time, until when the end really seemed to have come her hand by chance had fallen on it. she fancied some kind little wandering spirit--the spirit perhaps of someone who had known what it was to be lonely and very sad and just about broken almost--must have manoeuvred the whole thing. it had seemed to her as though some strong and gentle hand had been laid upon her in the darkness. she no longer felt friendless. and so on. the book, he remembered, contained a reference to the magazine in which the sketches had first appeared. she would be sure to have noticed this. he would send her his answer. he drew his chair up to the flimsy table, and all that night he wrote. he did not have to think. it came to him, and for the first time since the beginning of things he had no fear of its not being accepted. it was mostly about himself, and the rest was about her, but to most of those who read it two months later it seemed to be about themselves. the editor wrote a charming letter, thanking him for it; but at the time the chief thing that worried him was whether "sylvia" had seen it. he waited anxiously for a few weeks, and then received her second letter. it was a more womanly letter than the first. she had understood the story, and her words of thanks almost conveyed to him the flush of pleasure with which she had read it. his friendship, she confessed, would be very sweet to her, and still more delightful the thought that he had need of her: that she also had something to give. she would write, as he wished, her real thoughts and feelings. they would never know one another, and that would give her boldness. they would be comrades, meeting only in dreamland. in this way commenced the whimsical romance of sylvia and aston rowant; for it was too late now to change the name--it had become a name to conjure with. the stories, poems, and essays followed now in regular succession. the anxiously expected letters reached him in orderly procession. they grew in interest, in helpfulness. they became the letters of a wonderfully sane, broad-minded, thoughtful woman--a woman of insight, of fine judgment. their praise was rare enough to be precious. often they would contain just criticism, tempered by sympathy, lightened by humour. of her troubles, sorrows, fears, she came to write less and less, and even then not until they were past and she could laugh at them. the subtlest flattery she gave him was the suggestion that he had taught her to put these things into their proper place. intimate, self-revealing as her letters were, it was curious he never shaped from them any satisfactory image of the writer. a brave, kind, tender woman. a self-forgetting, quickly-forgiving woman. a many-sided woman, responding to joy, to laughter: a merry lady, at times. yet by no means a perfect woman. there could be flashes of temper, one felt that; quite often occasional unreasonableness; a tongue that could be cutting. a sweet, restful, greatly loving woman, but still a woman: it would be wise to remember that. so he read her from her letters. but herself, the eyes, and hair, and lips of her, the voice and laugh and smile of her, the hands and feet of her, always they eluded him. he was in alaska one spring, where he had gone to collect material for his work, when he received the last letter she ever wrote him. they neither of them knew then it would be the last. she was leaving london, so the postscript informed him, sailing on the following saturday for new york, where for the future she intended to live. it worried him that postscript. he could not make out for a long time why it worried him. suddenly, in a waste of endless snows, the explanation flashed across him. sylvia of the letters was a living woman! she could travel--with a box, he supposed, possibly with two or three, and parcels. could take tickets, walk up a gangway, stagger about a deck feeling, maybe, a little seasick. all these years he had been living with her in dreamland she had been, if he had only known it, a miss somebody-or-other, who must have stood every morning in front of a looking-glass with hairpins in her mouth. he had never thought of her doing these things; it shocked him. he could not help feeling it was indelicate of her--coming to life in this sudden, uncalled-for manner. he struggled with this new conception of her, and had almost forgiven her, when a further and still more startling suggestion arrived to plague him. if she really lived why should he not see her, speak to her? so long as she had remained in her hidden temple, situate in the vague recesses of london, s.e., her letters had contented him. but now that she had moved, now that she was no longer a voice but a woman! well, it would be interesting to see what she was like. he imagined the introduction: "miss somebody-or-other, allow me to present you to mr. matthew pole." she would have no idea he was aston rowant. if she happened to be young, beautiful, in all ways satisfactory, he would announce himself. how astonished, how delighted she would be. but if not! if she were elderly, plain? the wisest, wittiest of women have been known to have an incipient moustache. a beautiful spirit can, and sometimes does, look out of goggle eyes. suppose she suffered from indigestion and had a shiny nose! would her letters ever again have the same charm for him? absurd that they should not. but would they? the risk was too great. giving the matter long and careful consideration, he decided to send her back into dreamland. but somehow she would not go back into dreamland, would persist in remaining in new york, a living, breathing woman. yet even so, how could he find her? he might, say, in a poem convey to her his desire for a meeting. would she comply? and if she did, what would be his position, supposing the inspection to result unfavourably for her? could he, in effect, say to her: "thank you for letting me have a look at you; that is all i wanted. good-bye"? she must, she should remain in dreamland. he would forget her postscript; in future throw her envelopes unglanced at into the wastepaper basket. having by this simple exercise of his will replaced her in london, he himself started for new york--on his way back to europe, so he told himself. still, being in new york, there was no reason for not lingering there a while, if merely to renew old memories. of course, if he had really wanted to find sylvia it would have been easy from the date upon the envelope to have discovered the ship "sailing the following saturday." passengers were compelled to register their names in full, and to state their intended movements after arrival in america. sylvia was not a common christian name. by the help of a five-dollar bill or two--. the idea had not occurred to him before. he dismissed it from his mind and sought a quiet hotel up town. new york was changed less than he had anticipated. west twentieth street in particular was precisely as, leaning out of the cab window, he had looked back upon it ten years ago. business had more and more taken possession of it, but had not as yet altered its appearance. his conscience smote him as he turned the corner that he had never once written to ann. he had meant to, it goes without saying, but during those first years of struggle and failure his pride had held him back. she had always thought him a fool; he had felt she did. he would wait till he could write to her of success, of victory. and then when it had slowly, almost imperceptibly, arrived--! he wondered why he never had. quite a nice little girl, in some respects. if only she had been less conceited, less self-willed. also rather a pretty girl she had shown signs of becoming. there were times-- he remembered an evening before the lamps were lighted. she had fallen asleep curled up in abner's easy chair, one small hand resting upon the arm. she had always had quite attractive hands--a little too thin. something had moved him to steal across softly without waking her. he smiled at the memory. and then her eyes, beneath the level brows! it was surprising how ann was coming back to him. perhaps they would be able to tell him, the people of the house, what had become of her. if they were decent people they would let him wander round a while. he would explain that he had lived there in abner herrick's time. the room where they had sometimes been agreeable to one another while abner, pretending to read, had sat watching them out of the corner of an eye. he would like to sit there for a few moments, by himself. he forgot that he had rung the bell. a very young servant had answered the door and was staring at him. he would have walked in if the small servant had not planted herself deliberately in his way. it recalled him to himself. "i beg pardon," said matthew, "but would you please tell me who lives here?" the small servant looked him up and down with growing suspicion. "miss kavanagh lives here," she said. "what do you want?" the surprise was so great it rendered him speechless. in another moment the small servant would have slammed the door. "miss ann kavanagh?" he inquired, just in time. "that's her name," admitted the small servant, less suspicious. "will you please tell her mr. pole--mr. matthew pole," he requested. "i'll see first if she is in," said the small servant, and shut the door. it gave matthew a few minutes to recover himself, for which he was glad. then the door opened again suddenly. "you are to come upstairs," said the small servant. it sounded so like ann that it quite put him at his ease. he followed the small servant up the stairs. "mr. matthew pole," she announced severely, and closed the door behind him. ann was standing by the window and came to meet him. it was in front of abner's empty chair that they shook hands. "so you have come back to the old house," said matthew. "yes," she answered. "it never let well. the last people who had it gave it up at christmas. it seemed the best thing to do, even from a purely economical point of view. "what have you been doing all these years?" she asked him. "oh, knocking about," he answered. "earning my living." he was curious to discover what she thought of matthew, first of all. "it seems to have agreed with you," she commented, with a glance that took him in generally, including his clothes. "yes," he answered. "i have had more luck than perhaps i deserved." "i am glad of that," said ann. he laughed. "so you haven't changed so very much," he said. "except in appearance. "isn't that the most important part of a woman?" suggested ann. "yes," he answered, thinking. "i suppose it is." she was certainly very beautiful. "how long are you stopping in new york?" she asked him. "oh, not long," he explained. "don't leave it for another ten years," she said, "before letting me know what is happening to you. we didn't get on very well together as children; but we mustn't let him think we're not friends. it would hurt him." she spoke quite seriously, as if she were expecting him any moment to open the door and join them. involuntarily matthew glanced round the room. nothing seemed altered. the worn carpet, the faded curtains, abner's easy chair, his pipe upon the corner of the mantelpiece beside the vase of spills. "it is curious," he said, "finding this vein of fancy, of tenderness in you. i always regarded you as such a practical, unsentimental young person." "perhaps we neither of us knew each other too well, in those days," she answered. the small servant entered with the tea. "what have you been doing with yourself?" he asked, drawing his chair up to the table. she waited till the small servant had withdrawn. "oh, knocking about," she answered. "earning my living." "it seems to have agreed with you," he repeated, smiling. "it's all right now," she answered. "it was a bit of a struggle at first." "yes," he agreed. "life doesn't temper the wind to the human lamb. but was there any need in your case?" he asked. "i thought--" "oh, that all went," she explained. "except the house." "i'm sorry," said matthew. "i didn't know." "oh, we have been a couple of pigs," she laughed, replying to his thoughts. "i did sometimes think of writing you. i kept the address you gave me. not for any assistance; i wanted to fight it out for myself. but i was a bit lonely." "why didn't you?" he asked. she hesitated for a moment. "it's rather soon to make up one's mind," she said, "but you seem to me to have changed. your voice sounds so different. but as a boy--well, you were a bit of a prig, weren't you? i imagined you writing me good advice and excellent short sermons. and it wasn't that that i was wanting." "i think i understand," he said. "i'm glad you got through. "what is your line?" he asked. "journalism?" "no," she answered. "too self-opinionated." she opened a bureau that had always been her own and handed him a programme. "miss ann kavanagh, contralto," was announced on it as one of the chief attractions. "i didn't know you had a voice," said matthew. "you used to complain of it," she reminded him. "your speaking voice," he corrected her. "and it wasn't the quality of that i objected to. it was the quantity." she laughed. "yes, we kept ourselves pretty busy bringing one another up," she admitted. they talked a while longer: of abner and his kind, quaint ways; of old friends. ann had lost touch with most of them. she had studied singing in brussels, and afterwards her master had moved to london and she had followed him. she had only just lately returned to new york. the small servant entered to clear away the tea things. she said she thought that ann had rung. her tone implied that anyhow it was time she had. matthew rose and ann held out her hand. "i shall be at the concert," he said. "it isn't till next week," ann reminded him. "oh, i'm not in any particular hurry," said matthew. "are you generally in of an afternoon?" "sometimes," said ann. he thought as he sat watching her from his stall that she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. her voice was not great. she had warned him not to expect too much. "it will never set the thames on fire," she had said. "i thought at first that it would. but such as it is i thank god for it." it was worth that. it was sweet and clear and had a tender quality. matthew waited for her at the end. she was feeling well disposed towards all creatures and accepted his suggestion of supper with gracious condescension. he had called on her once or twice during the preceding days. it was due to her after his long neglect of her, he told himself, and had found improvement in her. but to-night she seemed to take a freakish pleasure in letting him see that there was much of the old ann still left in her: the frank conceit of her; the amazing self-opinionatedness of her; the waywardness, the wilfulness, the unreasonableness of her; the general uppishness and dictatorialness of her; the contradictoriness and flat impertinence of her; the swift temper and exasperating tongue of her. it was almost as if she were warning him. "you see, i am not changed, except, as you say, in appearance. i am still ann with all the old faults and failings that once made life in the same house with me a constant trial to you. just now my very imperfections appear charms. you have been looking at the sun--at the glory of my face, at the wonder of my arms and hands. your eyes are blinded. but that will pass. and underneath i am still ann. just ann." they had quarrelled in the cab on the way home. he forgot what it was about, but ann had said some quite rude things, and her face not being there in the darkness to excuse her, it had made him very angry. she had laughed again on the steps, and they had shaken hands. but walking home through the still streets sylvia had plucked at his elbow. what fools we mortals be--especially men! here was a noble woman--a restful, understanding, tenderly loving woman; a woman as nearly approaching perfection as it was safe for a woman to go! this marvellous woman was waiting for him with outstretched arms (why should he doubt it?)--and just because nature had at last succeeded in making a temporary success of ann's skin and had fashioned a rounded line above her shoulder-blade! it made him quite cross with himself. ten years ago she had been gawky and sallow-complexioned. ten years hence she might catch the yellow jaundice and lose it all. passages in sylvia's letters returned to him. he remembered that far-off evening in his paris attic when she had knocked at his door with her great gift of thanks. recalled how her soft shadow hand had stilled his pain. he spent the next two days with sylvia. he re-read all her letters, lived again the scenes and moods in which he had replied to them. her personality still defied the efforts of his imagination, but he ended by convincing himself that he would know her when he saw her. but counting up the women on fifth avenue towards whom he had felt instinctively drawn, and finding that the number had already reached eleven, began to doubt his intuition. on the morning of the third day he met ann by chance in a bookseller's shop. her back was towards him. she was glancing through aston rowant's latest volume. "what i," said the cheerful young lady who was attending to her, "like about him is that he understands women so well." "what i like about him," said ann, "is that he doesn't pretend to." "there's something in that," agreed the cheerful young lady. "they say he's here in new york." ann looked up. "so i've been told," said the cheerful young lady. "i wonder what he's like?" said ann. "he wrote for a long time under another name," volunteered the cheerful young lady. "he's quite an elderly man." it irritated matthew. he spoke without thinking. "no, he isn't," he said. "he's quite young." the ladies turned and looked at him. "you know him?" queried ann. she was most astonished, and appeared disbelieving. that irritated him further. "if you care about it," he said. "i will introduce you to him." ann made no answer. he bought a copy of the book for himself, and they went out together. they turned towards the park. ann seemed thoughtful. "what is he doing here in new york?" she wondered. "looking for a lady named sylvia," answered matthew. he thought the time was come to break it to her that he was a great and famous man. then perhaps she would be sorry she had said what she had said in the cab. seeing he had made up his mind that his relationship to her in the future would be that of an affectionate brother, there would be no harm in also letting her know about sylvia. that also might be good for her. they walked two blocks before ann spoke. matthew, anticipating a pleasurable conversation, felt no desire to hasten matters. "how intimate are you with him?" she demanded. "i don't think he would have said that to a mere acquaintance." "i'm not a mere acquaintance," said matthew. "i've known him a long time." "you never told me," complained ann. "didn't know it would interest you," replied matthew. he waited for further questions, but they did not come. at thirty-fourth street he saved her from being run over and killed, and again at forty-second street. just inside the park she stopped abruptly and held out her hand. "tell him," she replied, "that if he is really serious about finding sylvia, i may--i don't say i can--but i may be able to help him." he did not take her hand, but stood stock still in the middle of the path and stared at her. "you!" he said. "you know her?" she was prepared for his surprise. she was also prepared--not with a lie, that implies evil intention. her only object was to have a talk with the gentleman and see what he was like before deciding on her future proceedings--let us say, with a plausible story. "we crossed on the same boat," she said. "we found there was a good deal in common between us. she--she told me things." when you came to think it out it was almost the truth. "what is she like?" demanded matthew. "oh, just--well, not exactly--" it was an awkward question. there came to her relief the reflection that there was really no need for her to answer it. "what's it got to do with you?" she said. "i am aston rowant," said matthew. the central park, together with the universe in general, fell away and disappeared. somewhere out of chaos was sounding a plaintive voice: "what is she like? can't you tell me? is she young or old?" it seemed to have been going on for ages. she made one supreme gigantic effort, causing the central park to reappear, dimly, faintly, but it was there again. she was sitting on a seat. matthew--aston rowant, whatever it was--was seated beside her. "you've seen her? what is she like?" "i can't tell you." he was evidently very cross with her. it seemed so unkind of him. "why can't you tell me--or, why won't you tell me? do you mean she's too awful for words?" "no, certainly not--as a matter of fact--" "well, what?" she felt she must get away or there would be hysterics somewhere. she sprang up and began to walk rapidly towards the gate. he followed her. "i'll write you," said ann. "but why--?" "i can't," said ann. "i've got a rehearsal." a car was passing. she made a dash for it and clambered on. before he could make up his mind it had gathered speed. ann let herself in with her key. she called downstairs to the small servant that she wasn't to be disturbed for anything. she locked the door. so it was to matthew that for six years she had been pouring out her inmost thoughts and feelings! it was to matthew that she had laid bare her tenderest, most sacred dreams! it was at matthew's feet that for six years she had been sitting, gazing up with respectful admiration, with reverential devotion! she recalled her letters, almost passage for passage, till she had to hold her hands to her face to cool it. her indignation, one might almost say fury, lasted till tea-time. in the evening--it was in the evening time that she had always written to him--a more reasonable frame of mind asserted itself. after all, it was hardly his fault. he couldn't have known who she was. he didn't know now. she had wanted to write. without doubt he had helped her, comforted her loneliness; had given her a charming friendship, a delightful comradeship. much of his work had been written for her, to her. it was fine work. she had been proud of her share in it. even allowing there were faults--irritability, shortness of temper, a tendency to bossiness!--underneath it all was a man. the gallant struggle, the difficulties overcome, the long suffering, the high courage--all that she, reading between the lines, had divined of his life's battle! yes, it was a man she had worshipped. a woman need not be ashamed of that. as matthew he had seemed to her conceited, priggish. as aston rowant she wondered at his modesty, his patience. and all these years he had been dreaming of her; had followed her to new york; had-- there came a sudden mood so ludicrous, so absurdly unreasonable that ann herself stopped to laugh at it. yet it was real, and it hurt. he had come to new york thinking of sylvia, yearning for sylvia. he had come to new york with one desire: to find sylvia. and the first pretty woman that had come across his path had sent sylvia clean out of his head. there could be no question of that. when ann kavanagh stretched out her hand to him in that very room a fortnight ago he had stood before her dazzled, captured. from that moment sylvia had been tossed aside and forgotten. ann kavanagh could have done what she liked with him. she had quarrelled with him that evening of the concert. she had meant to quarrel with him. and then for the first time he had remembered sylvia. that was her reward--sylvia's: it was sylvia she was thinking of--for six years' devoted friendship; for the help, the inspiration she had given him. as sylvia, she suffered from a very genuine and explainable wave of indignant jealousy. as ann, she admitted he ought not to have done it, but felt there was excuse for him. between the two she feared her mind would eventually give way. on the morning of the second day she sent matthew a note asking him to call in the afternoon. sylvia might be there, or she might not. she would mention it to her. she dressed herself in a quiet, dark-coloured frock. it seemed uncommittal and suitable to the occasion. it also happened to be the colour that best suited her. she would not have the lamps lighted. matthew arrived in a dark serge suit and a blue necktie, so that the general effect was quiet. ann greeted him with kindliness and put him with his face to what little light there was. she chose for herself the window-seat. sylvia had not arrived. she might be a little late--that is, if she came at all. they talked about the weather for a while. matthew was of opinion they were going to have some rain. ann, who was in one of her contradictory moods, thought there was frost in the air. "what did you say to her?" he asked. "sylvia? oh, what you told me," replied ann. "that you had come to new york to--to look for her." "what did she say?" he asked. "said you'd taken your time about it," retorted ann. matthew looked up with an injured expression. "it was her own idea that we should never meet," he explained. "um!" ann grunted. "what do you think yourself she will be like?" she continued. "have you formed any notion?" "it is curious," he replied. "i have never been able to conjure up any picture of her until just now." "why 'just now'?" demanded ann. "i had an idea i should find her here when i opened the door," he answered. "you were standing in the shadow. it seemed to be just what i had expected." "you would have been satisfied?" she asked. "yes," he said. there was silence for a moment. "uncle ab made a mistake," he continued. "he ought to have sent me away. let me come home now and then." "you mean," said ann, "that if you had seen less of me you might have liked me better?" "quite right," he admitted. "we never see the things that are always there." "a thin, gawky girl with a bad complexion," she suggested. "would it have been of any use?" "you must always have been wonderful with those eyes," he answered. "and your hands were beautiful even then." "i used to cry sometimes when i looked at myself in the glass as a child," she confessed. "my hands were the only thing that consoled me." "i kissed them once," he told her. "you were asleep, curled up in uncle ab's chair." "i wasn't asleep," said ann. she was seated with one foot tucked underneath her. she didn't look a bit grown up. "you always thought me a fool," he said. "it used to make me so angry with you," said ann, "that you seemed to have no go, no ambition in you. i wanted you to wake up--do something. if i had known you were a budding genius--" "i did hint it to you," said he. "oh, of course it was all my fault," said ann. he rose. "you think she means to come?" he asked. ann also had risen. "is she so very wonderful?" she asked. "i may be exaggerating to myself," he answered. "but i am not sure that i could go on with my work without her--not now." "you forgot her," flashed ann, "till we happened to quarrel in the cab." "i often do," he confessed. "till something goes wrong. then she comes to me. as she did on that first evening, six years ago. you see, i have been more or less living with her since then," he added with a smile. "in dreamland," ann corrected. "yes, but in my case," he answered, "the best part of my life is passed in dreamland." "and when you are not in dreamland?" she demanded. "when you're just irritable, short-tempered, cranky matthew pole. what's she going to do about you then?" "she'll put up with me," said matthew. "no she won't," said ann. "she'll snap your head off. most of the 'putting up with' you'll have to do." he tried to get between her and the window, but she kept her face close to the pane. "you make me tired with sylvia," she said. "it's about time you did know what she's like. she's just the commonplace, short-tempered, disagreeable-if-she-doesn't-get-her-own-way, unreasonable woman. only more so." he drew her away from the window by brute force. "so you're sylvia," he said. "i thought that would get it into your head," said ann. it was not at all the way she had meant to break it to him. she had meant the conversation to be chiefly about sylvia. she had a high opinion of sylvia, a much higher opinion than she had of ann kavanagh. if he proved to be worthy of her--of sylvia, that is, then, with the whimsical smile that she felt belonged to sylvia, she would remark quite simply, "well, what have you got to say to her?" what had happened to interfere with the programme was ann kavanagh. it seemed that ann kavanagh had disliked matthew pole less than she had thought she did. it was after he had sailed away that little ann kavanagh had discovered this. if only he had shown a little more interest in, a little more appreciation of, ann kavanagh! he could be kind and thoughtful in a patronising sort of way. even that would not have mattered if there had been any justification for his airs of superiority. ann kavanagh, who ought to have taken a back seat on this occasion, had persisted in coming to the front. it was so like her. "well," she said, "what are you going to say to her?" she did get it in, after all. "i was going," said matthew, "to talk to her about art and literature, touching, maybe, upon a few other subjects. also, i might have suggested our seeing each other again once or twice, just to get better acquainted. and then i was going away." "why going away?" asked ann. "to see if i could forget you." she turned to him. the fading light was full upon her face. "i don't believe you could--again," she said. "no," he agreed. "i'm afraid i couldn't." "you're sure there's nobody else," said ann, "that you're in love with. only us two?" "only you two," he said. she was standing with her hand on old abner's empty chair. "you've got to choose," she said. she was trembling. her voice sounded just a little hard. he came and stood beside her. "i want ann," he said. she held out her hand to him. "i'm so glad you said ann," she laughed. the fawn gloves. always he remembered her as he saw her first: the little spiritual face, the little brown shoes pointed downwards, their toes just touching the ground; the little fawn gloves folded upon her lap. he was not conscious of having noticed her with any particular attention: a plainly dressed, childish-looking figure alone on a seat between him and the setting sun. even had he felt curious his shyness would have prevented his deliberately running the risk of meeting her eyes. yet immediately he had passed her he saw her again, quite clearly: the pale oval face, the brown shoes, and, between them, the little fawn gloves folded one over the other. all down the broad walk and across primrose hill, he saw her silhouetted against the sinking sun. at least that much of her: the wistful face and the trim brown shoes and the little folded hands; until the sun went down behind the high chimneys of the brewery beyond swiss cottage, and then she faded. she was there again the next evening, precisely in the same place. usually he walked home by the hampstead road. only occasionally, when the beauty of the evening tempted him, would he take the longer way by regent street and through the park. but so often it made him feel sad, the quiet park, forcing upon him the sense of his own loneliness. he would walk down merely as far as the great vase, so he arranged with himself. if she were not there--it was not likely that she would be--he would turn back into albany street. the newsvendors' shops with their display of the cheaper illustrated papers, the second-hand furniture dealers with their faded engravings and old prints, would give him something to look at, to take away his thoughts from himself. but seeing her in the distance, almost the moment he had entered the gate, it came to him how disappointed he would have been had the seat in front of the red tulip bed been vacant. a little away from her he paused, turning to look at the flowers. he thought that, waiting his opportunity, he might be able to steal a glance at her undetected. once for a moment he did so, but venturing a second time their eyes met, or he fancied they did, and blushing furiously he hurried past. but again she came with him, or, rather, preceded him. on each empty seat between him and the sinking sun he saw her quite plainly: the pale oval face and the brown shoes, and, between them, the fawn gloves folded one upon the other. only this evening, about the small, sensitive mouth there seemed to be hovering just the faintest suggestion of a timid smile. and this time she lingered with him past queen's crescent and the malden road, till he turned into carlton street. it was dark in the passage, and he had to grope his way up the stairs, but with his hand on the door of the bed-sitting room on the third floor he felt less afraid of the solitude that would rise to meet him. all day long in the dingy back office in abingdon street, westminster, where from ten to six each day he sat copying briefs and petitions, he thought over what he would say to her; tactful beginnings by means of which he would slide into conversation with her. up portland place he would rehearse them to himself. but at cambridge gate, when the little fawn gloves came in view, the words would run away, to join him again maybe at the gate into the chester road, leaving him meanwhile to pass her with stiff, hurried steps and eyes fixed straight in front of him. and so it might have continued, but that one evening she was no longer at her usual seat. a crowd of noisy children swarmed over it, and suddenly it seemed to him as if the trees and flowers had all turned drab. a terror gnawed at his heart, and he hurried on, more for the need of movement than with any definite object. and just beyond a bed of geraniums that had hidden his view she was seated on a chair, and stopping with a jerk absolutely in front of her, he said, quite angrily: "oh! there you are!" which was not a bit the speech with which he had intended to introduce himself, but served his purpose just as well--perhaps better. she did not resent his words or the tone. "it was the children," she explained. "they wanted to play; so i thought i would come on a little farther." upon which, as a matter of course, he took the chair beside her, and it did not occur to either of them that they had not known one another since the beginning, when between st. john's wood and albany street god planted a garden. each evening they would linger there, listening to the pleading passion of the blackbird's note, the thrush's call to joy and hope. he loved her gentle ways. from the bold challenges, the sly glances of invitation flashed upon him in the street or from some neighbouring table in the cheap luncheon room he had always shrunk confused and awkward. her shyness gave him confidence. it was she who was half afraid, whose eyes would fall beneath his gaze, who would tremble at his touch, giving him the delights of manly dominion, of tender authority. it was he who insisted on the aristocratic seclusion afforded by the private chair; who, with the careless indifference of a man to whom pennies were unimportant, would pay for them both. once on his way through piccadilly circus he had paused by the fountain to glance at a great basket of lilies of the valley, struck suddenly by the thought how strangely their little pale petals seemed suggestive of her. "'ere y' are, honey. her favourite flower!" cried the girl, with a grin, holding a bunch towards him. "how much?" he had asked, vainly trying to keep the blood from rushing to his face. the girl paused a moment, a coarse, kindly creature. "sixpence," she demanded; and he bought them. she had meant to ask him a shilling, and knew he would have paid it. "same as silly fool!" she called herself as she pocketed the money. he gave them to her with a fine lordly air, and watched her while she pinned them to her blouse, and a squirrel halting in the middle of the walk watched her also with his head on one side, wondering what was the good of them that she should store them with so much care. she did not thank him in words, but there were tears in her eyes when she turned her face to his, and one of the little fawn gloves stole out and sought his hand. he took it in both his, and would have held it, but she withdrew it almost hurriedly. they appealed to him, her gloves, in spite of their being old and much mended; and he was glad they were of kid. had they been of cotton, such as girls of her class usually wore, the thought of pressing his lips to them would have put his teeth on edge. he loved the little brown shoes, that must have been expensive when new, for they still kept their shape. and the fringe of dainty petticoat, always so spotless and with never a tear, and the neat, plain stockings that showed below the closely fitting frock. so often he had noticed girls, showily, extravagantly dressed, but with red bare hands and sloppy shoes. handsome girls, some of them, attractive enough if you were not of a finicking nature, to whom the little accessories are almost of more importance than the whole. he loved her voice, so different from the strident tones that every now and then, as some couple, laughing and talking, passed them, would fall upon him almost like a blow; her quick, graceful movements that always brought back to his memory the vision of hill and stream. in her little brown shoes and gloves and the frock which was also of a shade of brown though darker, she was strangely suggestive to him of a fawn. the gentle look, the swift, soft movements that have taken place before they are seen; the haunting suggestion of fear never quite conquered, as if the little nervous limbs were always ready for sudden flight. he called her that one day. neither of them had ever thought to ask one another's names; it did not seem to matter. "my little brown fawn," he had whispered, "i am always expecting you to suddenly dig your little heels into the ground and spring away"; and she had laughed and drawn a little closer to him. and even that was just the movement of a fawn. he had known them, creeping near to them upon the hill-sides when he was a child. there was much in common between them, so they found. though he could claim a few distant relatives scattered about the north, they were both, for all practical purposes, alone in the world. to her, also, home meant a bed-sitting room--"over there," as she indicated with a wave of the little fawn glove embracing the north-west district generally; and he did not press her for any more precise address. it was easy enough for him to picture it: the mean, close-smelling street somewhere in the neighbourhood of lisson grove, or farther on towards the harrow road. always he preferred to say good-bye to her at some point in the outer circle, with its peaceful vista of fine trees and stately houses, watching her little fawn-like figure fading away into the twilight. no friend or relative had she ever known, except the pale, girlish-looking mother who had died soon after they had come to london. the elderly landlady had let her stay on, helping in the work of the house; and when even this last refuge had failed her, well-meaning folk had interested themselves and secured her employment. it was light and fairly well paid, but there were objections to it, so he gathered, more from her halting silences than from what she said. she had tried for a time to find something else, but it was so difficult without help or resources. there was nothing really to complain about it, except-- and then she paused with a sudden clasp of the gloved hands, and, seeing the troubled look in her eyes, he had changed the conversation. it did not matter; he would take her away from it. it was very sweet to him, the thought of putting a protective arm about this little fragile creature whose weakness gave him strength. he was not always going to be a clerk in an office. he was going to write poetry, books, plays. already he had earned a little. he told her of his hopes, and her great faith in him gave him new courage. one evening, finding a seat where few people ever passed, he read to her. and she had understood. all unconsciously she laughed in the right places, and when his own voice trembled, and he found it difficult to continue for the lump in his own throat, glancing at her he saw the tears were in her eyes. it was the first time he had tasted sympathy. and so spring grew to summer. and then one evening a great thing happened. he could not make out at first what it was about her: some little added fragrance that made itself oddly felt, while she herself seemed to be conscious of increased dignity. it was not until he took her hand to say good-bye that he discovered it. there was something different about the feel of her, and, looking down at the little hand that lay in his, he found the reason. she had on a pair of new gloves. they were still of the same fawn colour, but so smooth and soft and cool. they fitted closely without a wrinkle, displaying the slightness and the gracefulness of the hands beneath. the twilight had almost faded, and, save for the broad back of a disappearing policeman, they had the outer circle to themselves; and, the sudden impulse coming to him, he dropped on one knee, as they do in plays and story books and sometimes elsewhere, and pressed the little fawn gloves to his lips in a long, passionate kiss. the sound of approaching footsteps made him rise hurriedly. she did not move, but her whole body was trembling, and in her eyes was a look that was almost of fear. the approaching footsteps came nearer, but a bend of the road still screened them. swiftly and in silence she put her arms about his neck and kissed him. it was a strange, cold kiss, but almost fierce, and then without a word she turned and walked away; and he watched her to the corner of hanover gate, but she did not look back. it was almost as if it had raised a barrier between them, that kiss. the next evening she came to meet him with a smile as usual, but in her eyes was still that odd suggestion of lurking fear; and when, seated beside her, he put his hand on hers it seemed to him she shrank away from him. it was an unconscious movement. it brought back to him that haunting memory of hill and stream when some soft-eyed fawn, strayed from her fellows, would let him approach quite close to her, and then, when he put out his hand to caress her, would start away with a swift, quivering movement. "do you always wear gloves?" he asked her one evening a little later. "yes," she answered, speaking low; "when i'm out of doors." "but this is not out of doors," he had pleaded. "we have come into the garden. won't you take them off?" she had looked at him from under bent brows, as if trying to read him. she did not answer him then. but on the way out, on the last seat close to the gate, she had sat down, motioning him to sit beside her. quietly she unbuttoned the fawn gloves; drew each one off and laid them aside. and then, for the first time, he saw her hands. had he looked at her, seen the faint hope die out, the mute agony in the quiet eyes watching him, he would have tried to hide the disgust, the physical repulsion that showed itself so plainly in his face, in the involuntary movement with which he drew away from her. they were small and shapely with rounded curves, but raw and seared as with hot irons, with a growth of red, angry-coloured warts, and the nails all worn away. "i ought to have shown them to you before," she said simply as she drew the gloves on again. "it was silly of me. i ought to have known." he tried to comfort her, but his phrases came meaningless and halting. it was the work, she explained as they walked on. it made your hands like that after a time. if only she could have got out of it earlier! but now! it was no good worrying about it now. they parted near to the hanover gate, but to-night he did not stand watching her as he had always done till she waved a last good-bye to him just before disappearing; so whether she turned or not he never knew. he did not go to meet her the next evening. a dozen times his footsteps led him unconsciously almost to the gate. then he would hurry away again, pace the mean streets, jostling stupidly against the passers-by. the pale, sweet face, the little nymph-like figure, the little brown shoes kept calling to him. if only there would pass away the horror of those hands! all the artist in him shuddered at the memory of them. always he had imagined them under the neat, smooth gloves as fitting in with all the rest of her, dreaming of the time when he would hold them in his own, caressing them, kissing them. would it be possible to forget them, to reconcile oneself to them? he must think--must get away from these crowded streets where faces seemed to grin at him. he remembered that parliament had just risen, that work was slack in the office. he would ask that he might take his holiday now--the next day. and they had agreed. he packed a few things into a knapsack. from the voices of the hills and streams he would find counsel. he took no count of his wanderings. one evening at a lonely inn he met a young doctor. the innkeeper's wife was expecting to be taken with child that night, and the doctor was waiting downstairs till summoned. while they were talking, the idea came to him. why had he not thought of it? overcoming his shyness, he put his questions. what work would it be that would cause such injuries? he described them, seeing them before him in the shadows of the dimly lighted room, those poor, pitiful little hands. oh! a dozen things might account for it--the doctor's voice sounded callous--the handling of flax, even of linen under certain conditions. chemicals entered so much nowadays into all sorts of processes and preparations. all this new photography, cheap colour printing, dyeing and cleaning, metal work. might all be avoided by providing rubber gloves. it ought to be made compulsory. the doctor seemed inclined to hold forth. he interrupted him. but could it be cured? was there any hope? cured? hope? of course it could be cured. it was only local--the effect being confined to the hands proved that. a poisoned condition of the skin aggravated by general poverty of blood. take her away from it; let her have plenty of fresh air and careful diet, using some such simple ointment or another as any local man, seeing them, would prescribe; and in three or four months they would recover. he could hardly stay to thank the young doctor. he wanted to get away by himself, to shout, to wave his arms, to leap. had it been possible he would have returned that very night. he cursed himself for the fancifulness that had prevented his inquiring her address. he could have sent a telegram. rising at dawn, for he had not attempted to sleep, he walked the ten miles to the nearest railway station, and waited for the train. all day long it seemed to creep with him through the endless country. but london came at last. it was still the afternoon, but he did not care to go to his room. leaving his knapsack at the station, he made his way to westminster. he wanted all things to be unchanged, so that between this evening and their parting it might seem as if there had merely passed an ugly dream; and timing himself, he reached the park just at their usual hour. he waited till the gates were closed, but she did not come. all day long at the back of his mind had been that fear, but he had driven it away. she was ill, just a headache, or merely tired. and the next evening he told himself the same. he dared not whisper to himself anything else. and each succeeding evening again. he never remembered how many. for a time he would sit watching the path by which she had always come; and when the hour was long past he would rise and walk towards the gate, look east and west, and then return. one evening he stopped one of the park-keepers and questioned him. yes, the man remembered her quite well: the young lady with the fawn gloves. she had come once or twice--maybe oftener, the park-keeper could not be sure--and had waited. no, there had been nothing to show that she was in any way upset. she had just sat there for a time, now and then walking a little way and then coming back again, until the closing hour, and then she had gone. he left his address with the park-keeper. the man promised to let him know if he ever saw her there again. sometimes, instead of the park, he would haunt the mean streets about lisson grove and far beyond the other side of the edgware road, pacing them till night fell. but he never found her. he wondered, beating against the bars of his poverty, if money would have helped him. but the grim, endless city, hiding its million secrets, seemed to mock the thought. a few pounds he had scraped together he spent in advertisements; but he expected no response, and none came. it was not likely she would see them. and so after a time the park, and even the streets round about it, became hateful to him; and he moved away to another part of london, hoping to forget. but he never quite succeeded. always it would come back to him when he was not thinking: the broad, quiet walk with its prim trees and gay beds of flowers. and always he would see her seated there, framed by the fading light. at least, that much of her: the little spiritual face, and the brown shoes pointing downwards, and between them the little fawn gloves folded upon her lap. green fire a romance by fiona macleod "_while still i may, i write for you the love i lived, the dream i knew_" new york harper & brothers publishers copyright, , by harper & brothers. _all rights reserved._ to esclarmoundo "_nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum._"--ovid "_there are those of us who would rather be with cathal of the woods, and be drunken with green fire, than gain the paradise of the holy molios who banned him, if in that gain were to be heard no more the earth-sweet ancient song of the blood that is in the veins of youth...._ "_o green fire of life, pulse of the world! o love, o youth, o dream of dreams!_ "the annir choille." contents book first the birds of angus ogue chap. page i. eucharis ii. the house of kerival iii. storm iv. the dream and the dreamers v. the walker in the night vi. via oscura vii. "deireadh gach cogaidh, sith" (the end of all warfare, peace) viii. the unfolding of the scroll book second the herdsman ix. retrospective: from the hebrid isles x. at the edge of the shadow xi. mystery xii. in the green arcades xiii. the message xiv. the laughter of the king book third xv. the beauty of the world green fire book first _the birds of angus ogue_ hither and thither, and to and fro, they thrid the maze of weal and woe: o winds that blow for golden weather blow me the birds, all white as snow on the hillside heather-- blow me the birds that angus know: blow me the birds, be it weal or woe! chapter i eucharis _then, in the violet forest, all a-bourgeon, eucharis said to me: "it is spring."_--arthur rimbaud. after the dim purple bloom of a suspended spring, a green rhythm ran from larch to thorn, from lime to sycamore; spread from meadow to meadow, from copse to copse, from hedgerow to hedgerow. the blackthorn had already snowed upon the nettle-garths. in the obvious nests among the bare boughs of ash and beech the eggs of the blackbird were blue-green as the sky that march had bequeathed to april. for days past, when the breath of the equinox had surged out of the west, the missel-thrushes had bugled from the wind-swayed topmost branches of the tallest elms. everywhere the green rhythm ran. in every leaf that had uncurled there was a delicate bloom, that which is upon all things in the first hours of life. the spires of the grass were washed in a green, dewy light. out of the brown earth a myriad living things thrust tiny green shafts, arrow-heads, bulbs, spheres, clusters. along the pregnant soil keener ears than ours would have heard the stir of new life, the innumerous whisper of the bursting seed; and, in the wind itself, shepherding the shadow-chased sunbeams, the voice of that vernal gladness which has been man's clarion since time began. day by day the wind-wings lifted a more multitudinous whisper from the woodlands. the deep hyperborean note, from the invisible ocean of air, was still audible: within the concourse of bare boughs which lifted against it, that surging voice could not but have an echo of its wintry roar. in the sun-havens, however, along the southerly copses, in daisied garths of orchard-trees, amid the flowering currant and guelder and lilac bushes in quiet places where the hives were all a-murmur, the wind already sang its lilt of spring. from dawn till noon, from an hour before sundown till the breaking foam along the wild cherry flushed fugitively because of the crimson glow out of the west, there was a ceaseless chittering of birds. the starlings and the sparrows enjoyed the commune of the homestead; the larks and fieldfares and green and yellow linnets congregated in the meadows, where, too, the wild bee already roved. among the brown ridgy fallows there was a constant flutter of black, white-gleaming, and silver-gray wings, where the stalking rooks, the jerking pewets, and the wary, uncertain gulls from the neighboring sea, feasted tirelessly from the teeming earth. often, too, the wind-hover, that harbinger of the season of the young broods, quivered his curved wings in his arrested flight, while his lance-like gaze penetrated the whins, beneath which a new-born rabbit crawled, or discerned in the tangle of a grassy tuft the brown, watchful eyes of a nesting quail. in the remoter woodlands the three foresters of april could be heard: the woodpecker tapping on the gnarled boles of the oaks; the wild-dove calling in low, crooning monotones to his silent mate; the cuckoo tolling his infrequent peals from skyey belfries built of sun and mist. in the fields, where the thorns were green as rivulets of melted snow and the grass had the bloom of emerald, and the leaves of docken, clover, cinquefoil, sorrel, and a thousand plants and flowers, were wave-green, the ewes lay, idly watching with their luminous amber eyes the frisking and leaping of the close-curled, tuft-tailed, woolly-legged lambs. in corners of the hedgerows, and in hollows in the rolling meadows, the primrose, the celandine, the buttercup, the dandelion, and the daffodil spilled little eddies of the sun-flood which overbrimmed them with light. all day long the rapture of the larks filled the blue air with vanishing spirals of music, swift and passionate in the ascent, repetitive and less piercing in the narrowing downward gyres. from every whin the poignant, monotonous note of the yellow-hammer reëchoed. each pastoral hedge was alive with robins, chaffinches, and the dusky shadows of the wild-mice darting here and there among the greening boughs. whenever this green fire is come upon the earth, the swift contagion spreads to the human heart. what the seedlings feel in the brown mould, what the sap feels in the trees, what the blood feels in every creature from the newt in the pool to the nesting bird--so feels the strange, remembering ichor that runs its red tides through human hearts and brains. spring has its subtler magic for us, because of the dim mysteries of unremembering remembrance and of the vague radiances of hope. something in us sings an ascendant song, and we expect, we know not what; something in us sings a decrescent song, and we realize vaguely the stirring of immemorial memories. there is none who will admit that spring is fairer elsewhere than in his own land. but there are regions where the season is so hauntingly beautiful that it would seem as though angus ogue knew them for his chosen resting-places in his green journey. angus og, angus macgreine, angus the ever youthful, the son of the sun, a fair god he indeed, golden-haired and wonderful as apollo chrusokomes. some say that he is love; some, that he is spring; some, even, that in him, thanatos, the hellenic celt that was his far-off kin, is reincarnate. but why seek riddles in flowing water? it may well be that angus ogue is love, and spring, and death. the elemental gods are ever triune; and in the human heart, in whose lost eden an ancient tree of knowledge grows wherefrom the mind has not yet gathered more than a few windfalls, it is surely sooth that death and love are oftentimes one and the same, and that they love to come to us in the apparel of spring. sure, indeed, angus ogue is a name above all sweet to lovers, for is he not the god--the fair youth of the tuatha-de-danann, the ancient people, with us still, though for ages seen of us no more--from the meeting of whose lips are born white birds, which fly abroad and nest in lovers' hearts till the moment come when, on the yearning lips of love, their invisible wings shall become kisses again? then, too, there is the old legend that angus goes to and fro upon the world, a weaver of rainbows. he follows the spring, or is its herald. often his rainbows are seen in the heavens; often in the rapt gaze of love. we have all perceived them in the eyes of children, and some of us have discerned them in the hearts of sorrowful women and in the dim brains of the old. ah! for sure, if angus og be the lovely weaver of hope he is deathless comrade of the spring, and we may well pray to him to let his green fire move in our veins, whether he be but the eternal youth of the world, or be also love, whose soul is youth, or even though he be likewise death himself, death to whom love was wedded long, long ago. * * * * * but nowhere was spring more lovely, nowhere was the green fire of life so quick with impulsive ardors, as, one year of the years, in a seaward region to the north of the ancient forest of broceliande, in what of old was armorica and now is brittany. here spring often comes late, but ever lingers long. here, too, in the dim green avenues of the oak-woods of kerival, the nightingales reach their uttermost western flight. never has the shepherd, tending his scant flock on the upland pastures of finistère, nor the fisherman lying a-dream amid the sandy thickets of ushant, heard that quaint music--that primeval and ever young song of the passionate heart which augustine might well have had in mind when he exclaimed "sero te amavi, pulchritudo, tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi." but, each april, in the woods of kerival, the nightingales congregate from afar, and through may their songs make the forest like a sanctuary filled with choristers swinging incense of a delicate music. it is a wonderful region, that which lies betwixt ploumaliou on the east and kerloek on the west; the oldest, remotest part of an ancient, remote land. here the few hamlets and fewer scattered villages are, even in externals, the same as they were a hundred or three hundred years ago. in essentials, there is no difference since st. hervé or st. ronan preached the new faith, or indeed since ahès the pale rode through the forest aisles in the moonlight and heard the nains chanting, or since king gradlon raced his horse against the foam when his daughter let the sea in upon the fair city of ys. the good _curés_ preach the religion of christ and of mary to the peasants; but in the minds of most of these there lingers much of the bygone faith that reared the menhirs. few indeed there are in whose ears is never an echo of the old haunted world, when every wood and stream, every barren moor and granite wilderness, every sea-pasture and creek and bay had its particular presence, its spirit of good or ill, its menace, its perilous enchantment. the eyes of the peasants by these shores, these moors, these windy hill-slopes of the south, are not fixed only on the meal-chest and the fallow-field, or, on fête-days, upon the crucifix in the little church; but often dwell upon a past time, more sacred now than ever in this bitter relinquishing age. on the lips of many may be heard lines from that sad folk-song, "ann amzer dremenet" (in the long ago): eur c'havel kaer karn olifant, war-n-han tachou aour hag arc' hant. daelou a ver, daelou c'houero: neb a zo enn han zo maro! zo maro, zo maro pell-zo, hag hi luskel, o kana 'to, hag hi luskel, luskel ato, kollet ar skiand-vad gant-ho. ar skiand-vad ho deuz kollet; kollet ho deuz joaiou ar bed. * * * * * [but when they had made the cradle of ivory and of gold, their hearts were heavy still with the sorrow of old. and ever as they rocked, the tears ran down, sad tears: who is it lieth dead therein, dead all these weary years? and still they rock that cradle there of ivory and gold; for in their brains the shadow is the shadow of old. they weep, and know not what they weep; they wait a vain rebirth: vanity of vanities, alas! for there is but one birth on the wide, green earth.] old sayings they have, too; who knows how old? the charcoal-burner in the woods above kerloek will still shudder at the thought of death on the bleak, open moor, because of the carrion-crow that awaits his sightless eyes, the fox that will tear his heart out, and the toad that will swallow his soul. long, long ago gwenc'hlan the bard sang thus of his foe and the foes of his people, when every battle field was a pasture for the birds and beasts of prey, and when the spirit of evil lurked near every corpse in the guise of a toad. and still the shrimper, in the sands beyond ploumaliou, will cry out against the predatory sea fowl _a gas ar gall--a gas ar gall!_ (chase the franks!) and not know that, ages ago, this cry went up from the greatest of breton kings, when nomenoë drove the frankish invaders beyond the oust and the vilaine, and lighted their flight by the flames of nantes and rennes. near the northern frontier of the remotest part of this ancient region, the manor of kerival was the light-house of its forest vicinage. it was and is surrounded by woods, for the most part of oak and chestnut and beech. therein are trees of an age so great that they may have sheltered the flight of jud mael, when ahès chased him on her white stallion from glade to glade, and one so venerably old that its roots may have been soaked in the blood of their child judik, whom she forced her betrayer to slay with the sword before she thrust a dagger into his heart. northward of the manor, however, the forest is wholly of melancholy spruce, of larch and pine. the pines extend in a desolate disarray to the interminable dunes, beyond which the breton sea lifts its gray wave against a gray horizon. on that shore there are few rocks, though here and there fang-like reefs rise, ready to tear and devour any boat hurled upon them at full tide in days of storm. at kerival haven, too, there is a wilderness of granite rock; a mass of pinnacles, buttresses, and inchoate confusion, ending in long, smooth ledges of black basalt, these forever washed by the green flow of the tides. none of the peasants knew the age of the house of kerival, or how long the kerival family had been there. old yann hénan, the blind brother of the white-haired _curé_, père alain, who was the oldest man in all the countryside, was wont to say that kerival woods had been green before ever there was a house on the banks of the seine, and that a kerival had been lord of the land before ever there was a king of france. all believed this, except père alain, and even he dissented only when yann spoke of the seigneur's ancestor as the marquis of kerival; for, as he explained, there were no marquises in those far-off days. but this went for nothing; for, unfortunately, père alain had once in his youth preached against the popular belief in korrigans and nains, and had said that these supernatural beings did not exist, or at any rate were never seen of man. how, then, could much credence be placed on the testimony of a man who could be so prejudiced? yann had but to sing a familiar snatch from the old ballad of "aotru nann hag ar gorrigan"--the fragment beginning ken a gavas eur waz vihan e-kichen ti eur gorrigan, and ending met gwell eo d'in mervel breman 'get dimizi d' eur gorrigan!-- [the lord nann came to the kelpie's pool and stooped to drink the water cool; but he saw the kelpie sitting by, combing her long locks listlessly. "o knight," she sang, "thou dost not fear to draw these perilous waters near! wed thou me now, or on a stone for seven years perish all alone, or three days hence moan your death-moan!" "i will not wed you, nor alone perish with torment on a stone, nor three days hence draw my death-moan-- for i shall die, o kelpie fair, when god lets down the golden stair, and so my soul thou shalt not share-- but, if my fate is to lie dead, here, with thy cold breast for my bed, death can be mine, i will not wed!"] when yann sang this, or told for the hundredth time the familiar story of how paskou-hir the tailor was treated by the nains when he sought to rifle the hidden treasure in the grotto, every one knew that he spoke what was authentic, what was true. as for père alain--well, priests are told to say many things by the good, wise holy father, who rules the world so well but has never been in brittany, and so cannot know all that happens there, and has happened from time immemorial. then, again, was there not the evidence of the alien, the strange, quiet man called yann the dumb, because of his silence at most times--him that was the servitor-in-chief to the lady lois, the beautiful paralyzed wife of the marquis of kerival, and that came from the far north, where the kindred of the armorican race dwell among the misty isles and rainy hills of scotland? indeed yann had been heard to say that he would sooner disbelieve in the pope himself than in the kelpie, for in his own land he had himself heard her devilish music luring him across a lonely moor, and he had known a man who had gone fey because he had seen the face of a kelpie in a hill-tarn. in the time of the greening, even the korrigans are unseen of walkers in the dusk. they are busy then, some say, winding the white into the green bulbs of the water-lilies, or tinting the wings within the chrysalis of the water-fly, or weaving the bright skins for the newts; but however this may be, the season of the green flood over the brown earth is not that wherein man may fear them. no fear of korrigan or nain, or any other woodland creature or haunter of pool or stream, disturbed two who walked in the green-gloom of a deep avenue in the midst of the forest beyond the manor of kerival. they were young, and there was green fire in their hearts; for they moved slow, hand claspt in hand, and with their eyes dwelling often on the face of each other. and whenever ynys de kerival looked at her cousin alan she thought him the fairest and comeliest of the sons of men; and whenever alan turned the longing of his eyes upon ynys he wondered if anywhere upon the green earth moved aught so sweet and winsome, if anywhere in the green world was another woman so beautiful in body, mind, and spirit, as ynys--ynys the dark, as the peasants called her, though ynys of the dusky hair and the hazel-green eyes would have been truer of her whom alan de kerival loved. of a truth, she was fair to see. tall she was, and lithe; in her slim, svelt body there was something of the swift movement of the hill-deer, something of the agile abandon of the leopard. she was of that small clan, the true daughters of the sun. her tanned face and hands showed that she loved the open air, though indeed her every movement proved this. the sun-life was even in that shadowy hair of hers, which had a sheen of living light wrought into its fragrant dusk; it was in her large, deep, translucent eyes, of a soft, dewy twilight-gray often filled with green light, as of the forest-aisles or as the heart of a sea-wave as it billows over sunlit sand; it was in the heart and in the brain of this daughter of an ancient race--and the nostalgia of the green world was hers. for in her veins ran the blood not only of her armorican ancestors but of another celtic strain, that of the gael of the isles, through her mother, lois macdonald, of the remote south isles of the outer hebrides, the daughter of a line as ancient as that of tristran de kerival, she inherited even more than her share of the gloom, the mystery, the sea-passion, the vivid oneness with nature which have disclosed to so many of her fellow-celts secret sources of peace. everywhere in that region the peasant poets sang of ynys the dark or of her sister annaik. they were the two beautiful women of the world, there. but, walking in the fragrant green-gloom of the beeches, alan smiled when he thought of annaik, for all her milk-white skin and her wonderful tawny hair, for all her strange, shadowy amber-brown eyes--eyes often like dark hill-crystals aflame with stormy light. she was beautiful, and tall too, and with an even wilder grace than ynys; yet--there was but one woman in the world, but one dream, and her name was ynys. it was then that he remembered the line of the unfortunate boy-poet of the paris that has not forgotten him; and looking at ynys, who seemed to him the very spirit of the green life all around him, muttered: "then in the violet forest, all a-bourgeon, eucharis said to me: 'it is spring.'" chapter ii the house of kerival it was with a sudden beating of the heart that, midway in easter, alan de kerival received in paris two letters: one from the marquis de kerival, and the other from his cousin ynys, whom he loved. at all times he was ill at ease in the great city; or at all times save when he was alone in his little study in the tour de l'ile, or in the great circular room where the master astronomer, daniel darc, wrought unceasingly. on rare occasions, golden afternoons these, he escaped to the green places near paris--to rambouillet or st. germain, or even to fontainebleau. there, under the leafless trees of winter or at the first purpling of spring, he was wont to walk for hours, dreaming his dream. for alan was a poet, and to dream was his birthright. and for dream, what had he? there was ynys above all, ynys whom he loved with ever deepening joy and wonder. more and more she had become to him his real life; he lived in her, for her, because of her. more and more, too, he realized that she was his strength, his inspiration. but besides this abiding delight, which made his heart leap whenever he saw a breton name above a shop or on a volume on the bookstalls, he was ever occupied by that wonderful past of his race which was to him a living reality. it was perhaps because he so keenly perceived the romance of the present--the romance of the general hour, of the individual moment--that he turned so insatiably to the past with its deathless charm, its haunting appeal. the great astronomer whom he loved and served knew the young man well, and was wont to say that his favorite assistant was born a thousand years too late. one day a breton neighbor of the marquis de kerival questioned daniel darc as to who the young man's friends were. "nomenoë, gradlon-maur, gwenc'hlan, taliésin, merlin, and oisin," was the reply. and it was true. alan's mind was as irresistibly drawn to the celtic world of the past as the swallow to the sun-way. in a word, he was not only a poet, but a celtic poet; and not only a celtic poet, but a dreamer of the celtic dream. perhaps this was because of the double strain in his veins. doubtless, too, it was continuously enhanced by his intimate knowledge of two of the celtic languages, that of the breton and that of the gael. it is language that is the surest stimulus to the remembering nerves. we have a memory within memory, as layers of skin underlie the epidermis. with most of us this anterior remembrance remains dormant throughout life; but to some are given swift ancestral recollections. alan de kerival was of these few. his aunt, the marquise, true gael of the hebrid isles as she was, loved the language of her people, and spoke it as she spoke english, even better than french. of breton, save a few words and phrases, she knew almost nothing--though armorican was exclusively used throughout the whole kerival region, was the common tongue in the manor itself, and was habitually affected even by the marquis de kerival--on the few occasions when tristran the silent, as the old nobleman was named, cared to speak. but with two members of the household she invariably spoke in gaelic; with her nephew alan, the child of her sister silis macdonald, and her old servitor, ian macdonald, known among his fellows as yann the dumb, mainly because he seldom spoke to them, having no language but his own. latterly, her daughter ynys had become as familiar with the one celtic tongue as the other. with this double key, alan unlocked many doors. all the wonderful romance of old armorica and of ancient wales was familiar to him, and he was deeply versed in the still more wonderful and magical lore of the gaelic race. in his brain ran ever that ossianic tide which has borne so many marvellous argosies through the troubled waters of the modern mind. old ballads of his native isles, with their haunting gaelic rhythms and idioms and their frequent reminiscences of the norse viking and the danish summer-sailor, were often in his ears. he had lived with his hero cuchullin from the days when the boy showed his royal blood at emain-macha till that sad hour when his madness came upon him and he died. he had fared forth with many a lifting of the sunbeam, and had followed oisin step by step on that last melancholy journey when malvina led the blind old man along the lonely shores of arran. he had watched the _crann-tara_ flare from glen to glen, and at the bidding of that fiery cross he had seen the whirling of swords, the dusky flight of arrow-rain, and, from the isles, the leaping forth of the war _birlinns_ to meet the viking galleys. how often, too, he had followed nial of the nine hostages, and had seen the irish charlemagne ride victor through saxon london, or across the norman plains, or with onward sword direct his army against the white walls of the alps! how often he had been with the great king nomonoë, when he with his armoricans chased the frankish wolves away from breton soil, or had raced with gradlon-maur from the drowning seas which overwhelmed ys, where the king's daughter had at the same moment put her hands on the gates of love and death! how often he had heard merlin and taliésin speak of the secret things of the ancient wisdom, or gwenc'hlan chant upon his wild harp, or the fugitive song of vivien in the green woods of broceliande, where the enchanted seer sleeps his long sleep and dreams his dream of eternal youth. it was all this marvellous life of old which wrought upon alan de kerival's life as by a spell. often he recalled the words of a gaelic _sian_ he had heard yann croon in his soft, monotonous voice--words which made a light shoreward eddy of the present and were solemn with the deep-sea sound of the past, that is with us even as we speak. he was himself, too, a poet, and loved to tell anew, in breton, to the peasants of kerival, some of the wild north tales, or to relate in gaelic to his aunt and to ynys the beautiful folk-ballads of brittany, which annaik knew by heart and chanted with the strange, wailing music of the forest-wind. in that old manor, moreover, another shadow put a gloom into his mind--this was another shadow than that which made the house so silent and chill, the inviolate isolation of the paralyzed but still beautiful marquise lois from her invalid husband, limb-useless from his thighs because of a hurt done in the war into which he had gone brown-haired and strong, and whence he had come broken in hope, shattered in health, and gray with premature age. and this other shadow was the mystery of his birth. it was in vain he had tried to learn the name of his father. only three people knew it: the marquis tristran, the marquise lois, and yann the dumb. from none of these could he elicit more than what he had long known. all was to be made clear on his twenty-fifth birthday; till then he had to be content with the knowledge that he was alan de kerival by courtesy only; that he was the son of silis macdonald, of an ancient family whose ancestral home was in one of the isles of the southern hebrides, of silis, the dead sister of lois de kerival; and that he was the adopted child of the marquis and marquise who bore that old armoric name. that there was tragedy inwrought with his story he knew well. from fugitive words, too, he had gained the idea that his father, in common with the marquis tristran, had been a soldier in the french army; though as to whether this unknown parent was scottish or breton or french, or as to whether he was alive or dead, there was no homing clew. to all his enquiries of the marquise he received no answer, or was told simply that he must wait. the marquis he rarely saw, and never spoke with. if ever he encountered the stern, white-haired man as he was wheeled through the garden ways or down one of the green alleys, or along the corridors of the vast, rambling château, they passed in silence. sometimes the invalid would look at him with the fierce, unwavering eyes of a hawk; but for the most part the icy, steel-blue eyes ignored the young man altogether. yann, too, could not, or would not confide any thing more than alan had already learned from the marquise. the gaunt old hebridean--whose sole recreation, when not sitting pipe in mouth before the flaming logs, was to wander along the melancholy dunes by the melancholy gray sea, and mutter continuously to himself in his soft island-gaelic--would talk slowly by the hour on old legends, and ballad-lore, and on seanachas of every kind. when, however, alan asked him about the sisters lois and silis macdonald, or how lois came to marry a breton, and as to the man silis loved, and what the name was of the isle whereon they lived,--or even as to whether ian himself had kith or kin living,--yann would justify his name. he took no trouble in evasion: he simply became dumb. sometimes alan asked the old man if he cared to see the isles again. at that, a look ever came into ian macdonald's eyes which made his young clansman love him. "it will never, never be forgetting my own place i will be," he replied once, "no, never. i would rather be hearing the sea on the shores there than all the hymns of heaven, and i would rather be having the canna and the heather over my head than be under the altar of the great church at kerloek. no, no, it is the pain i have for my own place, and the isle where my blood has been for hundreds of years, and where for sure my heart is, alan mac----" with eager ears alan had hoped for the name whereat the old man had stopped short. it would have told him much. "alan, son of----!" even that baptismal name would probably have told him if his father were a gael or a breton, an englishman or a frenchman. but yann said no more, then or later. alan had hoped, too, that when he came back, after his first long absence from kerival, his aunt would be more explicit with him. a vain hope, for when once more he was at the château he found the marquise even less communicative than was her wont. her husband was more than ever taciturn, and a gloom seemed to have descended upon the house. for the first time he noticed a change in the attitude of annaik. her great, scornful, wild-bird eyes looked at him often strangely. she sought him, and then was silent. if he did not speak, she became morose; if he spoke, she relapsed into her old scornful quiescence. sometimes, when they were alone, she unbent, and was his beautiful cousin and comrade again; but in the presence of ynys she bewildered him by her sudden ennui or bitterness or even shadowy hostility. as for ynys, she was unhappy, save in alan's love--a love that neither her father nor mother knew, and of which she never spoke to annaik. if alan were a dreamer, ynys was even more so. then, too, she had what annaik had not, though she lacked what her sister had. for she was mystical as that young saint of the bretons who saw christ walking by night upon the hills, and believed that he met there a new endymion, his bride of the church come to him in the moonshine. ynys believed in st. guennik, as she believed in jeanne d'arc, and no legend fascinated her more than that strange one she had heard from yann, of how arthur the celtic hero would come again out of flath-innis, and redeem his lost, receding peoples. but, unlike annaik, she had little of the barbaric passion, little of that insatiate nostalgia for the life of the open moor and the windy sea, though these she loved not less whole-heartedly than did her sister. the two both loved nature as few women love her; but to annaik the forest and the moorland were home, while to ynys they were rather sanctuaries or realms of natural romance. this change to an unwelcome taciturnity had been noted by alan on his home visit at christmas. still, he had thought little of it after his return to paris, for the noël-tide had been sweetened by the word given to him by ynys. * * * * * then easter had come, and with it the two letters of such import. that from the marquise was short and in the tongue he and she loved best: but even thus it was written guardedly. the purport was that, now his twenty-fifth birthday was at hand, he would soon learn what he had so long wished to know. that from ynys puzzled him. why should dispeace have arisen between ynys and annaik? why should an already gloomy house have been made still more sombre? one day, ynys wrote, she had come upon annaik riding sultan, the black stallion, and thrashing the horse till the foam flew from the champed bit. when she had cried to annaik to be merciful, and asked her why she punished sultan so, her sister had cried mockingly, "it is my love! _addio, amore! addio! addio! addio!_"--and at each _addio_ had brought her whip so fiercely upon the stallion's quivering flanks that he had reared, and all but thrown her, till she swung him round as on a pivot and went at a wild gallop down a long beech-alley that led into the heart of the forest. well, these things would be better understood soon. in another week he would be out of paris, possibly never to return. and then ... brittany--kerival--ynys! nevertheless his heart was not wholly away from his work. the great astronomer had known and loved hersart de kerival, the younger brother of tristran, and it was for his sake that he had taken the young man into his observatory. soon he had discovered that the youth loved the beautiful science, and was apt, eager, and yet patient to learn. in the five years which alan spent--with brief brittany intervals--in the observatory of the tour de l'ile, he had come to delight in the profession which he had chosen, and of which the marquise had approved. he was none the less close and eager a student because that he brought to this enthralling science that spirit of the poetry of the past, which was the habitual atmosphere wherein his mind dwelt. even the most eloquent dissertations of daniel darc failed to move him so much as some ancient strain wherein the stars of heaven were hailed as kindred of men; and never had any exposition of the lunar mystery so exquisitely troubled him as that wonderful cry of ossian which opens the poem of "darthula": "daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant. thou comest forth in loveliness; the stars attend thy blue steps in the east. the clouds rejoice in thy presence, o moon, and brighten their dark-brown sides. who is like thee in heaven, daughter of the night? the stars are ashamed in thy presence, and turn aside their green sparkling eyes. whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? hast thou thy hall like ossian? dwellest thou in the shadow of grief? have thy sisters fallen from heaven? are they who rejoiced with thee, at night, no more?--yes!--they have fallen, fair light! and thou dost often retire to mourn. but thou thyself shalt fail, one night; and leave thy blue path in heaven. the stars will then lift their green heads; they, who were ashamed in thy presence, will rejoice." chapter iii storm yes, he was glad to leave paris, although that home of lost causes--thus designate in a far truer sense than is the fair city by the isis--had a spell for him. but not paris, not even what, night after night, he beheld from the tour de l'ile, held him under a spell comparable with that which drew him back to the ancient land where his heart was. in truth, it was with relief at last that he saw the city recede from his gaze, and merge into the green alleys north-westward. with a sigh of content, he admitted that it was indeed well to escape from that fevered life--a life that, to him, even in his lightest mood, seemed far more phantasmal than that which formed the background to all his thoughts and visions. long before the cherry orchards above rouen came into view he realized how glad he was even to be away from the bare, gaunt room where so many of his happiest hours had been spent; that windy crow's-nest of a room at the top of the tour de l'ile, whence nightly he had watched the procession of the stars, and nightly had opened the dreamland of his imagination to an even more alluring procession out of the past. his one regret was in having to part from daniel darc, that strange and impressive personality who had so fascinated him, and the spell of whose sombre intellect, with its dauntless range and scope, had startled the thought of europe, and even given dreams to many to whom all dreams had become the very fata morgana of human life. absorbed as he was, daniel darc realized that alan was an astronomer primarily because he was a poet rather than an astronomer by inevitable bias. he saw clearly into the young man's mind, and certainly did not resent that his favorite pupil loved to dwell with merlin rather than with kepler, and that even newton or his own master arago had no such influence over him as the far-off, nigh inaudible music of the harp of aneurin. and, in truth, below all alan's passion for science--of that science which is at once the oldest, the noblest, and the most momentous; the science of the innumerous concourse of dead, dying, and flaming adolescent worlds, dust about the threshold of an unfathomable and immeasurable universe, wherein this earth of ours is no more than a mere whirling grain of sand--below all this living devotion lay a deeper passion still. truly, his soul must have lived a thousand years ago. in him, at least, the old celtic brain was reborn with a vivid intensity which none guessed, and none except ynys knew--if even she, for alan himself only vaguely surmised the extent and depth of this obsession. in heart and brain that old world lived anew. himself a poet, all that was fair and tragically beautiful was forever undergoing in his mind a marvellous transformation--a magical resurrection rather, wherein what was remote and bygone, and crowned with oblivious dust, became alive again with intense and beautiful life. * * * * * it did not harmonize ill with alan's mood that, on the afternoon of the day he left rouen, great, bulbous storm-clouds soared out of the west and cast a gloom upon the landscape. that is a strange sophistry which registers passion according to its nearness to the blithe weal symbolized in fair weather. deep passion instinctively moves toward the shadow rather than toward the golden noons of light. passion hears what love at the most dreams of; passion sees what love mayhap dimly discerns in a glass darkly. a million of our fellows are "in love" at any or every moment; and for these the shadowy way is intolerable. but for the few, in whom love is, the eyes are circumspect against the dark hour which comes when heart and brain and blood are aflame with the paramount ecstasy of life. deep passion is always in love with death. the temperate solicitudes of affection know not this perverse emotion, which is simply the darker shadow inevitable to a deeper joy--as the profundity of an alpine lake is to be measured by the height of the remote summits which rise sheer from its marge. when alan saw this gloom slowly absorb the sunlight, and heard below the soft spring cadences of the wind the moan of coming tempest, his melancholy lightened. soon he would see the storm crushing through the woods of kerival; soon feel the fierce rain come sweeping inland from ploumaliou; soon hear, confusedly obscure, the noise of the breton sea along the reef-set sands. already he felt the lips of ynys pressed against his own. * * * * * the sound of the sea called through the dusk, now with the muffled under roar of famished lions, now with a loud, continuous baying like that of eager hounds. seaward, the deepening shadows passed intricately from wave to wave. the bays and sheltered waters were full of a tumult as of baffled flight, of fugitives jostling each other in a wild and fruitless evasion. along the interminable reach of the dunes of kerival the sea's lips writhed and curled; while out of the heart of the turbulent waste beyond issued a shrill, intermittent crying, followed by stifled laughter. ever and again tons of whirling water, meeting, disparted with a hoarse thunder. this ever-growing and tempestuous violence was reiterated in a myriad raucous, clamant voices along the sands and among the reefs and rocks and weed-covered wave-hollowed crags. above the shore a ridge of tamarisk-fringed dune suspended, hanging there dark and dishevelled, like a gigantic eyebrow on the forehead of a sombre and mysterious being. beyond this, again, lay a stretch of barren moor, caught and claspt a mile away by a dark belt of pines, amid which the incessant volume of the wind passed with a shrill whistling. further in among the trees were oases of a solemn silence, filled only at intervals with a single flute-like wind-eddy, falling there as the song of a child lost and baffled in a waste place. over and above the noise of the sea was a hoarse cry thridding it as a flying shuttle in a gigantic loom. this was the wind, which continuously swept from wave to wave--shrewd, salt, bitter with the sterile breath of the wilderness whereon it roamed, crying and moaning, baying, howling, insatiate. the sea-fowl, congregating from afar, had swarmed inland. their wailing cries filled the spray-wet obscurities. the blackness that comes before the deepest dark lay in the hollow of the great wings of the tempest. peace nowhere prevailed, for in those abysmal depths where the wind was not even a whisper, there was listless gloom only, because no strife is there, and no dream lives amid those silent apathies. neither upon the waters nor on the land was there sign of human life. in that remote region, solitude was not a dream but a reality. an ancient land, this loneliest corner of sea-washed brittany; an ancient land, with ever upon it the light of olden dreams, the gloom of indefinable tragedy, the mystery of a destiny long ago begun and never fulfilled. lost like a rock in a forest, a weather-worn, ivy-grown château stood within sound, though not within sight, of this tempestuous sea. all about it was the deep, sonorous echo of wind and wave, transmuted into a myriad cries among the wailing pines and oaks and vast beeches of the woods of kerival. wind and wave, too, made themselves audible amid the gables and in the huge chimneys of the old manor-house; even in the draughty corridors an echo of the sea could be heard. the pathways of the forest were dank with sodden leaves, the _débris_ of autumn which the snows of winter had saved from the whirling gales of january. underneath the brushwood and the lower boughs these lay in brown, clotted masses, emitting a fugitive, indefinite odor, as though the ghost of a dead year passed in that damp and lifeless effluence. but along the frontiers of the woods there was an eddying dust of leaves and small twigs, and part at least of the indeterminate rumor which filled the air was caused by this frail lapping as of innumerable minute wings. in one of those leaf-quiet alleys, shrouded in a black-green darkness save where in one spot the gloom was illumined into a vivid brown, because of a wandering beam of light from a turret in the château, a man stood. the head was forwardly inclined, the whole figure intent as a listening animal. he and his shadow were as those flowers of darkness whose nocturnal bloom may be seen of none save in the shadowy land of dream. when for a moment the wind-wavered beam of light fell athwart his face--so dark and wild that he might well have been taken for a nameless creature of the woods--he moved. with a sudden gesture he flung his arms above his head. his shadow sprang to one side with fantastic speed, leaping like a diver into the gulf of darkness. "annaik," he cried, "annaik, annaik!" the moan of the wind out of the sea, the confused noise of the wind's wings baffling through the woods; no other answer than these, no other sound. "annaik, annaik!" there was pain as of a wounded beast in the harsh cry of this haunter of the dark; but the next moment it was as though the lost shadow had leapt back, for a darkness came about the man, and he lapsed into the obscurity as a wave sinks into a wave. but, later, out of the silence came a voice. "ah, annaik!" it cried, "ah, annaik, forsooth! it is annaik of kerival you are, and i the dust upon the land of your fathers--but, by the blood of ronan, it is only a woman you are; and, if i had you here it is a fall of my fist you would be having--aye, the stroke and the blow, for all that i love you as i do, white woman, aye, and curse you and yours for that loving!" then, once again, there was silence. only the screeching of the wind among the leaves and tortured branches; only the deep roar of the tempest at the heart of the forest; only the thunder of the sea throbbing pulse-like through the night. nor when, a brief while later, a white owl, swifter but not less silent than a drift of vapor, swooped that way, was there living creature in that solitary place. the red-yellow beam still turned into brown the black-green of that windy alley; but the man, and the shadow of him, and the pain of the beast that was in him, and the cry of the baffled soul, the cry that none might know or even guess--of all this sorrow of the night, nothing remained save the red light lifting and falling through the shadowy hair of what the poets of old called the dark woman ... night. only, who may know if, in that warmth and glow within the house of kerival, some sudden menace from the outside world of life did not knock at the heart of annaik, where she, tall and beautiful in her cream-white youth and with her mass of tawny hair, stood by ynys, whose dusky loveliness was not less than her own--both radiant in the fire-light, with laughter upon the lips and light within their eyes. oh, flame that burns where fires of home are lit! and oh, flame that burns in the heart to whom life has not said, awake! and oh, flame that smoulders from death to life, and from life to death, in the dumb lives of those to whom the primrose way is closed! everywhere the burning of the burning, the flame of the flame; pain and the shadow of pain, joy and the rapt breath of joy, flame of the flame that, burning, destroyeth not till the flame is no more! * * * * * it was the night of the home-coming of alan. so long had ynys and annaik looked forward to this hour, that now hardly could they believe the witness of their eyes when with eager glances they scrutinized the new-comer--their alanik of old. he stood before the great fire of logs. upon his face the sharp, damp breath of the storm still lingered, but in his eyes was a light brighter than any dancing flame would cause, and in his blood a pulse that leapt because of another reason than that swift ride through the stormy woods of kerival. at the red and stormy break of that day ynys had awaked with a song of joy in her heart that from hour to hour had found expression in bird-like carollings, little words and fugitive phrases which rippled from her lips, the sunshine-spray from the fount of life whereon her heart swam as a nenuphar on an upwelling pool. annaik also had waked at that dawn of storm. she had risen in silence, and in silence had remained all day; giving no sign that the flame within her frayed the nerves of her heart. throughout the long hours of tempest, and into that dusk wherein the voice of the sea moved, moaning, across the land, laughter and dream had alternated with ynys. annaik looked at her strangely at times, but said nothing. once, standing in the twilight of the dark-raftered room, ynys clasped her hands across her bosom and murmured, "oh, heart be still! my heaven is come." and in that hour, and in that place, she who was twin to her--strange irony of motherhood, that should give birth in one hour to day and night, for even as day and night were these twain, so unlike in all things--in that hour and in that place annaik also clasped her hands across her bosom, and the words that died across the shadow of her lips were, "oh, heart be still! my hell is near." and now he for whom both had waited stood, flooded in the red fire glow which leaped from panel to panel, and from rafter to rafter, while, without, the howling of the wind rose and fell in prolonged, monotonous cadences,--anathemas, rather,--whirled through a darkness full of bewilderment and terror. as for alan, it was indeed for joy to him to stand there, home once more, with not only the savagery of the tempest behind him, but also left behind, that unspeakably far-off, bewilderingly remote city of paris whence he had so swiftly come. it is said of an ancient poet of the druid days that he had the power to see the lives of the living, and these as though they were phantoms, separate from the body. was there not a young king of albainn who, in a perilous hour, discovered this secret of old time, and knew how a life may be hidden away from the body so that none may know of it, save the wind that whispers all things, and the tides of day and night that bear all things upon their dark flood? king of albainn, poet of the old time, not alone three youthful dreamers would you have seen, there, in that storm-beset room. for there you would have seen six figures standing side by side. three of these would have been alan de kerival, and ynys the dark, and annaik the fair; and of the other three, one would be of a dusky-haired woman with starry, luminous eyes; and one a pale woman with a wealth of tawny hair, with eyes aflame, meteors in a desert place; and one a man, young and strong and fair to see as alan de kerival, but round about him a gloom, and through that gloom his eyes as stars seen among the melancholy hills. happy laughter of the world that is always young--happy, in that we are not all seers of old or kings of albainn! for who, looking into the mirrors of life and seeing all that is to be seen, would look again, save those few to whom life and death have come sisterly and whispered the secret that some have discerned, how these twain are one and the same. nevertheless, in that happy hour for him, alan saw nothing of what ynys feared. annaik had abruptly yielded to a strange gayety, and her swift laugh and gypsy smile made his heart glad. never had he seen, even in paris, women more beautiful. deep-set as his heart was in the beauty of ynys, he found himself admiring that of annaik with new eyes. truly, she was just such a woman as he had often imagined when ian had recited to him the ballad of the sons of usna or that of how dermid and graine fled from the wrath of fionn. and they, too, looking at their tall cousin, with his wavy brown hair, broad, low brows, gray-blue eyes, and erect carriage, thought him the comeliest man to be seen in france; and each in her own way was proud and glad, though one, also, with killing pain. chapter iv the dream and the dreamers soon after supper annaik withdrew. ynys and alan were glad to be alone, and yet annaik's absence perturbed them. in going she bade good-night to her cousin, but took no notice of her sister. at first the lovers were silent though they had much to say, and in particular alan was anxious to know what it was that ynys had alluded to in her letter when she warned him that unforeseen difficulties were about their way. it was pleasant to sit in that low-roofed, dark old room, and feel the world fallen away from them. hand in hand they looked at each other lovingly, or dreamed into the burning logs, seeing there all manner of beautiful visions. outside, the wind still moaned and howled, though with less of savage violence, and the rain had ceased. for a time ynys would have no talk of kerival; alan was to tell all he could concerning his life in paris, what he had done, what he had dreamed of, and what he hoped for now. but at last he laughingly refused to speak more of himself, and pressed her to reveal what had been a source of anxiety. "you know, dear," she said, as she rose and leaned against the mantel-piece, her tall figure and dusky hair catching a warm glow from the fire--"you know how pitiable is this feud between my father and mother--how for years they have seen next to nothing of each other; how they live in the same house and yet are strangers? you know, too, how more than ever unfortunate this is, for themselves, and for annaik and me, on account of our mother being an invalid, and of our father being hardly less frail. well, i have discovered that the chief, if not indeed the only abiding source of misunderstanding is _you_, dear alan!" "but why, ynys?" "ah, why? that is, of course, what i cannot tell you. have you no suspicion, no idea?" "none. all i know is that m. de kerival allows me to bear his name, but that he dislikes, if, indeed, he does not actually hate me." "there is some reason. i came upon him talking to my mother a short time ago. she had told him of your imminent return. "'i never wish to see his face,' my father cried, with fierce vehemence; then, seeing me, he refrained." "well, i shall know all the day after to-morrow. meanwhile, ynys, we have the night to ourselves. dear, i want to learn one thing. what does annaik know? does she know that we love each other? does she know that we have told each other of this love, and that we are secretly betrothed?" "she _must_ know that i love you; and sometimes i think she knows that you love me. but ... oh, allan! i am so unhappy about it.... i fear that annaik loves you also, and that this will come between us all. it has already frozen her to me and me to her." alan looked at ynys with startled eyes. he knew annaik better than any one did; and he dreaded the insurgent bitterness of that wild and wayward nature. moreover, in a sense he loved her, and it was for sorrow to him that she should suffer in a way wherein he could be of no help. at that moment the door opened, and matieu, a white-haired old servant, bowing ceremoniously, remarked that m. le marquis desired to see mamzelle ynys immediately. ynys glanced round, told matieu that she would follow, and then turned to alan. how beautiful she was! he thought; more and more beautiful every time he saw her. ah! fair mystery of love, which puts a glory about the one loved; a glory that is no phantasmal light, but the realized beauty evoked by seeing eyes and calling heart. on her face was a wonderful color, a delicate flush that came and went. again and again she made a characteristic gesture, putting her right hand to her forehead and then through the shadowy, wavy hair which alan loved so well and ever thought of as the fragrant dusk. how glad he was that she was tall and lithe, graceful as a young birch; that she was strong and kissed brown and sweet of sun and wind; that her beauty was old as the world, and fresh as every dawn, and new as each recurrent spring! no wonder he was a poet, since ynys was the living poem who inspired all that was best in his life, all that was fervent in his brain. thought, kindred to this, kept him a long while by the fire in deep revery, after ynys had thrilled him by her parting kisses and had gone to her father. he realized, then, how it was she gave him the sense of womanhood as no other woman had done. in her, he recognized the symbol as well as the individual. all women shared in his homage because of her. his deep love for her, his ever growing passion, could evoke from him a courtesy, a chivalry, toward all women which only the callous or the coarse failed to note. she was his magic. the light of their love was upon every thing: everywhere he found synonyms and analogues of "ynys." deeply as he loved beauty, he had learned to love it far more keenly and understandingly, because of her. he saw now through the accidental, and everywhere discerned the eternal beauty, the echoes of whose wandering are in every heart and brain, though few discern the white vision or hear the haunting voice. and with his love had come knowledge of many things hidden from him before. sequences were revealed, where he had perceived only blind inconsequence. nature became for him a scroll, a palimpsest with daily mutations. with each change he found a word, a clew, leading to the fuller elucidation of that primeval knowledge which, fragmentarily, from age to age has been painfully lost, regained, and lost again, though never yet wholly irrecoverable. through this new knowledge, too, he had come to understand the supreme wonder and promise, the supreme hope of our human life in the mystery of motherhood. all this and much more he owed to ynys, and to his love for her. she was all that a woman can be to a man. in her he found the divine abstractions which are the beacons of the human soul in its obscure wayfaring--romance, love, beauty. it was not enough that she gave him romance, that she gave him love, that she was the most beautiful of women in his eyes. when he thought of the one, it was to see the starry eyes and to hear the charmed voice of romance herself, in the voice and in the eyes of ynys: when he thought of love it was to hear ynys's heart beating, to listen to the secret rhythms in ynys's brain, to feel the life-giving sun-flood that was in her pure but intense and glowing passion. thus it was that she had for him that immutable attraction which a few women have for a few men; an appeal, a charm, that atmosphere of romance, that air of ideal beauty, wherein lies the secret of all passionate art. the world without wonder, the world without mystery! that, indeed, is the rainbow without colors, the sunrise without living gold, the noon void of light. to him, moreover, there was but one woman. in ynys he had found her. this exquisite prototype was at once a child of nature, a beautiful pagan, a daughter of the sun; was at once this and a soul alive with the spiritual life, intent upon the deep meanings lurking everywhere, wrought to wonder even by the common habitudes of life, to mystery even by the familiar and the explicable. indeed, the mysticism which was part of the spiritual inheritance come with her northern strain was one of the deep bonds which united them. what if both at times were wrought too deeply by this beautiful dream? what if the inner life triumphed now and then, and each forgot the deepest instinct of life, that here the body is overlord and the soul but a divine consort? there are three races of man. there is the myriad race which loses all, through (not bestiality, for the brute world is clean and sane) perverted animalism; and there is the myriad race which denounces humanity, and pins all its faith and joy to a life the very conditions of whose existence are incompatible with the law to which we are subject--the sole law, the law of nature. then there is that small untoward clan, which knows the divine call of the spirit through the brain, and the secret whisper of the soul in the heart, and forever perceives the veils of mystery and the rainbows of hope upon our human horizons; which hears and sees, and yet turns wisely, meanwhile, to the life of the green earth, of which we are part; to the common kindred of living things, with which we are at one--is content, in a word, to live, because of the dream that makes living so mysteriously sweet and poignant; and to dream, because of the commanding immediacy of life. as yet, of course, alan and ynys had known little of the vicissitudes of aroused life. what they did know, foresee, was due rather to the second-sight of the imagination than to the keen knowledge of experience. in alan ynys found all that her heart craved. she discovered this nearly too late. a year before this last home-coming of her cousin, she had been formally betrothed to andrik de morvan, the friend of her childhood and for whom she had a true affection, and in that betrothal had been quietly glad. when, one midwinter day, she and alan walked through an upland wood and looked across the snowy pastures and the white slopes beyond, all aglow with sunlight, and then suddenly turned toward each other, and saw in the eyes of each a wonderful light, and the next moment were heart to heart, it was all a revelation. for long she did not realize what it meant. on that unforgettable day, when they had left the forest ridge and were near kerival again, she had sat for a time on one of the rude cattle-gates which are frequent in these woodlands, while alan had leant beside her, looking up with eyes too eloquent, and speaking of what he dreamed, with sweet stammering speech of new found love. how she had struggled, mentally, with her duty, as she conceived it, toward andrik. she was betrothed to him; he loved her; she loved him too, although even already she realized that there is a love which is not only invincible and indestructible but that comes unsought, has no need for human conventions, is neither moral nor immoral but simply all-potent and thenceforth sovereign. to yield to that may be wrong; but, if so, it is wrong to yield to the call of hunger, the cry of thirst, the whisper of sleep, the breath of ill, the summons of death. it comes, and that is all. the green earth may be another endymion, and may dream that the cold moonshine is all in all; but when the sun rises, and a new heat and glory and passion of life are come, then endymion simply awakes. it had been a sadness to her to have to tell andrik she no longer loved him as he was fain to be loved. he would have no finality, then; he held her to the bond--and in brittany there is a pledge akin to the "hand-fast" of the north, which makes a betrothal almost as binding as marriage. andrik de morvan had gone to the marquis de kerival, and told him what ynys had said. "she is but a girl," the seigneur remarked coldly. "and you are wrong in thinking she can be in love with any one else. there is no one for whom she can care so much as for you; no one whom she has met with whom she could mate; no one with whom i would allow her to mate." "but that matters little, if she will not marry me!" the young man had urged. "my daughter is my daughter, de morvan. i cannot compel her to marry you. i know her well enough to be sure that she would ignore any command of this kind. but women are fools; and one can get them to do what one wants, in one way if not in another. let her be a while." "but the betrothal!" "let it stand. but do not press it. indeed, go away for a year. you are heir to your mother's estates in touraine. go there, work, learn all you can. meanwhile, write occasionally to ynys. do not address her as your betrothed, but at the same time let her see that it is the lover who writes. then, after a few months, confide that your absence is due solely to her, that you cannot live without her; and that, after a vain exile, you write to ask if you may come and see her. they are all the same. it is the same thing with my mares, for which kerival is so famous. some are wild, some are docile, some skittish, some vicious, some good, a few flawless--but.... well, they are all mares. one knows. a mare is not a sphinx. these complexities of which we hear so much, what are they? spindrift. the sea is simply the sea, all the same. the tide ebbs, though the poets reverse nature. ebb and flow, the lifting wind, the lifted wave; we know the way of it all. it has its mystery, its beauty; but we don't really expect to see a nereid in the hollow of the wave, or to catch the echo of a triton in the call of the wind. as for venus anadyomene, the foam of which she was made is the froth in poets' brains. believe me, annaik, my friend, women are simply women; creatures not yet wholly tamed, but tractable in the main, delightful, valuable often, but certainly not worth the tribute of passion and pain they obtain from foolish men like yourself." with this worldly wisdom andrik de morvan had gone home, unconvinced. he loved ynys; and sophistries were an ineffectual balm. but as for ynys, she had long made up her mind. betrothal or no betrothal, she belonged now only to one man, and that man, alan de kerival. she was his and his alone, by every natural right. how could she help the accident by which she had cared for andrik before she loved alan? now, indeed, it would be sacrilege to be other than wholly alan's. was her heart not his, and her life with her heart, and with both her deathless devotion? alan, she knew, trusted her absolutely. before he went back to paris, after their love was no longer a secret, he had never once asked her to forfeit any thing of her intimacy with andrik, nor had he even urged the open cancelling of the betrothal. but she was well aware his own absolute loyalty involved for him a like loyalty from her; and she knew that forgiveness does not belong to those natures which stake all upon a single die. and so the matter stood thus still. ynys and andrik de morvan were nominally betrothed; and not only the marquis and the marquise de kerival, but andrik himself, looked upon the bond as absolute. perhaps lois de kerival was not without some suspicion as to how matters were between the betrothed pair. certainly she knew that ynys was not one who would give up any real or imagined happiness because of a conventional arrangement or on account of any conventional duty. in alan, ynys found all that he found in her. when she looked at him, she wondered how she could ever have dreamed of andrik as a lover, for alan was all that andrik was not. how proud and glad she felt because of his great height and strength, his vivid features with their gray-blue eyes and spirituel expression, his wavy brown hair, a very type of youthful and beautiful manhood! still more she revered and loved the inner alan whom she knew so well, and recognized with a proud humility that this lover of hers, whom the great daniel darc had spoken of as a man of genius, was not only her knight, but her comrade, her mate, her ideal. often the peasants of kerival had speculated if the young seigneur would join hands with her or with annaik. some hoped the one, some the other; but those who knew alan otherwise than merely by sight felt certain that ynys was the future bride. "they are made for each other," old jeanne mael, the village authority, was wont to exclaim; "and the good god will bring them together soon or late. 'tis a fair, sweet couple they are; none so handsome anywhere. that tall, dark lass will be a good mother when her hour comes; an' the child o' him an' her should be the bonniest in the whole wide world." with that all who saw them together agreed. chapter v the walker in the night it was an hour from midnight when alan rose, opened a window, and looked out. the storm was over. he could see the stars glistening like silver fruit among the upper branches of the elms. behind the great cypress known as the fate of kerival there was a golden radiance, as though a disk of radiant bronze were being slowly wheeled round and round, invisible itself but casting a quivering gleam upon the fibrous undersides of the cypress spires. soon the moon would lift upward, and her paling gold become foam-white along the wide reaches of the forest. the wind had suddenly fallen. in this abrupt lapse into silence there was something mysterious. after so much violence, after that wild, tempestuous cry, such stillness! there was no more than a faint rustling sound, as though invisible feet were stealthily flying along the pathway of the upper boughs and through the dim defiles in the dense coverts of oak and beech in the very heart of the woods. only, from hitherward of the unseen dunes floated a melancholy, sighing refrain, the echo of the eddying sea-breath among the pines. beyond the last sands, the deep, hollow boom of the sea itself. to stay indoors seemed to alan a wanton forfeiture of beauty. the fragrance of the forest intoxicated him. spring was come, indeed. this wild storm had ruined nothing, for at its fiercest it had swept overhead; and on the morrow the virginal green world would be more beautiful than ever. everywhere the green fire of spring would be litten anew. a green flame would pass from meadow to hedgerow, from hedgerow to the tangled thickets of bramble and dog-rose, from the underwoods to the inmost forest glades. everywhere song would be to the birds, everywhere young life would pulse, everywhere the rhythm of a new rapture would run rejoicing. the miracle of spring would be accomplished in the sight of all men, of all birds and beasts, of all green life. each, in its kind, would have a swifter throb in the red blood or the vivid sap. no, he could not wait. no, alan added to himself with a smile, not even though to sleep in the house of kerival was to be beneath the same roof as ynys--to be but a few yards, a passage, a corridor away. ah! for sure, he could dream his dream as well out there among the gleaming boughs, in the golden sheen of the moon, under the stars. was there not the silence for deep peace, and the voice of the unseen sea for echo to the deep tides of love which surged obscurely in his heart? yes, he would go out to that beautiful redemption of the night. how often, in fevered paris, he had known that healing, either when his gaze was held by the quiet stars, as he kept his hours-long vigil, or when he escaped westward along the banks of the seine, and could wander undisturbed across grassy spaces or under shadowy boughs! in the great hall of the manor he found white-haired matieu asleep in his wicker chair. the old man silently opened the heavy oaken door, and, with a smile which somewhat perplexed alan, bowed to him as he passed forth. could it be a space only of a few hours that divided him from his recent arrival, he wondered. the forest was no longer the same. then it was swept by the wind, lashed by the rains, and was everywhere tortured into a tempestuous music. now it was so still, save for a ceaseless faint dripping from wet leaves and the conduits of a myriad sprays and branches, that he could hear the occasional shaking of the wings of hidden birds, ruffling out their plumage because of the moonlit quietudes that were come again. and then, too, he had seen ynys; had held her hand in his; had looked in her beautiful, hazel-green eyes, dusky and wonderful as a starlit gloaming because of the depth of her dear love; had pressed his lips to hers, and felt the throbbing of her heart against his own. there, in the forest-edge, it was difficult to realize all this. it would be time to turn soon, to walk back along the sycamore-margined seine embankment, to reach the tour de l'ile and be at his post in the observatory again. then he glanced backward, and saw a red light shining from the room where the marquis de kerival sat up late night after night, and he wondered if ynys were still there, or if she were now in her room and asleep, or if she lay in a waking dream. for a time he stared at this beacon. then, troubled by many thoughts, but most by his love, he moved slowly into one of the beech avenues which radiated from the fantastic mediæval sun-dial at the end of the tulip garden in front of the château. while the moon slowly lifted from branch to branch a transient stir of life came into the forest. here and there he heard low cries, sometimes breaking into abrupt eddies of arrested song; thrushes, he knew, ever swift to slide their music out against any tide of light. once or twice a blackcap, in one of the beeches near the open, sang so poignantly a brief strain that he thought it that of a nightingale. later, in an oak glade, he heard the unmistakable song itself. the sea sound came hollowly under the boughs like a spent billow. instinctively he turned that way, and so crossed a wide glade that opened on the cypress alley to the west of the château. just as he emerged upon this glade he thought he saw a stooping figure glide swiftly athwart the northern end of it and disappear among the cypresses. startled, he stood still. no one stirred. nothing moved. he could hear no sound save the faint sighing of the wind-eddy among the pines, the dull rhythmic beat of the sea falling heavily upon the sands. "it must have been a delusion," he muttered. yet, for the moment, he had felt certain that the crouching figure of a man had moved swiftly out of the shadow of the solitary wide-spreading thorn he knew so well, and had disappeared into the darker shadow of the cypress alley. after all, what did it matter? it could only be some poor fellow poaching. with a smile, alan remembered how often he had sinned likewise. he would listen, however, and give the man a fright, for he knew that tristran de kerival was stern in his resentment against poachers, partly because he was liberal in certain woodland-freedom he granted, on the sole condition that none of the peasants ever came within the home domain. soon, however, he was convinced that he was mistaken. deep silence prevailed everywhere. almost, he fancied, he could hear the soft fall of the dew. a low whirring sound showed that a night-jar had already begun his summer wooing. now that, as he knew from ynys, the cuckoo was come, and that the swallows had suddenly multiplied from a score of pioneers into a battalion of ever-flying darts; now that he had listened to the nightingales calling through the moonlit woods and had heard the love-note of the night-jar, the hot weather must be come at last--that glorious tide of golden life which flows from april to june and makes them the joy of the world. slowly he walked across the glade. at the old thorn he stopped, and leaned a while against its rugged, twisted bole, recalling incident after incident associated with it. it was strangely restful there. around him was the quiet sea of moonlight; yonder, behind the cypresses and the pine-crowned dunes, was the quiet sea of moving waters; yet, in the one, there was scarce less of silence than in the other. ah! he remembered abruptly, on just such a night, years ago, he and annaik had stood long there, hand in hand, listening to a nightingale. what a strange girl she was, even then! well he recalled how, at the end of the song and when the little brown singer had slipped from its bough, like a stone slung from a sling, annaik had laughed, though he knew not at what, and had all at once unfastened her hair, and let its tawny bronze-red mass fall about her shoulders. she was so beautiful and wild that he had clasped her in his arms, and had kissed her again and again. and annaik ... oh, he remembered, half shyly, half exultantly ... she had laughed again, but more low, and had tied the long drifts of her hair around his neck like a blood-red scarf. it gave him a strange emotion to recall all this. did annaik also think of it ever, he wondered? then, too, had they not promised somewhat to each other? yes ... annaik had said: "one night we shall come here again, and then, if you do not love me as much as you do now, i shall strangle you with my hair: and if you love me more we shall go away into the forest, and never return, or not for long, long; but if you do not love me at all, then you are to tell me so, and i will----" "what?" he had asked, when she stopped abruptly. at that, however, she had said no more as to what was in her mind, but had asked him to carve upon the thorn the "a" of her name and the "a" of his into a double "a." yes, of course, he had done this. where was it? he pondered. surely midway on the southward side, for then as now the moonlight would be there. with an eagerness of which he was conscious he slipped from where he leaned, and examined the bole of the tree. a heavy branch intervened. this he caught and withheld, and the light flooded upon the gnarled trunk. with a start, alan almost relinquished the branch. there, unmistakable, was a large carven "a," but not only was it the old double "a" made into a single letter, but clearly the change had been made quite recently, apparently within a few hours. moreover, it was now linked to another letter. the legend ran: "_a & j_." puzzled, he looked close. there could be no mistake. the cutting was recent. the "_j_," indeed, might have been that moment done. suddenly an idea flashed into his mind. he stooped and examined the mossed roots. yes, there were the fragments. he took one and put it between his teeth; the wood was soft, and had the moisture of fibre recently severed. who was "j"? alan pondered over every name he could think of. he knew no one whose baptismal name began thus, with the exception of jervaise de morvan, the brother of andrik, and he was married and resident in distant pondicherry. otherwise there was but jak bourzak, the woodcutter--a bent, broken-down old man who could not have cut the letters for the good reason that he was unable to write and was so ignorant that, even in that remote region, he was called jak the stupid. alan was still pondering over this when suddenly the stillness was broken by the loud screaming of peacocks. kerival was famous for these birds, of which the peasantry stood in superstitious awe. indeed, a legend was current to the effect that tristran de kerival maintained those resplendent creatures because they were the souls of his ancestors, or such of them as before death had not been able to gain absolution for their sins. when they were heard crying harshly before rain or at sundown, or sometimes in the moonlight, the hearers shuddered. "the lost souls of kerival" became a saying, and there were prophets here and there who foreboded ill for tristran the silent, or some one near and dear to him, whenever that strange clamor rang forth unexpectedly. alan himself was surprised, startled. the night was so still, no further storm was imminent, and the moon had been risen for some time. possibly the peacocks had strolled into the cypress alley, to strut to and fro in the moonshine, as their wont was in their wooing days, and two of them had come into jealous dispute. still that continuous harsh tumult seemed rather to have the note of alarm than of quarrel. alan walked to the seaward side of the thorn, but still kept within its shadow. the noise was now not only clamant but startling. the savage screaming, like that of barbaric trumpets, filled the night. swiftly the listener crossed the glade, and was soon among the cypresses. there, while the dull thud of the falling seas was more than ever audible, the screams of the peacocks were so insistent that he had ears for these alone. at the eastern end of the alley the glade broke away into scattered pines, and from these swelled a series of low dunes. alan could see them clearly from where he stood, under the boughs of a huge yew, one of several that grew here and there among their solemn, columnar kin. his gaze was upon this open space when, abruptly, he started. a tall, slim figure, coming from the shore, moved slowly inland across the dunes. who could this walker in the dark be? the shadowy walker in the night herself, mayhap; the dreaded soulless woman who wanders at dead of night through forests, or by desolate shores, or by the banks of the perilous _marais_. often he had heard of her. when any man met this woman, his fate depended on whether he saw her before she caught sight of him. if she saw him first, she had but to sing her wild, strange song, and he would have to go to her; and when he was before her two flames would come out of her eyes, and one flame would burn up his life as though it were dry tinder, and the other would wrap round his soul like a scarlet shawl, and she would take it and live with it in a cavern underground for a year and a day. and on that last day she would let it go, as a hare is let go a furlong beyond a greyhound. then it would fly like a windy shadow from glade to glade or from dune to dune, in the vain hope to reach a wayside calvary; but ever in vain. sometimes the holy tree would almost be reached; then, with a gliding swiftness, like a flood racing down a valley, the walker in the night would be alongside the fugitive. now and again unhappy night-farers--unhappy they, for sure, for never does weal remain with any one who hears what no human ear should hearken--would be startled by a sudden laughing in the darkness. this was when some such terrible chase had happened, and when the creature of the night had taken the captive soul, in the last moments of the last hour of the last day of its possible redemption, and rent it this way and that, as a hawk scatters the feathered fragments of its mutilated quarry. alan thought of this wild legend, and shuddered. years ago he had been foolhardy enough to wish to meet the phantom, to see her before she saw him, and to put a spell upon her. for, if this were possible, he could compel her to whisper some of her secret lore, and she could give him spells to keep him scathless till old age. but as, with fearful gaze, he stared at the figure which so leisurely moved toward the cypress alley, he was puzzled by some vague resemblance, by something familiar. the figure was that of a woman, unmistakably; and she moved as though she were in a dream. but who could it be, there, in that lonely place, at that hour of the night? who would venture or care.... in a flash all was clear. it was annaik! there was no room for doubt. he might have known her lithe walk, her wildwood grace, her peculiar carriage; but before recognition of these had come, he had caught a glimpse of her hair in the moonlight. it was like burnished brass, in that yellow shine. there was no other such hair in the world, he believed. but ... annaik! what could she be doing there? how had she been able to leave the château; when had she stolen forth; where had she wandered; whither was she going; to what end? these and other thoughts stormed through alan's mind. almost--he muttered below his breath--almost he would rather have seen the walker in the night. as she drew nearer he could see her as clearly as though it were daylight. she appeared to be thinking deeply, and ever and again be murmuring disconnected phrases. his heart smote him when he saw her, twice, raise her arms and then wring her hands as if in sore straits of sorrow. he did not stir. he would wait, he thought. it might add to annaik's strange grief, if grief it were, to betray his presence. again, was it possible that she was there to meet some one--to encounter the "j" whose initial was beside her own on the old thorn? how pale she was! he noticed. a few yards away her dress caught; she hesitated, slowly disengaged herself, but did not advance again. for the third time she wrung her hands. what could it mean? alan was about to move forward when he heard her voice: "oh, alan, alan, alan!" what ... had she seen him? he flushed there in the shadow, and words rose to his lips. then he was silent, for she spoke again: "i hate her ... i hate her ... not for herself, no, no, no ... but because she has taken you from me. why does ynys have you, all of you, when i have loved you all along? none of us knew any thing--none, till last noël. then we knew; only, neither you nor ynys knew that i loved you as a soul in hell loves the memory of its earthly joy." strange words, there in that place, at that hour; but far stranger the passionless voice in which the passionate words were uttered. bewildered, alan leaned forward, intent. the words had waned to a whisper, but were now incoherent. fragmentary phrases, irrelevant words, what could it all mean? suddenly an idea made him start. he moved slightly, so as to catch the full flood of a moonbeam as it fell on annaik's face. yes, he was right. her eyes were open, but were fixed in an unseeing stare. for the first time, too, he noted that she was clad simply in a long dressing-gown. her feet were bare, and were glistening with the wet they had gathered; on her lustrous hair, nothing but the moonlight. he had remembered. both annaik and ynys had a tendency to somnambulism, a trait inherited from their father. it had been cured years ago, he had understood. but here--here was proof that annaik at any rate was still subject to that mysterious malady of sleep. that she was absolutely trance-bound he saw clearly. but what he should do--that puzzled, that bewildered him. slowly annaik, after a brief hesitancy when he fancied she was about to awake, moved forward again. she came so close that almost she brushed against him; would have done so, indeed, but that he was hidden from contact as well as from sight by the boughs of the yew, which on that side swept to the ground. alan put out his hand. then he withdrew it. no, he thought, he would let her go unmolested, and, if possible, unawaked: but he would follow her, lest evil befell. she passed. his nerves thrilled. what was this strange emotion, that gave him a sensation almost as though he had seen his own wraith? but different ... for, oh--he could not wait to think about that, he muttered. he was about to stoop and emerge from the yew-boughs when he heard a sound which made him stop abruptly. it was a step; of that he felt sure. and at hand, too. the next moment he was glad he had not disclosed himself, for a crouching figure stealthily followed annaik. surely that was the same figure he had seen cross the glade, the figure that had slipped from the thorn? if so, could it be the person who had cut the letter "j" on the bark of the tree? the man kept so much in the shadow that it was difficult to obtain a glimpse of his face. alan waited. in a second or two he would have to pass the yew. just before the mysterious pursuer reached the old tree, he stopped. alan furtively glanced to his left. he saw that annaik had suddenly halted. she stood intent, as though listening. possibly she had awaked. he saw her lips move. she spoke, or called something; what, he could not hear because of the intermittent screaming of the peacocks. when he looked at the man in the shadow he started. a moonbeam had penetrated the obscurity, and the face was white against the black background of a cypress. alan recognized the man in a moment. it was jud kerbastiou, the forester. what ... was it possible: could _he_ be the "j" who had linked his initial with that of annaik? it was incredible. the man was not only a boor, but one with rather an ill repute. at any rate, he was known to be a poacher as well as a woodlander of the old breton kind--men who would never live save in the forest, any more than a gypsy would become a clerk and live in a street. it was said among the peasants of kerival that his father, old iouenn kerbastiou, the charcoal burner, was an illegitimate brother of the late marquis--so that jud, or judik, as he was generally called, was a blood-relation of the great folk at the château. once this had been hinted to the marquis tristran. it was for the first and last time. since then, jud kerbastiou had become more morose than ever, and was seldom seen among his fellows. when not with his infirm old father, at the hut in the woods that were to the eastward of the forest-hamlet of ploumael, he was away in the densely wooded reaches to the south. occasionally he was seen upon the slopes of the black hills, but this was only in winter, when he crossed over into upper brittany with a mule-train laden with cut fagots. that he was prowling about the home domain of kerival was itself ominous; but that in this stealthy manner he should be following annaik was to allan a matter of genuine alarm. surely the man could mean no evil against one of the big house, and one, too, so much admired, and in a certain way loved, as annaik de kerival? and yet, the stealthy movements of the peasant, his crouching gait, his patient dogging of her steps--and this, doubtless, ever since _she_ had crossed the glade from the forest to the cypresses--all this had a menacing aspect. at that moment the peacocks ceased their wild miaulling. low and clear, annaik's voice same thrillingly along the alley: "_alan! alan! oh, alan, darling, are you there?_" his heart beat. then a flush sprang to his brow, as with sudden anger he heard jud kerbastiou reply, in a thick, muffled tone: "yes, yes, ... and, and i love you, annaik!" possibly the sleeper heard and understood. even at that distance alan saw the light upon her face, the light from within. judik the peasant slowly advanced. his stealthy tread was light as that of a fox. he stopped when he was within a yard of annaik. "annaik," he muttered hoarsely, "annaik, it was i who was out among the beeches in front of the château while the storm was raging. sure you must have known it; else, why would you come out? i love you, white woman. i am only a peasant ... but i love you, annaik de kerival, i love you--i love you--i love you!" surely she was on the verge of waking! the color had come back to her white face, her lips moved, as though stirred by a breath from within. her hands were clasped, and the fingers intertwisted restlessly. kerbastiou was so wrought that he did not hear steps behind him as alan moved swiftly forward. "sure, you will be mine at last," the man cried hoarsely, "mine, and none to dispute ... ay, and this very night, too." slowly jud put out an arm. his hand almost touched that of annaik. suddenly he was seized from behind, and a hand was claspt firmly upon his mouth. he did not see who his unexpected assailant was, but he heard the whisper that was against his ear: "if you make a sound, i will strangle you to death." with a nod, he showed that he understood. "if i let go for the moment, will you come back under the trees here, where she cannot see or hear us?" another nod. alan relaxed his hold, but did not wholly relinquish his grip. kerbastiou turned and looked at him. "oh, it's _you_!" he muttered, as he followed his assailant into the shadow some yards back. "yes, judik kerbastiou, it is i, alan de kerival." "well, what do you want?" "what do i want? how dare you be so insolent, fellow? you, who have been following a defenceless woman!" "what have _you_ been doing?" "i ... oh, of course i have been following mlle. annaik also ... but that was ... that was ... to protect her." "and is it not possible i might follow her for the same reason?" "it is not the same thing at all, judik kerbastiou, and you know it. in the first place you have no right to be here at all. in the next, i am mlle. annaik's cousin, and----" "and i am her lover." alan stared at the man in sheer amaze. he spoke quietly and assuredly, nor seemed in the least degree perturbed. "but ... but ... why, kerbastiou, it is impossible!" "what is impossible?" "that annaik could love _you_." "i did not say she loved me. i said i was her lover." "and you believe that you, a peasant, a man held in ill repute even among your fellow-peasants, a homeless woodlander, can gain the love of the daughter of your seigneur, of a woman nurtured as she has been?" "you speak like a book, as the saying is, m. de kerival." judik uttered the words mockingly, and with raised voice. annaik, who was still standing as one entranced, heard it: for she whispered again, "_alan! alan! alan!_" "hush, man! she will hear. listen, judik, i don't want to speak harshly. you know me. every one here does. you must be well aware that i am the last person to despise you or any man because you are poor and unfortunate. but you _must_ see that such a love as this of yours is madness." "all love is madness." "oh, yes; of course! but look you, judik, what right have you to be here at all, in the home domain, in the dead of night?" "you love ynys de kerival?" "yes ... well, yes, i do love her; but what then? what is that to you?" "well, i love annaik. i am here by the same right as you are." "you forget. _i_ am welcome. you come by stealth. do you mean for a moment to say that you are here to meet mlle. annaik by appointment?" the man was silent. "judik kerbastiou!" "yes?" "you are a coward. you followed this woman whom you say you love with intent to rob her." "you are a fool, alan de kerival." alan raised his arm. then, ashamed, he let it fall. "will you go? will you go now, at once, or shall i wake mlle. annaik, and tell her what i have seen--and from what i believe i have saved her?" "no, you need not wake her, nor tell her any thing. i know she has never even given me a thought." suddenly the man bowed his head. a sob burst through the dark. alan put his hand on his shoulder. "judik! judik kerbastiou! i am sorry for you from my heart. but go ... go now, at once. nothing shall be said of this. no one shall know any thing. if you wish me to tell my cousin, i will. then she can see you or not, as she may wish." "i go. but ... yes, tell her. to-morrow. tell her to-morrow. only i would not have hurt her. tell her that. i go now. _adiou._" with that judik kerbastiou lifted his shaggy head, and turned his great black, gypsy-wild eyes upon alan. "she loves _you_," he said simply. then he stepped lightly over the path, passed between the cypresses, and moved out across the glade. alan watched his dark figure slide through the moonlight. he traversed the glade to the right of the thorn. for nearly half a mile he was visible; then he turned and entered the forest. * * * * * an hour later two figures moved, in absolute silence, athwart the sand-dunes beyond the cypress alley. hand in hand they moved. their faces were in deep shadow, for the moonlight was now obscured by a league-long cloud. when they emerged from the scattered pines to the seaward of the château, the sentinel peacocks saw them, and began once more their harsh, barbaric screams. the twain unclasped their hands, and walked steadily forward, speaking no word, not once looking one at the other. as they entered the yew-close at the end of the old garden of the château they were as shadows drowned in night. for some minutes they were invisible; though, from above, the moon shone upon their white faces and on their frozen stillness. the peacocks sullenly ceased. once more they emerged into the moon-dusk. as they neared the ivied gables of the west wing of the manor the cloud drifted from the moon, and her white flood turned the obscurity into a radiance wherein every object stood forth as clear as at noon. alan's face was white as are the faces of the dead. his eyes did not once lift from the ground. but in annaik's face was a flush, and her eyes were wild and beautiful as falling stars. it was not an hour since she had wakened from her trance; not an hour, and yet already had alan forgotten--forgotten her, and ynys, and the storm, and the after calm. of one thing he thought only, and that was of what daniel darc had once said to him laughingly: "if the old fables of astrology were true, your horoscope would foretell impossible things." in absolute silence they moved up the long flight of stone stairs that led to the château; in absolute silence, they entered by the door which old matieu had left ajar; in silence, they passed that unconscious sleeper; in silence, they crossed the landing where the corridors diverged. both stopped, simultaneously. alan seemed about to speak, but his lips closed again without utterance. abruptly he turned. without a word he passed along the corridor to the right, and disappeared in the obscurity. annaik stood a while, motionless, silent. then she put her hand to her heart. on her impassive face the moonlight revealed nothing; only in her eyes there was a gleam as of one glad unto death. then she too passed, noiseless and swift as a phantom. outside, on the stone terrace, ys, the blind peacock, strode to and fro, uttering his prolonged, raucous screams. when, at last, he was unanswered by the peacocks in the cypress alley, his clamant voice no longer tore the silence. the moon trailed her flood of light across the earth. it lay upon the waters, and was still a glory there when, through the chill quietudes of dawn, the stars waned one by one in the soft graying that filtered through the morning dusk. the new day was come. chapter vi via oscura the day that followed this quiet dawn marked the meridian of spring. thereafter the flush upon the blossoms would deepen; the yellow pass out of the green; and a deeper green involve the shoreless emerald sea of verdure which everywhere covered the brown earth, and swelled and lapsed in endlessly receding billows of forest and woodland. up to that noon-tide height spring had aspired, ever since she had shaken the dust of snow from her primrose-sandals; now, looking upon the way she had come, she took the hand of summer--and both went forth as one, so that none should tell which was still the guest of the greenness. this was the day when alan and ynys walked among the green alleys of the woods of kerival, and when, through the deep gladness that was his for all the strange, gnawing pain in his mind, in his ears echoed the haunting line of rimbaud, "then, in the violet forest all a-bourgeon, eucharis said to me: 'it is spring.'" through the first hours of the day alan had been unwontedly silent. ynys had laughed at him with loving eyes, but had not shown any shadow of resentment. his word to the effect that his journey had tired him, and that he had not slept at all, was enough to account for his lack of buoyant joy. but, in truth, ynys did not regret this, since it had brought a still deeper intensity of love into alan's eyes. when he looked at her, there was so much passion of longing, so pathetic an appeal, that her heart smote her. why should she be the one chosen to evoke a love such as this, she wondered; she, who was but ynys, while alan was a man whom all women might love, and had genius that made him as one set apart from his fellows, and was brow-lit by a starry fate? and yet, in a sense she understood. they were so much at one, so like in all essential matters, and were in all ways comrades. it would have been impossible for each not to love the other. but, deeper than this, was the profound and intimate communion of the spirit. in some beautiful, strange way, she knew she was the flame to his fire. at that flame he lit the torch of which daniel darc and others had spoken. she did not see why or wherein it was so, but she believed, and indeed at last realized the exquisite actuality. in deep love, there is no height nor depth between two hearts, no height nor depth, no length nor breadth. there is simply love. the birds of angus ogue are like the wild-doves of the forest: when they nest in the heart they are as one. and her life, and alan's, were not these one? nevertheless, ynys was disappointed as the day went on, and her lover did not seem able to rouse himself from his strange despondency. doubtless this was due largely to what was pending. that afternoon he was to have his long anticipated interview with the marquise, and would perhaps learn what might affect his whole life. on the other hand, each believed that nothing would be revealed which was not of the past solely. idly, ynys began to question her companion about the previous night. what had he done, since he had not slept; had he read, or dreamed at the window, or gone out, as had once been his wont on summer nights, to walk in the cypress alley or along the grassy dunes? had he heard a nightingale singing in the moonlight? had he noticed the prolonged screaming of the peacocks--unusually prolonged, now that she thought of it, ynys added. "i wonder, dear, if you would love me whatever happened--whatever i was, or did?" it was an inconsequent question. she looked up at him, half perturbed, half pleased. "yes, alan." "but do you mean what you say, knowing that you are not only using a phrase?" "i have no gift of expression, dearest. words come to me without their bloom and their fragrance, i often think. but ... alan, _i love you_." "that is sweetest music for me, ynys, my fawn. all words from you have both bloom and fragrance, though you may not know it, shy flower. but tell me again, do you mean what you say, _absolutely_?" "absolutely. in every way, in all things, at all times. dear, how could _any thing_ come between us? it is _possible_, of course, that circumstances might separate us. but nothing could really come between us. my heart is yours." "what about andrik de morvan?" "ah, you are not in earnest, alan!" "yes; i am more than half in earnest, ynys, darling. tell me!" "you cannot possibly believe that i care, that i could care, for andrik as i care for you, alan." "why not?" "why not? oh, have you so little belief, then, in women--in me? alan, do you not know that what is perhaps possible for a man, though i cannot conceive it, is _impossible_ for a woman. that is the poorest sophistry which says a woman may love two men at the same time. that is, if by love is meant what you and i mean. affection, the deepest affection, is one thing; the love of man and woman, as _we_ mean it, is a thing apart!" "you love andrik?" "yes." "could you wed your life with his?" "i could have done so ... but for you." "then, by your true heart, is there no possibility that he can in any way ever come between us?" "none." "although he is nominally your betrothed, and believes in you as his future wife?" "that is not my fault. i drifted into that conditional union, as you know. but after to-day he and every one shall know that i can wed no man but you. but why do you ask me these things, alan?" "i want to know. i will explain later. but tell me; could you be happy with andrik? you say you love him?" "i love him as a friend, as a comrade." "as an intimately dear comrade?" "alan, do not let us misunderstand each other. there can only be one supreme comrade for a woman, and that is the man whom she loves supremely. every other affection, the closest, the dearest, is as distinct from that as day from night." "if by some malign chance you and andrik married--say, in the event of my supposed death--would you still be as absolutely true to me as you are now?" "what has the accident of marriage to do with truth between a man and a woman, alan?" "it involves intimacies that would be a desecration otherwise. oh, ynys, do you not understand?" "it is a matter of the inner life. men so rarely believe in the hidden loyalty of the heart. it is possible for a woman to fulfil a bond and yet not be a bondswoman. outer circumstances have little to do with the inner life, with the real self." "in a word, then, if you married andrik you would remain absolutely mine, not only if i were dead, but if perchance the rumor were untrue and i came back, though too late?" "yes." "absolutely?" "absolutely." "and you profoundly know, ynys, that in no conceivable circumstances can andrik be to you what i am, or any thing for a moment approaching it?" "i do know it." "although he were your husband?" "although he were my husband." the worn lines that were in alan's face were almost gone. looking into his eyes ynys saw that the strange look of pain which had alarmed her was no longer there. the dear eyes had brightened; a new hope seemed to have arisen in them. "do you believe me, alan, dear?" she whispered. "if i did not, it would kill me, ynys." and he spoke truth. the bitter sophistications of love play lightly with the possibilities of death. men who talk of suicide are likely to be long-livers; lovers whose hearts are easily broken can generally recover and astonish themselves by their heroic endurance. the human heart is like a wave of the sea; it can be lashed into storm, it can be calmed, it can become stagnant--but it is seldom absorbed from the ocean till in natural course the sun takes up its spirit in vapor. yet, ever and again, there is one wave among a myriad which a spiral wind-eddy may suddenly strike. in a moment it is whirled this way and that; it is involved in a cataclysm of waters; and then cloud and sea meet, and what a moment before had been an ocean wave is become an idle skyey vapor. alan was of the few men of whom that wave is the symbol. to him, death could come at any time, if the wind-eddy of a certain unthinkable sorrow struck him at his heart. in this sense, his life was in ynys's hands as absolutely as though he were a caged bird. he knew it, and ynys knew it. there are a few men, a few women, like this. perhaps it is well that these are so rare. among the hills of the north, at least, they may still be found; in remote mountain valleys and in lonely isles, where life and death are realized actualities and not the mere adumbrations of the pinions of that lonely fugitive, the human mind, along the endless precipices of time. alan knew well that both he and ynys were not so strong as each believed. knowing this, he feared for both. and yet, there was but one woman in the world for him--ynys; as for her, there was but one man--alan. without her, he could do nothing, achieve nothing. she was his flame, his inspiration, his strength, his light. without her, he was afraid to live; with her, death was a beautiful dream. to her, alan was not less. she lived in him and for him. but we are wrought of marsh-fire as well as of stellar light. now, as of old, the gods do not make of the fairest life a thornless rose. a single thorn may innocently convey poison; so that everywhere men and women go to and fro perilously, and not least those who move through the shadow and shine of an imperious passion. for a time, thereafter, alan and ynys walked slowly onward, hand in hand, each brooding deep over the thoughts their words had stirred. "do you know what yann says, alan?" ynys asked in a low voice, after both had stopped instinctively to listen to a thrush leisurely iterating his just learned love carol, where he swung on a greening spray of honeysuckle under a yellow-green lime. "do you know what yann says?... he says that you have a wave at your feet. what does that mean?" "when did he tell you that, ynys, mo-chree?" "ah, alan, dear, how sweet it is to hear from your lips the dear gaelic we both love so well! and does that not make you more than ever anxious to learn all that you are to hear this afternoon?" "yes ... but that, that ian macdonald said; what else did he say?" "nothing. he would say no more. i asked him in the gaelic, and he repeated only, 'i see a wave at his feet.'" "what ian means by that i know well. it means i am going on a far journey." "oh, no, alan, no!" "he has the sight upon him, at times. ian would not say that thing, did he not mean it. tell me, my fawn, has he ever said any thing of this kind about _you_?" "yes. less than a month ago. i was with him one day on the dunes near the sea. once, when he gave no answer to what i asked, i looked at him, and saw his eyes fixt. 'what do you see, yann?' i asked. "'i see great rocks, strange caverns. sure, it is well i am knowing what they are. they are the sea-caves of rona.' "there were no rocks visible from where we stood, so i knew that ian was in one of his visionary moods. i waited, and then spoke again, whisperingly: "'tell me, ian maciain, what do you see?' "'i see two whom i do not know. and they are in a strange place, they are. and on the man i see a shadow, and on the woman i see a light. but what that shadow is, i do not know; nor do i know what that light is. but i am for thinking that it is of the virgin mary, for i see the dream that is in the woman's heart, and it is a fair wonderful dream _that_.' "that is all yann said, alan. as i was about to speak, his face changed. "'what is it, ian?' i asked. "at first he would answer nothing. then he said: 'it is a dream. it means nothing. it was only because i was thinking of you and alan macalasdair.'" "oh, ynys!"--alan interrupted with an eager cry--"that is a thing i have long striven to know; that which lies in the words 'alan macalasdair.' my father, then, was named alasdair! and was it rona, you said, was the place of the sea-caves? rona ... that must be an island. the only rona i know of is that near skye. it may be the same. now, indeed, i have a clew, lest i should learn nothing to-day. did ian say nothing more?" "nothing. i asked him if the man and woman he saw were you and i, but he would not speak. i am certain he was about to say yes, but refrained." for a while they walked on in silence, each revolving many speculations aroused by the clew given by the words of "yann the dumb." suddenly ynys tightened her clasp of alan's hand. "what is it, dear?" "alan, some time ago you asked me abruptly what i knew about the forester, judik kerbastiou. well, i see him in that beech-covert yonder, looking at us." alan started. ynys noticed that for a moment he grew pale as foam. his lips parted, as though he were about to call to the woodlander: when judik advanced, making at the same time a sign of silence. the man had a wild look about him. clearly, he had not slept since he and alan had parted at midnight. his dusky eyes had a red light in them. his rough clothes were still damp; his face, too, was strangely white and dank. alan presumed that he came to say something concerning annaik. he did not know what to do to prevent this, but while he was pondering, judik spoke in a hoarse, tired voice: "let the lady ynys go back to the château at once. she is needed there." "why, what is wrong, judik kerbastiou?" "let her go back, i say. no time for words now. be quick. i am not deceiving you. listen ..." and with that he leaned toward alan, and whispered in his ear. alan looked at him with startled amaze. then, turning toward ynys, he asked her to go back at once to the château. chapter vii "deireadh gach cogaidh, sith" (the end of all warfare, peace) alan did not wait till ynys was out of sight, before he demanded the reason of judik's strange appearance and stranger summons. "why are you here again, judik kerbastiou? what is the meaning of this haunting of the forbidden home domain? and what did you mean by urging mlle. ynys to go back at once to the château?" "time enough later for your other questions, young sir. meanwhile come along with me, and as quick as you can." without another word the woodlander turned and moved rapidly along a narrow path through the brushwood. alan saw it would be useless to ask further questions at the moment; moreover, he was now vaguely alarmed. what could all this mystery mean? could an accident have happened to the marquis tristran? it was hardly likely, for he seldom ventured into the forest, unless when the weather had dried all the ways: for he had to be wheeled in his chair, and, as alan knew, disliked to leave the gardens or the well-kept yew and cypress alleys near the château. in a brief while, however, he heard voices. judik turned, and waved to him to be wary. the forester bent forward, stared intently, and then beckoned to alan to creep up alongside. "who is it? what is it, judik?" "look!" alan disparted a bough of underwood which made an effectual screen. in the glade beyond were four figures. one of these he recognized at once. it was the marquis de kerival. he was, as usual, seated in his wheeled chair. behind him, some paces to the right, was raif kermorvan, the steward of kerival. the other two men alan had not seen before. one of these strangers was a tall, handsome man, of about sixty. his close-cropped white hair, his dress, his whole mien, betrayed the military man. evidently a colonel, alan thought, or perhaps a general; at any rate an officer of high rank, and one to whom command and self-possession were alike habitual. behind this gentleman, one of the most distinguished and even noble-looking men he had ever seen, and again some paces to the right, was a man, evidently a groom, and to all appearances an orderly in mufti. the first glance revealed that a duel was imminent. the duellists, of course, were the military stranger and the marquis de kerival. "who is that man?" alan whispered to kerbastion. "do you know?" "i do not know his name. he is a soldier--a general. he came to kerival to-day; an hour or more ago. i guided him through the wood, for he and his man had ridden into one of the winding alleys and had lost their way. i heard him ask for the marquis de kerival. i waited about in the shrubbery of the rose garden to see if ... if ... some one for whom i waited ... would come out. after a time, half an hour or less, this gentleman came forth, ushered by raif kermorvan, the steward. his man brought around the two horses again. they mounted, and rode slowly away. i joined them, and offered to show them a shorter route than that which they were taking. the general said they wished to find a glade known as merlin's rest. then i knew what he came for, i knew what was going to happen." "what, judik?" "hush! not so loud. they will hear us! i knew it was for a duel. it was here that andrik de morvan, the uncle of him whom you know, was killed by a man--i forget his name." "why did the man kill andrik de morvan?" "oh, who knows? why does one kill any body? because he was tired of enduring the sieur andrik longer; he bored him beyond words to tell, i have heard. then, too, the count, for he was a count, loved andrik's wife." alan glanced at judik. for all his rough wildness, he spoke on occasion like a man of breeding. moreover, at no time was he subservient in his manner. possibly, alan thought, it was true what he had heard: that judik kerbastiou was by moral right judik de kerival. while the onlookers were whispering, the four men in the glade had all slightly shifted their position. the marquis, it was clear, had insisted upon this. the light had been in his eyes. now the antagonists and their seconds were arranged aright. kermorvan, the steward, was speaking slowly: directions as to the moment when to fire. alan knew it would be worse than useless to interfere. he could but hope that this was no more than an affair of honor of a kind not meant to have a fatal issue; a political quarrel, perhaps; a matter of insignificant social offence. before raif kermorvan--a short, black-haired, bull-necked man, with a pale face and protruding light blue eyes--had finished what he had to say, alan noticed what had hitherto escaped him: that immediately beyond the glade, and under a huge sycamore, already in full leaf, stood the kerival carriage. alain, the coachman, sat on the box, and held the two black horses in rein. standing by the side of the carriage was georges de rohan, the doctor of kerloek, and a personal friend of the marquis tristran. suddenly kermorvan raised his voice. "m. le général, are you ready?" "i am ready," answered a low, clear voice. "m. le marquis, are you ready?" tristran de kerival did not answer, but assented by a slight nod. "then raise your weapons, and fire the moment i say 'thrice.'" both men raised their pistols. "you have the advantage of me, sir," said the marquis coldly, in a voice as audible to alan and judik as to the others. "i present a good aim to you here. nevertheless, i warn you once more that you will not escape me ... this time." the general smiled; scornfully, alan thought. again, when suddenly he lowered his pistol and spoke, alan fancied he detected if not a foreign accent, at least a foreign intonation. "once more, tristran de kerival, i tell you that this duel is a crime; a crime against me, a crime against mme. la marquise, a crime against your daughters, and a crime against...." "that will do, general. i am ready. are you?" without further word the stranger slowly drew himself together. he raised his arm, while his opponent did the same. "_once! twice! thrice!_" there was a crack like that of a cattle-whip. simultaneously some splinters of wood were blown from the left side of the wheeled chair. the marquis tristran smiled. he had reserved his fire. he could aim now with fatal effect "it is murder!" muttered alan, horrified; but at that moment the marquis spoke. alan leaned forward, intent to hear. "_at last!_" that was all. but in the words was a concentrated longing for revenge, the utterance of a vivid hate. tristran de kerival slowly and with methodical malignity took aim. there was a flash, the same whip-like crack. for a moment it seemed as though the ball had missed its mark. then, suddenly, there was a bubbling of red froth at the mouth of the stranger. still, he stood erect. alan looked at the marquis de kerival. he was leaning back, deathly white, but with the bitter, suppressed smile which every one at the château knew and hated. all at once the general swayed, lunged forward, and fell prone. dr. de rohan ran out from the sycamore, and knelt beside him. after a few seconds he looked up. he did not speak, but every one knew what his eyes said. to make it unmistakable, he drew out his handkerchief and put it over the face of the dead man. alan was about to advance when judik kerbastiou plucked him by the sleeve. "hst! m'sieur alan! there is mamzelle ynys returning! she will be here in another minute. she must not see what is there." "you are right, judik. i thank you." with that he turned and moved swiftly down the leaf-hid path which would enable him to intercept ynys. "what is it, alan?" she asked, with wondering eyes, the moment he was at her side. "what is it? why are you so pale?" "it is because of a duel that has been fought here. you must go back at once, dear. there are reasons why you...." "is my father one of the combatants? i know he is out of the château. tell me quick! is he wounded? is he dead?" "no, no, darling heart! he is unhurt. but i can tell you nothing more just now. later ... later. but why did you return here?" "i came with a message from my mother. she is in sore trouble, i fear. i found her, on her couch in the blue salon, with tears streaming down her face and sobs choking her." "and she wants me ... now?" "yes. she told me to look for you, and bring you to her at once." "then go straightway back, dear, and tell her that i shall be with her immediately. yes, go--go--at once." but by the time ynys had moved into the alley which led her to the château, and alan had returned to the spot where he had left judik, rapid changes had occurred. the wheeled chair had gone. alan could see it nearing the south yews; with the marquis tristran in it, leaning backward and with head erect. at its side walked raif kermorvan. he seemed to be whispering to the seigneur. the carriage had disappeared; with it georges de rohan, the soldier orderly, and, presumably, the dead man. alan stood hesitant, uncertain whether to go first to the marquise, or to follow the man whom he regarded now with an aversion infinitely deeper than he had ever done hitherto; with whom, he felt, he never wished to speak again, for he was a murderer, if ever man was, and, from alan's standpoint, a coward as well. tristran de kerival was the deadliest shot in all the country-side, and he must have known that, when he challenged his victim, he gave him his death sentence. it did not occur to alan that possibly the survivor was the man challenged. instinctively he knew that this was not so. judik suddenly touched his arm. "here," he said; "this is the name of the dead man. i got the servant to write it down for me." alan took the slip of paper. on it was: "_m. le général carmichael_." chapter viii the unfolding of the scroll when alan reached the château he was at once accosted by old matieu. "mme. la marquise wishes to see you in her private room, m'sieu alan, and without a moment's delay." in a few seconds he was on the upper landing. at the door of the room known as the blue salon he met yann the dumb. "what is it, ian? is there any thing wrong?" in his haste he spoke in french. the old islander looked at him, but did not answer. alan repeated his question in gaelic. "yes, alan macalasdair, i fear there is gloom and darkness upon us all." "why?" "by this an' by that. but i have seen the death-cloth about lois nic alasdair bronnach for weeks past. i saw it about her feet, and then about her knees, and then about her breast. last night, when i looked at her, i saw it at her neck. and to-day, the shadow-shroud is risen to her eyes." "but your second-sight is not always true, you know, ian. why, you told me when i was here last that i would soon be seeing my long dead father again, and, more than that, that i should see him, but he never see me. but of this and your other dark sayings, no more now. can i go in at once and see my aunt?" "i will be asking that, alan-mo-caraid. but what you say is not true. i have never yet 'seen' any thing that has not come to pass; though i have had the sight but seldom, to himself be the praise." with that ian entered, exchanged a word or two, and ushered alan into the room. on a couch beside a great fireplace, across the iron brazier of which were flaming pine-logs, an elderly woman lay almost supine. that she had been a woman of great beauty was unmistakable, for all her gray hair and the ravages that time and suffering had wrought upon her face. even now her face was beautiful; mainly from the expression of the passionate dusky eyes which were so like those of annaik. her long, inert body was covered with a fantastic italian silk-cloth whose gay pattern emphasized her own helpless condition. alan had not seen her for some months, and he was shocked at the change. below the eyes, as flamelike as ever, were purplish shadows, and everywhere, through the habitual ivory of the delicate features, a gray ashiness had diffused. when she held out her hand to him, he saw it as transparent as a fan, and perceived within it the red gleam of the fire. "ah, alan, it is you at last! how glad i am to see you!" the voice was one of singular sweetness, in tone and accent much like that of ynys. "dear aunt lois, not more glad than i am to see you"--and, as he spoke, alan kneeled at the couch and kissed the frail hand that had been held out to him. "i would have so eagerly seen you at once on my arrival," he resumed, "but i was given your message--that you had one of your seasons of suffering, and could not see me. you have been in pain, aunt lois?" "yes, dear, i am dying." "dying! oh, no, no, no! you don't mean _that_. and besides----" "why should i not mean it? why should i fear it, alan? has life meant so much to me of late years that i should wish to prolong it?" "but you have endured so long!" "a bitter reason truly!... and one too apt to a woman! well, enough of this. alan, i want to speak to you about yourself. but first tell me one thing. do you love any woman?" "yes, with all my heart, with all my life, i love a woman." "have you told her so? has she betrothed herself to you?" "yes." "is it annaik?" "annaik ... annaik?" "why are you so surprised, alan? annaik is beautiful; she has long loved you, i am certain; and you, too, if i mistake not, care for her?" "of course, i do; of course i care for her, aunt lois. i love her. but i do not love her as you mean." the marquise looked at him steadily. "i do not quite understand," she said gravely. "i must speak to you about annaik, later. but now, will you tell me who the woman is?" "yes. it is ynys." "_ynys!_ but, alan, do you not know that she is betrothed to andrik de morvan?" "i know." "and that such a betrothal is, in brittany, almost as binding as a marriage?" "i have heard that said." "and that the marquis de kerival wishes that union to take place?" "the marquis tristran's opinion, on any matter, does not in any way concern me." "that may be, alan; but it concerns ynys. do you know that i also wish her to marry andrik; that his parents wish it; and that every one regards the union as all but an accomplished fact?" "yes, dear aunt lois, i have known or presumed all you tell me. but nothing of it can alter what is a vital part of my existence." "do you know that ynys herself gave her pledge to andrik de morvan?" "it was a conditional pledge. but, in any case, she will formally renounce it." for a time there was silence. alan had risen, and now stood by the side of the couch, with folded arms. the marquise lois looked up at him, with her steadfast, shadowy eyes. when she spoke again she averted them, and her voice was so low as almost to be a whisper. "finally, alan, let me ask you one question. it is not about you and ynys. i infer that both of you are at one in your determination to take every thing into your own hands. presumably you can maintain her and yourself. tristran--the marquis de kerival--will not contribute a franc toward her support. if he knew, he would turn her out of doors this very day." "well, aunt lois, i wait for your final question?" "it is this. _what about annaik?_" startled by her tone and sudden lifted glance, alan stared in silence; then recollecting himself, he repeated dully: "'what about annaik?' ... annaik, aunt lois, why do you ask me about annaik?" "she loves you." "as a brother; as the betrothed of ynys; as a dear comrade and friend." "do not be a hypocrite, alan. you know that she loves you. what of your feeling toward _her_?" "i love her ... as a brother loves a sister ... as any old playmate and friend ... as ... as the sister of ynys." a faint, scornful smile came upon the white lips of the marquise. "will you be good enough, then, to explain about last night?" "about last night?" "come, be done with evasion. yes, about last night. alan, i know that you and annaik were out together in the cypress avenue, and again, on the dunes, after midnight; that you were seen walking hand in hand; and that, stealthily, you entered the house together." "well?" "well! the inference is obvious. but i will let you see that i know more. annaik went out of the house late. old matieu let her out. shortly after that you went out of the château. later, you and she came upon judik kerbastiou prowling about in the woods. it was more than an hour after he left you that you returned to the château. where were you during that hour or more?" alan flushed. he unfolded his arms; hesitated; then refolded them. "how do you know this?" he asked simply. "i know it, because...." but before she finished what she was about to say, the door opened and yann entered. "what is it, ian?" "i would be speaking to you alone for a minute, bantighearna." "alan, go to the alcove yonder, please. i must hear in private what yann has to say to me." as soon as the young man was out of hearing, yann stooped and spoke in low tones. the marquise lois grew whiter and whiter, till not a vestige of color remained in her face, and the only sign of life was in the eyes. suddenly she made an exclamation. alan turned and looked at her. he caught her agonized whisper: "_oh, my god!_" "what is it--oh, what is it, dear aunt lois?" he cried, as he advanced to her side. he expected to be waved back, but to his surprise the marquise made no sign to him to withdraw. instead, she whispered some instructions to yann and then bade him go. when they were alone once more, she took a small silver flagon from beneath her coverlet and poured a few drops upon some sugar. having taken this, she seemed to breathe more easily. it was evident, at the same time, that she had received some terrible shock. "alan, come closer. i cannot speak loud. i have no time to say more to you about annaik. i must leave that to you and to her. but lest i die, let me say at once that i forbid you to marry ynys, and that i enjoin you to marry annaik, and that without delay." a spasm of pain crossed the speaker's face. she stopped, and gasped for breath. when at last she resumed, it was clear she considered as settled the matter on which she had spoken. "alan, i am so unwell that i must be very brief. and now listen. you are twenty-five to-day. such small fortune as is yours comes now into your possession. it has been administered for you by a firm of lawyers in edinburgh. see, here is the address. can you read it? yes?... well, keep the slip. this fortune is not much. to many, possibly to you, it may not seem enough to provide more than the bare necessities of life, not enough for its needs. nevertheless, it is your own, and you will be glad. it will, at least, suffice to keep you free from need if ever you fulfil your great wish to go back to the land of your fathers, to your own place." "that is still my wish and my hope." "so be it! you will have also an old sea castle, not much more than a keep, on a remote island. it will at any rate be your own. it is on an island where few people are; a wild and precipitous isle far out in the atlantic at the extreme of the southern hebrides." "is it called rona?" alan interrupted eagerly. without noticing, or heeding, his eagerness, she assented. "yes, it is called rona. near it are the isles of mingulay and borosay. these three islands were once populous, and it was there that for hundreds of years your father's clan, of which he was hereditary chief, lived and prospered. after the evil days, the days when the young king was hunted in the west as though a royal head were the world's desire, and when our brave kinswoman, flora macdonald, proved that women as well as men could dare all for a good cause--after those evil days the people melted away. soon the last remaining handful were upon borosay; and there, too, till the great fire that swept the island a score of years ago, stood the castle of my ancestors, the macdonalds of borosay. "my father was a man well known in his day. the name of sir kenneth macdonald was as familiar in london as in edinburgh; and in paris he was known to all the military and diplomatic world, for in his youth he had served in the french army with distinction, and held the honorary rank of general. "not long before my mother's death he came back to our lonely home in borosay, bringing with him a kinsman of another surname, who owned the old castle of rona on the isle of the sea-caves, as rona is often called by the people of the hebrides. also there came with him a young french officer of high rank. after a time i was asked to marry this man. i did not love him, did not even care for him, and i refused. in truth ... already, though unknowingly, i loved your father--he that was our kinsman and owned rona and its old castle. but alasdair did not speak; and, because of that, we each came to sorrow. "my father told me he was ruined. if i did not marry tristran de kerival, he would lose all. moreover, my dying mother begged me to save the man she had loved so well and truly, though he had left her so much alone. "well, to be brief, i agreed. my kinsman alasdair was away at the time. he returned on the eve of the very day on which i was suddenly married by father somerled macdonald. we were to remain a few weeks in borosay because of my mother's health. "when alasdair learned what had happened he was furious. i believe he even drew a riding whip across the face of tristran de kerival. fierce words passed between them, and a cruel taunt that rankled. nor would alasdair have any word with me at all. he sent me a bitter message, but the bitterest word he could send was that which came to me: that he and my sister silis had gone away together. "from that day i never saw silis again, till the time of her death. soon afterward our mother died, and while the island-funeral was being arranged our father had a stroke, and himself died, in time to be buried along with his wife. it was only then that i realized how more than true had been his statements as to his ruin. he died penniless. i was reminded of this unpleasant fact at the time, by the marquis de kerival; and i have had ample opportunity since for bearing it in vivid remembrance. "as soon as possible we settled all that could be settled, and left for brittany. i have sometimes thought my husband's love was killed when he discovered that alasdair had loved me. he forbade me even to mention his name, unless he introduced it; and he was wont to swear that a day would come when he would repay in full what he believed to be the damning insult he had received. "we took with us only one person from borosay, an islander of rona. he is, in fact, a clansman both of you and me. it is of ian i speak, of course; him that soon came to be called here yann the dumb. my husband and i had at least this to unite us: that we were both celtic, and had all our racial sympathies in common. "i heard from silis that she was married and was happy. i am afraid this did not add to my happiness. she wrote to me, too, when she was about to bear her child. strangely enough, alasdair, who, like his father before him, was an officer in the french army, was then stationed not far from kerival, though my husband knew nothing of this at first. my own boy and silis's were born about the same time. my child died; that of silis and alasdair lived. you are that child. no ... wait, alan ... i will tell you his name shortly.... you, i say, are that child. soon afterward, silis had a dangerous relapse. in her delirium she said some wild things; among them, words to the effect that the child which had died was hers, and that the survivor was mine--that, somehow or other, they had been changed. then, too, she cried out in her waywardness--and, poor girl, she must have known then that alasdair had loved me before he loved her--that the child who lived, he who had been christened alan, was the child of alasdair and myself. "all this poor delirium at the gate of death meant nothing. but in some way it came to tristran's ears, and he believed. after silis's death i had brought you home, alan, and had announced that i would adopt you. i promised silis this, in her last hour, when she was in her right mind again; also that the child, you, should be brought up to speak and think in our own ancient language, and that in all ways you should grow up a true gael. i have done my best, alan?" "indeed, indeed you have. i shall never, never forget that you have been my mother to me." "well, my husband never forgave that. he acquiesced, but he never forgave. for long, and i fear to this day, he persists in his belief that you are really my illegitimate child, and that silis was right in thinking that i had succeeded in having my own new-born babe transferred to her arms, while her dead offspring was brought to me, and, as my own, interred. it has created a bitter feud, and that is why he hates the sight of you. that, too, alan, is why he would never consent to your marriage with either ynys or annaik." "but you yourself urged me a little ago to ... to ... marry annaik." "i had a special reason. besides, i of course know the truth. in his heart, god knows, my husband cannot doubt it." "then tell me this: is my father dead also, as i have long surmised?" "no ... yes, yes, alan, he is dead." alan noticed his aunt's confusion, and regarded her steadily. "why do you first say 'no' and then 'yes'?" "because...." but here again an interruption occurred. the portière moved back, and then the wide doors disparted. into the salon was wheeled a chair, in which sat the marquis de kerival. behind him was his attendant; at his side, kermorvan the steward. the face of the seigneur was still deathly pale, and the features were curiously drawn. the silky hair, too, seemed whiter than ever, and white as foam-drift on a dark wave were the long thin hands which lay on the lap of the black velvet shooting jacket he wore. "ah, lois, is this a prepared scene?" he exclaimed in a cold and sneering voice, "or, has the young man known all along?" "tristan, i have not yet told him what i now know. be merciful." "alan macalasdair, as the marquise here calls you,--and she ought to know,--have you learned yet the name and rank of your father?" "no." "tell him, lois." "tristran, listen. all is over now. soon i, too, shall be gone. in the name of god i pray you to relent from this long cruelty, this remorseless infamy. you know as well as i do that our first-born is dead twenty-five years ago, and that this man here is truly the son of silis, my sister. and here is one overwhelming proof for you: _i have just been urging him to marry annaik._" at that tristran the silent was no longer silent. with a fierce laugh he turned to the steward. "i call you to witness, raif kermorvan, that i would kill annaik, or ynys either for that matter, before i would allow such an unnatural union. once and for all i absolutely ban it. besides.... listen, you there with your father's eyes! you are sufficiently a gael to feel that you would not marry the daughter of a man who killed your father?" "god forbid!" "well, then, god does forbid. lois, tell this man what you know." "alan," began the marquise quaveringly, her voice fluttering like a dying bird, "the name of your father is ... is ... alasdair ... alasdair carmichael!" "_carmichael!_" for a moment he was dazed, bewildered. when, recently, had he heard that name? then it flashed upon him. he turned with flaming eyes to where the marquis sat, quietly watching him. "oh, my god!" that was all. he could say no more. his heart was in his throat. then, hoarse and trembling, he put out his hands. "tell me it is not true! tell me it is not true!" "_what_ is not true, alan carmichael?" "that that was he who died in the wood yonder." "that was general alasdair carmichael." "my father?" "your father!" "but, you devil, you murdered him! i saw you do it! you knew it was he--and you killed him. you knew he would not try to kill you, and you waited; then, when he had fired, you took careful aim and killed him!" "you reiterate, my friend. these are facts with which i am familiar." the cool, sneering tone stung alan to madness. he advanced menacingly. "murderer, you shall not escape!" "a fitting sentiment, truly, from a man who wants to marry my daughter!" "marry your daughter! marry the daughter of my father's murderer! i would sooner never see the face of woman again than do this thing." "good! i am well content. and now, young man, you are of age; you have come into your patrimony, including your ruined keep on the island of rona; and i will trouble you to go--to leave kerival for good and all." suddenly, without a word, alan moved rapidly forward. with a light touch he laid his hand for a moment on the brow of the motionless man in the wheeled chair. "there! i lay upon you, tristran de kerival, the curse of the newly dead and of the living! may the evil that you have done corrode your brain, and may your life silt away as sand, and may your soul know the second death!" as he turned to leave the room he saw kerbastiou standing in the doorway. "who are you, to be standing there, judik kerbastiou?" demanded the steward angrily. "i am rohan de kerival. ask this man here if i am not his son. three days ago the woman who was my mother died. she died a vagrant, in the forest. but, nigh upon thirty years ago, she was legally married to the young marquis tristran de kerival. i am their child." alan glanced at the man he had cursed. a strange look had come into his ashy face. "her name?" was all tristran the silent said. "annora brizeux." "you have proofs?" "i have all the proofs." "you are only a peasant, i disown you. i know nothing of you or of the wanton that was your mother." without a word judik strode forward and struck him full in the face. at that moment the miraculous happened. the marquise, who had not stood erect for years, rose to her full height. she, too, crossed the room. "alan," she cried, "see! he has killed me as well as your father," and with that she swayed, and fell dead, at the feet of the man who had trampled her soul in the dust and made of her blossoming life a drear and sterile wilderness. book second _the herdsman_ chapter ix retrospective: from the hebrid isles at the end of the third month after that disastrous day when alan carmichael knew that his father had been slain, and before his unknowing eyes, by tristran de kerival, a great terror came upon him. * * * * * on that day itself he had left the manor of kerival. with all that blood between him and his enemy he could not stay a moment longer in the house. to have done so would have been to show himself callous indeed to the memory of his father. nor could he see ynys. he could not look at her, innocent as she was. she was her father's child, and her father had murdered his father. surely a union would be against nature; he must fly while he had the strength. when, however, he had gained the yew close he turned, hesitated, and then slowly walked northward to where the long brown dunes lay in a golden glow over against the pale blue of the sea. there, bewildered, wrought almost to madness, he moved to and fro, unable to realize all that had happened, and with bitter words cursing the malign fate which had overtaken him. the afternoon waned, and he was still there, uncertain as ever, still confused, baffled, mentally blind. then suddenly he saw the figure of yann the dumb, his friend and clansman, ian macdonald. the old man seemed to understand at once that, after what had happened, alan carmichael would never go back to kerival. "why do you come to see me here, ian?" alan had asked wearily. when ian began, "_thiginn gu d'choimhead_ ... i would come to see you, though your home were a rock-cave," the familiar sound of the gaelic did more than any thing else to clear his mind of the shadows which overlay it. "yes, alan macalasdair," ian answered, in response to an eager question, "whatever i know is yours now, since lois nic choinneach is dead, poor lady; though, sure, it is the best thing she could be having now, that death." as swiftly as possible alan elicited all he could from the old man; all that there had not been time to hear from the marquise. he learned what a distinguished soldier, what a fine man, what a true gael, alasdair carmichael had been. when his wife had died he had been involved in some disastrous lawsuit, and his deep sorrow and absolute financial ruin came to him at one and the same moment. it was at this juncture, though there were other good reasons also, that lois de kerival had undertaken to adopt and bring up silis's child. when her husband tristran had given his consent, it was with the stipulation that lois and alasdair carmichael should never meet, and that the child was not to learn his surname till he came into the small fortune due to him through his mother. this and much else alan learned from ian. out of all the pain grew a feeling of bitter hatred for the cold, hard man who had wrought so much unhappiness, and were it not for ynys and annaik he would, for the moment, have rejoiced that, in judik kerbastiou, nemesis had appeared. at his first mention of the daughters, ian had looked at him closely. "will you be for going back to that house, alan macalasdair?" he asked, and in a tone so marked that, even in his distress, alan noticed it. "do you wish me to go back, ian?" "god forbid! i hear the dust on the threshold rising at the thought." "we are both in an alien land, ian." "_och is diombuan gach cas air tìr gun eòlas_--fleeting is the foot in a strange land," said the islander, using a phrase familiar to gaels away from the isles. "but what can i do?" "sure you can go to your own place, alan macalasdair. there you can think of what you will do. and before you go i must tell you that your father's brother uilleam is dead, so that you have no near kin now except the son of the brother of your father, donnacha bàn as he is called--or was called, for i will be hearing a year or more ago that he, too, went under the wave. he would be your own age, and that close as a month or week, i am thinking." "nevertheless, ian, i cannot go without seeing my cousin ynys once more." "you will never be for marrying the daughter of the man that murdered your father?" ian spoke in horrified amaze, adding, "sure, if that were so, it would indeed mean that they may talk as they like of this southland as akin to gaeldom, though that is not a thought that will bring honey to the hive of my brain;--for no man of the isles would ever forget _there_ that the blood of a father cries up to the stars themselves." "have you no message for me, from ... from ... her?" "ay," answered the old islesman reluctantly. "here it is. i did not give it to you before, for fear you should be weak." without a word, alan snatched the pencilled note. it had no beginning or signature, and ran simply: "my mother is dead, too. after all that has happened to-day i know we cannot meet. i know, too, that i love you with all my heart and soul; that i have given you my deathless devotion. but, unless you say 'come,' it is best that you go away at once, and that we never see each other again." at that, alan had torn off the half sheet, and written a single word upon it. it was "_come._" this he gave to ian, telling him to go straightway with it, and hand the note to ynys in person. "also," he added, "fulfil unquestioningly every thing she may tell you to do or not to do." an hour or more after ian had gone, and when a dark, still gloaming had begun, he came again, but this time with ynys. he and she walked together; behind them came four horses, led by ian. when the lovers met, they had stood silent for some moments. then ynys, knowing what was in alan's mind, asked if she were come for life or death. "i love you, dear," was his answer; "i cannot live without you. if you be in truth the daughter of the man who slew my father, why should his evil blood be our undoing also? god knows but that even thus may his punishment be begun. all his thoughts were upon you and annaik." "annaik is gone." "gone! annaik gone! where has she gone?" "i know nothing. she sent me a line to say that she would never sleep in kerival again; that something had changed her whole life; that she would return three days hence for our mother's funeral; and that thereafter she and i would never meet." in a flash alan saw many things; but deepest of all he saw the working of doom. on the very day of his triumph tristran de kerival had lost all, and found only that which made life more bitter than death. stammeringly now, alan sought to say something about annaik; that there was a secret, an unhappiness, a sorrow, which he must explain. but at that ynys had pointed to the dim gray-brown sea. "there, alan, let us bury it all there; every thing, every thing! either you and i must find our forgetfulness there, or we must drown therein all this terrible past which has an inexplicable, a menacing present. dear, i am ready. shall it be life or death?" "life." that was all that was said. alan leaned forward, and tenderly kissing her, took her in his arms. then he turned to ian. "ian mac iain, i call you to witness that i take ynys de kerival as my wife; that in this taking all the blood-feud that lies betwixt us is become as nought; and that the past is past. henceforth i am alan carmichael, and she here is ynys carmichael." * * * * * at that, ian had bowed his head. it was against the tradition of his people; but he loved ynys as well as alan, and secretly he was glad. thereafter, alan and ynys had mounted, and ridden slowly southward through the dusk; while ian followed on the third horse, with, in rein, its companion, on which were the apparel and other belongings which ynys had hurriedly put together. they were unmolested in their flight. indeed, they met no one, till, at the end of the forest of kerival, they emerged near the junction with the high-road at a place called trois chênes. then a woman, a gypsy vagrant, insisted disaster would ensue if they went over her tracks that night without first doing something to avert evil. they must cross her hand with silver, she said. impatient as he was, alan stopped, and allowed the gypsy to have her will. she looked at the hand ynys held out through the obscurity, and almost immediately dropped it. "beware of crossing the sea," she said. "i see your death floating on a green wave." ynys shuddered, but said nothing. when alan put out his hand the woman held it in hers for a few seconds, and then pondered it intently. "be quick, my good woman," he urged, "we are in a hurry." "it will be behind the shadow when we meet again," was all her reply: enigmatical words, which yet in his ears had a sombre significance. but he was even more perturbed by the fact that, before she relinquished his hand, she stooped abruptly and kissed it. as the fugitives rode onward along the dusky high-road, alan whispered to ynys that he could not forget the gypsy; that in some strange way she haunted him; and even seemed to him to be linked to that disastrous day. "that may well be," ynys had answered, "for the woman was annaik." * * * * * onward they rode till they came to haut-kerloek, the ancient village on the slope of the hill above the little town. there, at the gloire de kerival they stopped for the night. next morning they resumed their journey, and the same afternoon reached st. blaise-sur-loise, where they knew they would find the body of general alasdair carmichael. and it was thus that, by the strange irony of fate, alasdair carmichael, who had never seen his son, who in turn had unknowingly witnessed his father's tragic death, was followed to the grave-side by that dear child for whom he had so often longed, and that by alan's side was the daughter of the man who had done so much to ruin his life and had at the last slain him. at the same hour, on the same day, lois de kerival was laid to her rest, with none of her kith and kin to lament her; for tristran the silent was alone in his austere grief. two others were there, at whom the curé looked askance: the rude woodlander, judik kerbastiou, and another forest estray, a gypsy woman with a shawl over her head. the latter must have known the marquise's charity, for the good woman wept quietly throughout the service of committal, and, when she turned to go, the curé heard a sob in her throat. it took but a brief while for alan to settle his father's few affairs. among the papers he found one addressed to himself: a long letter wherein was set forth not only all necessary details concerning alan's mother and father, but also particulars about the small fortune that was in keeping for him in edinburgh, and the lonely house on the lonely isle of rona among the lonely hebrides. in st. blaise alan and ynys went before the civil authorities, and were registered as man and wife. the next day they resumed their journey toward that exile which they had in view. thereafter, slowly, and by devious ways, they fared far north. at edinburgh alan had learned all that was still unexplained. he found that there would be enough money to enable ynys and himself to live quietly, particularly at so remote a place as rona. the castle or "keep" there was unoccupied, and had, indeed, long been untenanted save by the widow-woman kirsten macdonald, ian's sister. in return for this home, she had kept the solitary place in order. all the furniture that had been there, when alasdair carmichael was last in rona, remained. in going thither, alan and ynys would be going home. the westward journey was a revelation to them. never had there been so beautiful a may, they were told. they had lingered long at the first place where they heard the sweet familiar sound of the gaelic. hand in hand, they wandered over the hill-sides of which the very names had a poignant home-sweetness; and long, hot hours they spent together on lochs of which lois de kerival had often spoken with deep longing in her voice. as they neared the extreme of the mainland, alan's excitement deepened. he spoke hardly a word on the day the steamer left the argyle coast behind, and headed for the dim isles of the sea, coll and tiree; and again on the following day ynys saw how distraught he was, for, about noon, the coast-line of uist loomed, faintly blue, upon the dark atlantic horizon. at loch boisdale, where they disembarked, and whence they had to sail the remainder of their journey in a fishing schooner, which by good fortune was then there and disengaged, ian was for the first time recognized. all that evening alan and ynys talked with the islesmen; alan finding, to his delight, his gaelic was so good that none for a moment suspected he had not lived in the isles all his life. that of ynys, however, though fluent, had a foreign sound in it which puzzled the admiring fishermen. it was an hour after sunrise when the _blue herring_ sailed out of loch boisdale, and it was an hour before sunset when the anchor dropped in borosay haven. on this night alan perceived the first sign of aloofness among his fellow gaels. hitherto every one had been cordial, and he and ynys had rejoiced in the courtesy and genial friendliness which they had everywhere encountered. but in balnaree ("baille'-na-righ"), the little village wherein was focussed all that borosay had to boast of in the way of civic life, he could not disguise from himself that again and again he was looked at askance. rightly or wrongly he took this to be resentment because of his having wed ynys, the daughter of the man who had murdered alasdair carmichael. so possessed was he by this idea that he did not remember how little likely the islanders were to know aught concerning ynys, or indeed any thing beyond the fact that alasdair macalasdair rhona had died abroad. the trouble became more than an imaginary one when, on the morrow, he tried to find a boat for the passage to rona. but for the frozen hand, as the triple-peaked hill to the south of balnaree was called, rona would have been visible; nor was it, with a fair wind, more than an hour's sail distant. nevertheless, every one to whom he spoke showed a strange reluctance. at last, in despair, he asked an old man of his own surname why there was so much difficulty. in the island way, sheumas carmichael replied that the people on elleray, the island adjacent to rona, were incensed. "but incensed at what?" "well, at this and at that. but for one thing they are not having any dealings with the carmichaels. they are all macdonalds, there, macdonalds of barra. there is a feud, i am thinking; though i know nothing of it; no, not i." "but seumas mac eachainn, you know well yourself that there are almost no carmichaels to have a feud with! there are you and your brother, and there is your cousin over at sgòrr-bhan on the other side of borosay. who else is there?" to this the man could say nothing. distressed, alan sought ian and bade him find out what he could. he, also, however, was puzzled and even seriously perturbed. that some evil was at work could not be doubted; and that it was secret boded ill. ian was practically a stranger in borosay because of his long absence. but though this, for a time, shut him off from his fellow islanders, and retarded his discovery of what strange reason accounted for the apparently inexplicable apathy shown by the fishermen of balnaree,--an apathy, too, so much to their own disadvantage,--it enabled him, on the other hand, to make a strong appeal to the clan-side of the islanders' natures. after all, ian mac iain mhic dhonuill was one of them, and though he came there with a man in a shadow (though this phrase was not used in ian's hearing), that was not his fault. suddenly ian remembered a fact that he should have thought of at once. there was the old woman, his sister kirsten. he would speak of her, and of their long separation, and of his desire to see her again before he died. this made a difficult thing easy. within an hour a boat was ready to take the travellers to the isle of the caves--as rona was called locally. before the hour was gone, they, with the stores of food and other things they had been advised to take with them, were slipping seaward out of borosay haven. the moment the headland was rounded the heights of rona came into view. great gaunt cliffs they are, precipices of black basalt; though on the south side they fall away in grassy declivities which hang a greenness over the wandering wave forever sobbing round that desolate shore. but it was not till the sgòrr-dhu, a conical black rock at the southeast end of the island, was reached that the stone keep, known as caisteal-rhona, came in sight. it stands at the landward extreme of a rocky ledge, on the margin of a green _airidh_. westward is a small dark-blue sea loch, no more than a narrow haven. to the northwest rise sheer the ocean-fronting precipitous cliffs; northward, above the green pasture and a stretch of heather, is a woodland-belt of some three or four hundred pine-trees. it might well be called i-monair, as aodh the islander sang of it; for it is ever echoing with murmurous noises. if the waves dash against it from the south or east, a loud crying is upon the faces of the rocks; if from the north or north-east, there is a dull iteration, and amid the pines a continual soughing sea voice. but when the wind blows from the south-west, or the huge atlantic billows surge out of the west, rona is a place filled with an indescribable tumult. through the whole island goes the myriad echo of a hollow booming, with an incessant sound as though waters were pouring through vast hidden conduits in the heart of every precipice, every rock, every bowlder. this is because of the arcades of which it consists, for from the westward the island has been honeycombed by the sea. no living man has ever traversed all those mysterious, winding sea galleries. many have perished in the attempt. in the olden days the uisteans and barrovians sought refuge there from the marauding danes and other pirates out of lochlin; and in the time when the last scottish king took shelter in the west many of his island followers found safety among these perilous arcades. some of them reach to an immense height. these are filled with a pale green gloom which in fine weather, and at noon or toward sundown, becomes almost radiant. but most have only a dusky green obscurity, and some are at all times dark with a darkness that has seen neither sun nor moon nor star for unknown ages. sometimes, there, a phosphorescent wave will spill a livid or a cold blue flame, and for a moment a vast gulf of dripping basalt be revealed; but day and night, night and day, from year to year, from age to age, that awful wave-clamant darkness prevails unbroken. to the few who know some of the secrets of the passages, it is possible, except when a gale blows from any quarter but the north, to thrid these dim arcades in a narrow boat, and so to pass from the hebrid seas to the outer atlantic. but to one unaware of the clews there might well be no return to the light of the open day; for in that maze of winding galleries and dim, sea-washed, and forever unlitten arcades, there is only a hopeless bewilderment. once bewildered, there is no hope; and the lost adventurer will remain there idly drifting from barren corridor to corridor, till he perish of hunger and thirst, or, maddened by the strange and appalling gloom and the unbroken silence,--for there the muffled voice of the sea is no more than a whisper,--he leap into the green waters which forever slide stealthily from ledge to ledge. from ian mac iain alan had heard of such an isle, though he had not known it to be rona. now, as he approached his wild, remote home he thought of these death-haunted corridors, avenues of the grave as they are called in the "cumha fhir-mearanach aonghas mhic dhonuill--the lament of mad angus macdonald." when, at last, the unwieldy brown coble sailed into the little haven it was to create unwonted excitement among the few fishermen who put in there frequently for bait. a group of eight or ten was upon the rocky ledge beyond caisteal-rhona, among them the elderly woman who was sister to ian mac iain. at alan's request, ian went ashore in advance, in a small punt. he was to wave his hand if all were well, for alan could not but feel apprehensive on account of the strange ill-will that had shown itself at borosay. it was with relief that he saw the signal when, after ian had embraced his sister, and shaken hands with all the fishermen, he had explained that the son of alasdair carmichael was come out of the south, and with a beautiful young wife, too, and was henceforth to live at caisteal-rhona. all there uncovered and waved their hats. then a shout of welcome went up, and alan's heart was glad, and that of ynys. but the moment he had set foot on land he saw a startled look come into the eyes of the fishermen--a look that deepened swiftly into one of aversion, almost of fear. one by one the men moved away, awkward in their embarrassment. not one came forward with outstretched hand, nor said a word of welcome. at first amazed, then indignant, ian reproached them. they received his words in ashamed silence. even when with a bitter tongue he taunted them, they answered nothing. "giorsal," said ian, turning in despair to his sister, "what is the meaning of this folly?" but even she was no longer the same. her eyes were fixed upon alan with a look of dread and indeed of horror. it was unmistakable, and alan himself was conscious of it, with a strange sinking of the heart. "speak, woman!" he demanded. "what is the meaning of this thing? why do you and these men look at me askance?" "god forbid!" answered giorsal macdonald with white lips; "god forbid that we look at the son of alasdair carmichael askance. but...." "but what?" with that the woman put her apron over her head and moved away, muttering strange words. "ian, what is this mystery?" it was ynys who spoke now, for on alan's face was a shadow, and in his eyes a deep gloom. she, too, was white, and had fear in her eyes. "how am i for knowing, ynys-nighean-lhois? it is all a darkness to me also. but i will find out." that, however, was easier for ian to say than to do. meanwhile, the brown cobble tacked back to borosay, and the fishermen sailed away to the barra coasts, and alan and ynys were left solitary in their wild and remote home. but in that very solitude they found healing. from what giorsal hinted, they came to believe that the fishermen had experienced one of those strange dream-waves which, in remote isles, occur at times, when whole communities will be wrought by the selfsame fantasy. when day by day went past, and no one came nigh them, at first they were puzzled and even resentful, but this passed and soon they were glad to be alone. only, ian knew that there was another cause for the inexplicable aversion that had been shown. but he was silent, and he kept a patient watch for the hour that the future held in its dim shroud. as for giorsal, she was dumb; but no more looked at alan askance. and so the weeks went. occasionally, a fishing smack came with the provisions for the weekly despatch of which alan had arranged at loch boisdale, and sometimes the barra men put in at the haven, though they would never stay long, and always avoided alan as much as was possible. in that time alan and ynys came to know and love their strangely beautiful island home. hours and hours at a time they spent exploring the dim, green winding sea galleries, till at last they knew the main corridors thoroughly. they had even ventured into some of the narrow snake-like passages, but never for long, because of the awe and dread these held, silent estuaries of the grave. there, too, they forgot all the sorrow that had been theirs, forgot the shadow of death which lay between them. they buried all in the deep sea of love that was about the rock of their passion. for, as of another alan and another woman, the _mirdhei_ was upon them: the dream-spell of love. day by day, with them as with that alan and sorcha of whom they had often heard, their joy had grown, like a flower moving ever to the sun; and as it grew the roots deepened, and the tendrils met and intertwined round the two hearts, till at last they were drawn together and became one, as two moving rays of light will converge into one beam, or the song of two singers blend and become as the song of one. as the weeks passed the wonder of the dream became at times a brooding passion, at times almost an ecstasy. ossian and the poets of old speak of a strange frenzy that came upon the brave; and, sure, there is a _mircath_ of another kind now and again in the world, in the green, remote places at least. aodh the islander, and ian-ban of the hills, and other dreamer-poets know of it--the _mirdhei_, the passion that is deeper than passion, the dream that is beyond the dream. this that was once the fair doom of another alan and sorcha, of whom ian had often told him with hushed voice and dreaming eyes, was now upon himself and ynys. they were love to each other. in each the other saw the beauty of the world. hand in hand they wandered among the wind-haunted pines, or along the thyme and grass of the summits of the precipices; or they sailed for hours upon the summer seas, blue lawns of moving azure, glorious with the sun-dazzle and lovely with purple cloud-shadows and amethystine straits of floating weed; or, by noontide, or at the full of the moon, they penetrated far into the dim, green arcades, and were as shadows in a strange and fantastic but ineffably sweet and beautiful dream. day was lovely and desirable to each, for day dreamed to night; and night was sweet as life because it held the new day against its dark, beating heart. week after week passed, and to ynys as to alan it was as the going of the gray owl's wing, swift and silent. * * * * * then it was that, on a day of the days, alan was suddenly stricken with a new and startling dread. chapter x at the edge of the shadow in the hour that this terror came upon him alan was alone upon the high slopes of rona, where the grass fails and the moor purples at an elevation of close on a thousand feet above the sea. the day had been cloudless since sunrise. the immeasurable range of ocean expanded like the single petal of an azure flower; all of one unbroken blue save for the shadows of the scattered isles and for the fugitive amethyst where floating weed suspended. an immense number of birds congregated from every quarter. guillemots and skuas and puffins, cormorants and northern divers, everywhere darted, swam, or slept upon the listless sea, whose deep suspiration no more than lifted a league-long calm here and there, to lapse insensibly, even as it rose. through the not less silent quietudes of air the sea-gulls swept with curving flight, and the narrow-winged terns made a constant shimmer. at remote altitudes the gannet motionlessly drifted. oceanward the great widths of calm were rent now and again by the shoulders of the porpoises which followed the herring trail, their huge, black revolving bodies looming large above the silent wave. not a boat was visible anywhere; not even upon the most distant horizons did a brown sail fleck itself duskily against the skyward wall of steely blue. in the great stillness which prevailed, the noise of the surf beating around the promontory of aonaig was audible as a whisper; though even in that windless hour the indescribable rumor of the sea, moving through the arcades of the island, filled the hollow of the air overhead. ever since the early morning alan had moved under a strange gloom. out of that golden glory of midsummer a breath of joyous life should have reached his heart, but it was not so. for sure, there is sometimes in the quiet beauty of summer an air of menace, a breath, a suspicion, a dream-premonition, of suspended force--a force antagonistic and terrible. all who have lived in these lonely isles know the peculiar intensity of this summer melancholy. no clamor of tempestuous wind, no prolonged sojourn of untimely rains, and no long baffling of mists in all the drear inclemencies of that remote region, can produce the same ominous and even paralyzing gloom which sometimes can be born of ineffable peace and beauty. is it that in the human soul there is mysterious kinship with the outer soul which we call nature; and that in these few supreme hours which come at the full of the year we are, sometimes, suddenly aware of the tremendous forces beneath and behind us, momently quiescent? standing with ynys upon a grassy headland, alan had looked long at the dream-blue perspectives to the southward, seeing there at first no more than innumerable hidden pathways of the sun, with blue-green and silver radiance immeasurable, and the very breath and wonder and mystery of ocean life suspended as in a dream. in the hearts of each deep happiness brooded. perhaps it was out of these depths that rose the dark flower of this sudden apprehension that came upon him. it was no fear for ynys, nor for himself, not for the general weal: but a profound disquietude, a sense of inevitable ill. ynys felt the tightening of his hand; and saw the sudden change in his face. it was often so with him. the sun-dazzle, at which he would look with endless delight, finding in it a tangible embodiment of the fugitive rhythms of cosmic music which floated everywhere, would sometimes be a dazzle also in his brain. in a moment a strange bewilderment would render unstable those perilous sands of the human brain which are forever laved by the strange waters of the unseen life. when this mood or fantasy, or uncalculable accident occurred, he was often wrought either by vivid dreams, or creative work, or else would lapse into a melancholy from which not even the calling love of ynys would arouse him. when she saw in his face and in his eyes this sudden bewildered look, and knew that in some mysterious way the madness of the beauty of the sea had enthralled him, she took his hand and moved with him inland. in a brief while the poignant fragrance from the trodden thyme and short hill-grass, warmed by the sun, rose as an intoxication. for that hour the gloom went. but when, later, he wandered away from caisteal-rhona, once more the sense of foreboding was heavy upon him. determined to shake it off, he wandered high among the upland solitudes. there a cool air forever moved even in the noons of august; and there, indeed, at last, there came upon him a deep peace. with joy his mind dwelled over and over again upon all that ynys had been and was to him; upon the depth and passion of their love; upon the mystery and wonder of that coming life which was theirs and yet was not of them, itself already no more than an unrisen wave or an unbloomed flower, but yet as inevitable as they, but dowered with the light which is beyond where the mortal shadows end. strange, this passion of love for what is not; strange, this deep longing of the woman--the longing of the womb, the longing of the heart, the longing of the brain, the longing of the soul--for the perpetuation of the life she shares in common with one whom she loves; strange, this longing of the man, a longing deep-based in his nature as the love of life or the fear of death, for the gaining from the woman he loves this personal hostage against oblivion. for indeed something of this so commonplace, and yet so divine and mysterious tide of birth, which is forever at the flow upon this green world, is due to an instinctive fear of cessation. the perpetuation of life is the unconscious protest of humanity against the destiny of mortality. thoughts such as these were often with alan now; often, too, with ynys, in whom, indeed, all the latent mysticism which had ever been a bond between them had latterly been continually evoked. possibly it was the mere shadow of his great love; possibly it was some fear of the dark way wherein the sunrise of each new birth is involved; possibly it was no more than the melancholy of the isles, that so wrought him on this perfect day. whatsoever the reason, a deeper despondency prevailed as noon waned into afternoon. an incident, deeply significant to him, in that mood, at that time, happened then. a few hundred yards away from where he stood, half hidden in a little glen where a fall of water made a continual spray among the shadows of the rowan and birch, was the bothie of a woman, the wife of neil macneill, a fisherman of aonaig. she was there, he knew, for the summer pasturing, and even as he recollected this, he heard the sound of her voice as she sang down somewhere by the burnside. moving slowly toward the corrie, he stopped at a mountain ash which overhung a deep pool. looking down, he saw the woman, morag macneill, washing and peeling potatoes in the clear brown water. and as she washed and peeled, she sang an old-time shealing hymn of the virgin-shepherdess, of michael the white, and of coluaman the dove. it was a song that, far away in brittany, he had heard lois, the mother of ynys, sing in one of those rare hours when her youth came back to her with something of youth's passionate intensity. he listened now to every word of the doubly familiar gaelic, and when morag finished the tears were in his eyes, and he stood for a while as one entranced.[a] [footnote a: this hymn is taken down in the gaelic and translated by mr. alexander carmichael of south uist.] "a mhicheil mhin! nan steud geala, a choisin cios air dragon fala, air ghaol dia' us mhic muire, sgaoil do sgiath oirnn dian sinn uile, sgaoil do sgiath oirnn dian sinn uile. "a mhoire ghradhach! mathair uain-ghil, cohhair oirnne, oigh na h-uaisle; a rioghainn uai'reach! a bhuachaille nan treud! cum ar cuallach cuartaich sinn le cheil, cum ar cuallach cuartaich sinn le cheil. "a chalum-chille! chairdeil, chaoimh, an ainm athar, mic, 'us spioraid naoimh, trid na trithinn! trid na triath! comraig sinne, gleidh ar trial, comraig sinne, gleidh ar trial. "athair! a mhic! a spioraid naoimh! bi'eadh an tri-aon leinn, a la 's a dh-oidhche! 's air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann, bi'dh ar mathair leinn, 's bith a lamh fo'r ceann, bi'dh ar mathair leinn, 's bith a lamh fo'r ceann." [thou gentle michael of the white steed, who subdued the dragon of blood, for love of god and the son of mary, spread over us thy wing, shield us all! spread over us thy wing, shield us all! mary beloved! mother of the white lamb, protect us, thou virgin of nobleness, queen of beauty! shepherdess of the flocks! keep our cattle, surround us together, keep our cattle, surround us together. thou columba, the friendly, the kind, in name of the father, the son, and the spirit holy, through the three-in-one, through the three, encompass us, guard our procession, encompass us, guard our procession. thou father! thou son! thou spirit holy! be the three-one with us day and night. and on the crested wave, or on the mountain side, our mother is there, and her arm is under our head, our mother is there, and her arm is under our head.] after she had ceased alan found himself repeating whisperingly, and again and again: "bi'eadh an tri-aon leinn, a la 's a dh-oidhche! 's air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann." suddenly the woman glanced upward, perhaps because of the shadow that moved against the green bracken below. with a startled gesture she sprang to her feet. alan looked at her kindly, saying with a smile, "sure, morag nic tormaid, it is not fear you need be having of one who is your friend." then, seeing that the woman stared at him with an intent gaze, wherein was terror as well as surprise, he spoke to her again. "sure, morag, i am no stranger that you should be looking at me with those foreign eyes." he laughed as he spoke, and made as though he were about to descend to the burnside. unmistakably, however, the woman did not desire his company. he saw that with the pain and bewilderment which had come upon him whenever the like happened, as so often it had happened since he had come to rona. "tell me, bean neil macneill, what is the meaning of this strangeness that is upon you? why do you not speak? why do you turn away your head?" suddenly the woman flashed her black eyes upon him. "have you ever heard of _am buchaille bàn--am buchaille buidhe_?" he looked at her in amaze. _am buchaille bàn!_ ... the fair-haired herdsman, the yellow-haired herdsman! what could she mean? in days gone by, he knew, the islanders had, in the evil time after culloden, so named the fugitive prince who had sought shelter in the hebrides; and in some of the runes of an older day still the saviour of the world was sometimes so called, just as mary was called _bhuachaille nan treud_--shepherdess of the flocks. but as alan knew well, no allusion to either of these was intended. "who is the herdsman of whom you speak, morag?" "is it no knowledge you have of him at all, alan macalasdair?" "none. i know nothing of the man, nothing of what is in your mind. who is the herdsman?" "you will not be putting evil upon me because that you saw me here by the pool before i saw you?" "why should i, woman? why do you think that i have the power of the evil eye? sure, i have done no harm to you or yours, and wish none. but if it is for peace to you to know it, it is no evil i wish you, but only good. the blessing of himself be upon you and yours and upon your house." the woman looked relieved, but still cast her furtive gaze upon alan, who no longer attempted to join her. "i cannot be speaking the thing that is in my mind, alan macalasdair. it is not for me to be saying that thing. but if you have no knowledge of the herdsman, sure it is only another wonder of the wonders, and god has the sun on that shadow, to the stones be it said." "but tell me, morag, who is the herdsman of whom you speak?" for a minute or more the woman stood regarding him intently. then slowly, and as with difficulty, she spoke: "why have you appeared to the people upon the isle, sometimes by moonlight, sometimes by day or in the dusk? and have foretold upon one and all who dwell here black gloom and the red flame of sorrow?--why have you, who are an outcast because of what lies between you and another, pretended to be an emissary of the son--ay, for sure, even, god forgive you, to be the son himself?" alan stared at the woman in blank amaze. for a time he could utter no word. had some extraordinary delusion spread among the islanders, and was there in the insane accusation of this woman the secret of that inexplicable aversion which had so troubled him? "this is all an empty darkness to me, morag. speak more plainly, woman. what is all this madness that you say? when have i uttered aught of having any mission, or of being other than i am? when have i foretold evil upon you or yours, or upon the isles beyond? what man has ever dared to say that alan macalasdair of rona is an outcast? and what sin is it that lies between me and another of which you know?" it was impossible for morag macneill to doubt the sincerity of the man who spoke to her. she crossed herself, and muttered the words of a _sian_ for the protection of the soul against the demon powers. still, even while she believed in alan's sincerity, she could not reconcile it with that terrible and strange mystery with which rumor had filled her ears. so, having nothing to say in reply to his eager questions, she cast down her eyes and kept silence. "speak, morag, for heaven's sake! speak if you are a true woman; you that see a man in sore pain, in pain, too, for that of which he knows nothing, and of the ill of which he is guiltless!" but, keeping her face averted, the woman muttered simply: "i have no more to say." with that she turned and moved slowly along the pathway which led from the pool to her hillside bothie. with a sigh, alan turned and moved across the moor. what wonder, he thought, that deep gloom had been upon him that day? here, in the woman's mysterious words, was the shadow of that shadow. slowly, brooding deep over what he had heard, he traversed the mona-nan-con, as the hill-tract there was called, till he came to the rocky wilderness known as the slope of the caverns. there for a time he leaned against a high bowlder, idly watching a few sheep nibbling the short grass which grew about the apertures of some of the many caves which disclosed themselves in all directions. below and beyond, he saw the illimitable calm beauty of the scene; southward with no break anywhere; eastward, a sun-blaze void; south-westward, the faint, blue film of the coast of ulster; westward, the same immeasurable windless expanse. from where he stood he could just hear the murmur of the surge whispering all round the isle; the surge that, even on days of profoundest calm, makes a murmurous rumor among the rocks and shingle of the island shores. not upon the moor side, but in the blank hollows of the caves around him he heard, as in gigantic shells, the moving of a strange and solemn rhythm: wave haunted-shells indeed, for the echo that was bruited from one to the other came from beneath, from out of those labyrinthine corridors and dim, shadowy arcades, where through the intense green glooms the atlantic waters lose themselves in a vain wandering. for long he leaned there, revolving in his mind the mystery of morag macneill's words. then, abruptly, the stillness was broken by the sound of a dislodged stone. so little did he expect the foot of a fellow that he did not turn at what he thought to be the slip of a sheep. but when upon the slope of the grass, just beyond where he stood, a dusky blue shadow wavered fantastically, he swung round with a sudden instinct of dread. and this was the dread which, at the end of the third month after he and ynys had come to rona, was upon alan carmichael. for there, standing quietly by another bowlder, at the mouth of another cave, stood a man who was in all appearance identical with himself. looking at this apparition, he beheld one of the same height as himself, with hair of the same hue, with eyes the same, and features the same, with the same carriage, the same smile, even the same expression. no, it was there, and there alone, that a difference was. sick at heart, alan wondered if he looked upon his own wraith. familiar as he was with the legends of his people, it would be no strange thing to him that there, upon the hillside, should appear the phantasm of himself. had not old ian maciain--and that, too, though far away in a strange land--seen the death of lois macdonald moving upward from her feet to her knees, from her knees to her waist, from her waist to her neck and, just before the end, how the shroud darkened along the face until it hid the eyes? had he not often heard from her, from ian, of the second self which so often appears beside the living when already the shadow of doom is upon him whose hours are numbered? was this, then, the reason of what had been his inexplicable gloom? was he indeed at the extreme of life; was his soul amid shallows, already a rock upon a blank, inhospitable shore? if not, who or what was this second self which leaned there negligently; looking at him with scornfully smiling lips, but with intent, unsmiling eyes. then, slowly, there came into his mind this thought: how could a phantom, that was itself intangible, throw a shadow upon the grass, as though it were a living corporeal being? sure, a shadow there was indeed. it lay between the apparition and himself. a story heard in boyhood came back to him; instinctively he stooped and lifted a stone and flung it midway into the shadow. "go back into the darkness," he cried, "if out of the darkness you came; but, if you be a living thing, put out your hands!" the shadow remained motionless; though when alan looked again at his second self, he saw that the scorn which had been upon the lips was now in the eyes also. ay, for sure, that was scornful laughter that lay in those cold wells of light. no phantom that; a man he, even as alan himself. his heart pulsed like that of a trapped bird, but, even in the speaking, his courage came back to him. "who are you?" he asked in a low voice that was strange even in his own ears. "am buchaille", replied the man in a voice as low and strange. "i am the herdsman." a new tide of fear surged in upon alan. that voice, was it not his own; that tone, was it not familiar in his ears? when the man spoke, he heard himself speak; sure, if he were am buchaille bàn, alan, too, was the herdsman--though what fantastic destiny might be his was all unknown to him. "come near," said the man, and now the mocking light in his eyes was lambent as cloud-fire--"come near, oh, buchaille bàn!" with a swift movement alan leapt forward, but as he leaped his foot caught in a spray of heather and he stumbled and nigh fell. when he recovered himself, he looked in vain for the man who had called him. there was not a sign, not a trace of any living being. for the first few moments he believed it had all been a delusion. mortal being did not appear and vanish in that ghostly way. still, surely he could not have mistaken the blank of that place for a speaking voice, nor out of nothingness have fashioned the living phantom of himself? or could he? with that, he strode forward and peered into the wide arch of the cavern by which the man had stood. he could not see far into it, but so far as it was possible to see, he discerned neither man nor shadow of man, nor any thing that stirred; no, not even the dust of a bearnan-bride, that grew on a patch of grass a yard or two within the darkness, had lost one of its aërial pinions. he drew back, dismayed. then, suddenly, his heart leapt again, for, beyond all question, all possible doubt, there, in the bent thyme, just where the man had stood, was the imprint of his feet. even now the green sprays were moving forward. chapter xi mystery an hour passed, and alan carmichael still stood by the entrance to the cave. so immovable was he that a ewe, listlessly wandering there in search of cooler grass, lay down after a while, drowsily regarding him with her amber-colored eyes. all his thought was intent upon the mystery of what he had seen. no delusion this, he was sure. that was a man whom he had seen. it might well have been some one whom he did not know, though that were unlikely, of course, for on so small an island, inhabited by less than a score of crofters, it was scarcely possible for one to live there for many weeks and not know the name and face of every soul upon the isle. still, a stranger might have come. only, if this were so, why should he call himself the herdsman? there was but one herdsman on rona, and he angus maccormic, who lived at einaval on the north side. in these outer isles, the shepherd and the herdsman are appointed by the community, and no man is allowed to be one or the other at will, any more than to be _maor_ or _constabal_. then, too, if this man were indeed herdsman, where was his _imir ionailt_, his browsing tract? looking round him, alan could perceive nowhere any fitting pasture. surely no herdsman would be content with such an _imir a bhuchaille_--rig of the herdsman--as that rocky wilderness where the soft green grass grew in patches under this or that bowlder, on the sun side of this or that mountain ash. again, he had given no name, but called himself simply _am buchaille_. this was how the woman morag had spoken; did she indeed mean this very man, and if so what import lay in her words? but far beyond all other bewilderment for him was that strange, that indeed terrifying likeness to himself; a likeness so absolute, so convincing, that he knew he might himself easily have been deceived, had he beheld the apparition in any place where it was possible that a reflection could have misled him. brooding thus, eye and ear were both intent for the faintest sight or sound. but, from the interior of the cavern, not a breath came. once, from among the jagged rocks high on the west slope of ben einaval he fancied he heard an unwonted sound: that of human laughter, but laughter so wild, so remote, so unmirthful, that fear was in his heart. it could not be other than imagination, he said to himself; for in that lonely place there was none to wander idly at that season, and none who, wandering, would laugh there, solitary. it was with an effort that alan at last determined to probe the mystery. stooping, he moved cautiously into the cavern, and groped his way along a narrow ledge which led, as he thought, into another larger cave. but this proved to be one of the innumerable hollow corridors which intersect the honeycombed slopes of this isle of caves. to wander far in these lightless passages would be to court inevitable death. long ago, the piper whom the prionnsa-ban, the fair prince, loved to hear in his exile,--he that was called rory mcvurich,--penetrated one of the larger hollows to seek there for a child that had idly wandered into the dark. some of the clansmen, with the father and mother of the little one, waited at the entrance to the cave. for a time there was silence; then, as agreed upon, the sound of the pipes was heard, to which a man named lachlan mclachlan replied from the outer air. the skirl of the pipes within grew fainter and fainter. louder and louder lachlan played upon his _chantar_; shriller and shriller grew the wild cry of the _feadan_; but for all that, fainter and fainter waned the sound of the pipes of rory mcvurich. generations have come and gone upon the isle, and still no man has heard the returning air which rory was to play. he may have found the little child, but he never found his backward path, and in the gloom of that honeycombed hill he and the child and the music of the pipes lapsed into the same stillness. remembering this legend, familiar to him since his boyhood, alan did not dare to venture farther. at any moment, too, he knew he might fall into one of the innumerable crevices which opened into the sea-corridors hundreds of feet below. ancient rumor had it that there were mysterious passages from the upper heights of ben einaval, which led into the intricate heart mazes of these perilous arcades. but for a time he lay still, straining every sense. convinced at last that the man whom he sought had evaded all possible quest, he turned to regain the light. brief way as he had gone, this was no easy thing to do. for a few moments, indeed, alan lost his self-possession, when he found a uniform dusk about him, and could scarce discern which of the several branching narrow corridors was that by which he had come. but following the greener light, he reached the cave, and soon, with a sigh of relief, was upon the sun-sweet warm earth again. how more than ever beautiful the world seemed to him; how sweet upon the eyes were cliff and precipice, the wide stretch of ocean, the flying birds, the sheep grazing on the scanty pastures, and, above all, the homely blue smoke curling faintly upward from the fisher crofts on the headland east of aonaig! purposely he retraced his steps by the way of the glen. he would see the woman, morag macneill again, and insist on some more explicit word; but when he reached the burnside once more, the woman was not there. possibly she had seen him coming, and guessed his purpose; half he surmised this, for the peats in the hearth were brightly aglow, and on the hob beside them the boiling water hissed in a great iron pot wherein were potatoes. in vain he sought, in vain called. impatient at last he walked around the bothie and into the little byre beyond. the place seemed deserted. the matter, small as it was, added to his profound disquietude. resolved to sift the mystery, he began to walk swiftly down the slope. by the old shealing of cnoc-na-monie, now forsaken, his heart leaped at sight of ynys coming to meet him. at first he thought he would say nothing of what had happened. but with ynys his was ever an impossible silence, for she knew every change in his mind as a seaman knows the look of the sky and sea. moreover, she had herself been all day oppressed by something of the same inexplicable apprehension. when they met, she put her hands on his shoulders and looked at him lovingly with questioning eyes. ah! he found rest and hope in those deep pools of quiet light whence the dreaming love rose comfortingly to meet his own yearning gaze. "what is it, alan, mo-ghray; what is the trouble that is upon you?" "it is a trouble, ynys, but one of which i can speak little, for it is little i know." "have you heard or seen aught that gives you fear?" "i have seen a man here upon rona whom i have not seen or met before, and it is one whose face is known to me, and whose voice too, and one whom i would not meet again." "did he give you no name, alan?" "none." "whence did he come? whither did he go?" "he came out of the shadow, and into the shadow he went." ynys looked steadfastly at her husband; her wistful gaze searching deep into his unquiet eyes, and thence from feature to feature of the face which had become strangely worn, for all the joy that lay between them. but she said no more upon what he had told her. "i, too, alan mo rùn, have heard a strange thing to-day. you know old marsail macrae? she is ill now with a slow fever, and she thinks that the shadow which she saw lying upon her hearth last sabbath, when nothing was there to cause any shadow, was her own death, come for her, and now waiting there. i spoke to the old woman comfortingly, but she would not have peace, and her eyes looked at me strangely. "'what is it, marsail?' i asked at last. to which she replied mysteriously: "'ay, ay, for sure, it was i who saw you first.' "'saw me first, marsail?' "'ay, you and alan macalasdair.' "'when and where was this sight upon you that you speak of?' "'it was one month before you and he came to rona.' "this startled me, and i asked her to tell me her meaning. at first, i could make little of what was said, for she muttered low, and moved her head idly this way and that; moaning in her pain. but on my taking her hand, she looked at me again; and then, apparently without an effort, told me this thing: * * * * * "'on the seventh day of the month before you came--and by the same token it was on the seventh day of the month following that you and alan macalasdair came to caisteal-rhona--i was upon the shore at aonaig, listening to the crying of the wind against the great precipice of biolacreag. with me were roderick macrea and neil macneill, morag macneill, and her sister elsa; and we were singing the hymn for those who were out on the wild sea that was roaring white against the cliffs of berneray; for some of our people were there, and we feared for them. sometimes one sang, and sometimes another. and sure, it is remembering i am, how, when i had called out with my old wailing voice: "'boidh an tri-aon leinn, a la 's a dh-oidche; 's air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann. [be the three-in-one with us day and night; on the crested wave, when waves run high.] "'i had just sung this, and we were all listening to the sound of it caught by the wind and whirled up against the black face of biolacreag, when suddenly i saw a boat come sailing quite into the haven. i called out to those about me, but they looked at me with white faces, for no boat was there, and it was a rough, wild sea it was in that haven. "'and in that boat i saw three people sitting, and one was you, ynys nighean lhois, and one was alan macalasdair, and one was a man who had his face in shadow, and his eyes looked into the shadow at his feet. i knew not who you were, nor whence you came, nor whether it was for rona you were, nor any thing at all; but i saw you clear, and i told those about me what i saw. and seumas macneill, him that is dead now, and brother to neil here at aonaig, he said to me, "who was that whom you saw walking in the dusk the night before last?" "alasdair macalasdair carmichael," answered one at that. seumas muttered, looking at those about him, "mark what i say, for it is a true thing; that alasdair carmichael of rona is dead now, because marsail here saw him walking in the dusk when he was not upon the island; and now, you neil, and you roderick, and all of you will be for thinking with me that the man and the woman in the boat whom marsail sees now will be the son and the daughter of him who has changed." "'well, well, it is a true thing that we each of us thought that thought, but when the days went and nothing more came of it, the memory of the seeing went too. then there came the day when the cobble of aulay macaulay came out of borosay into caisteal-rhona haven. glad we were to see the face of ian mac iain again, and to hear the sob of joy coming out of the heart of kirsten, his sister: but when you and alan macalasdair came on shore, it was my voice that then went from mouth to mouth, for i whispered to morag macneill who was next me, that you were the twain that i had seen in the boat.' * * * * * "well, alan," ynys added, with a grave smile, "i spoke gently to old marsail, and told her that after all there was no evil in that seeing, and that for sure it was nothing at all, at all, to see two people in a boat, and nothing coming of that, save happiness for those two, and glad content to be here, with hope like a white swallow nesting for aye under the eaves of our house. "marsail looked at me with big eyes. "'it is no white swallow that builds there, ynys bean alan,' she said. "but when i asked her what she meant by that, she would say no more. no asking of mine would bring the word to her lips; only she shook her head and averted her gaze from my face. then, seeing that it was useless, i said to her: "'marsail, tell me this: was that sight of yours the sole thing that made the people here on rona look askance at alan macalasdair?' "for a time she stared at me with the dim, unrecognizing eyes of those who are ill and in the shadow of death; then, suddenly they brightened, and she spoke: "'it is not all.' "'then what more is there, marsail macrae?' "'that is not for the saying. i have no more to say. let you, or your man, go elsewhere; that which is to be, will be. to each his own end.' "'then tell me this at least,' i asked; 'is there peril for alan or for me in this island?' "but from that moment marsail would say no more, and indeed i saw that a swoon was upon the old woman, and that she heard not or saw not." after this, ynys and alan walked slowly home together, hand in hand, both silent and revolving in their mind as in a dim dusk, that mystery which, vague and unreal at first, had now become a living presence, and haunted them by day and night. chapter xii in the green arcades "in the shadow of pain, one may hear the footsteps of joy." so runs a proverb of old. it was a true saying for alan and ynys. that night they lay down in pain, their hearts heavy with the weight of some burden which they felt and did not know. on the morrow they woke to the rapture of a new day--a day of absolute beauty, when the stars grew pale in the cloudless blue sky before the uprising of the sun, while the last vapor lifted a white wing from the sea, and a dim spiral mist carried skyward the memory of inland dews. the whole wide wilderness of ocean was of living azure, aflame with gold and silver. around the promontories of the isles the brown-sailed fish-boats of barra and berneray, of borosay and seila, moved blithely hither and thither. everywhere the rhythm of life pulsed swift and strong. the first sound which had awakened the sleepers was of a loud singing of fishermen who were putting out from aonaig. the coming of a great shoal of mackerel had been signalled, and every man and woman of the near isles was alert for the take. the first sign had been the swift congregation of birds, particularly the gannets and skuas. and as the men pulled at the oars, or hoisted the brown sails, they sang a snatch of an old-world tune, wont to be chanted at the first coming of the birds when spring-tide is on the flow again. "bui' cheas dha 'n ti thaine na gugachan thaine 's na h-eoin-mhora cuideriu, cailin dugh ciaru bo 's a chro! bo dhonn! bo dhonn! bo dhonn bheadarrach! bo dhonn a ruin a bhlitheadh am baine dhuit ho ro! mo gheallag! ni gu rodagach! cailin dugh ciaru bo 's a chro-- na h-eoin air tighinn! cluinneam an ceol!" [thanks to the being, the gannets have come. yes! and the great auks along with them. dark-haired girl!--a cow in the fold! brown cow! brown cow! brown cow, beloved ho! brown cow! my love! the milker of milk to thee! ho ro! my fair-skinned girl--a cow in the fold, and the birds have come!--glad sight, i see!] eager to be of help, alan put off in his boat and was soon among the fishermen, who in their new excitement were forgetful of all else than that the mackerel were come, and that every moment was precious. for the first time alan found himself no unwelcome comrade. was it, he wondered, because that, there upon the sea, whatever of shadow dwelled about him on the land was no longer visible? all through that golden noon, he and the others worked hard. from isle to isle went the chorus of the splashing oars and splashing nets; of the splashing of the fish and the splashing of gannets and gulls; of the splashing of the tide leaping blithely against the sun-dazzle, and the innumerous rippling wash moving out of the west--all this blent with the loud, joyous cries, the laughter, and the hoarse shouts of the men of barra and the adjacent islands. it was close upon dusk before the rona boats put into the haven of aonaig again; and by that time none was blither than alan carmichael, who in that day of happy toil had lost all the gloom and apprehension of the day before, and now made haste to caisteal-rhona to add to his joy by a sight of ynys in their home. when, however, he got there, there was no ynys to see. "she had gone," said kirsten macdonald, "she had gone out in the smaller boat midway in the afternoon, and had sailed around to aoidhu, the great scaur which ran out beyond the precipices at the south-west of rona." this ynys often did; and, of late, more and more often. ever since she had come to the hebrid isles, her love of the sea had deepened, and had grown into a passion for its mystery and beauty. of late, too, something impelled to a more frequent isolation; a deep longing to be where no eye could see, and no ear hearken. those strange dreams which, in a confused way, had haunted her mind in her far breton home, came oftener now and more clear. sometimes, when she had sat in the twilight at kerival, holding her mother's hand and listening to tales of that remote north to which her heart had ever yearned, she had suddenly lost all consciousness of the speaker, or of the things said, and had let her mind be taken captive by her uncontrolled imagination, till in spirit she was far away, and sojourned in strange places, hearing a language that she did not know, and yet which she understood, and dwelt in a past or a present which she had never seen and which yet was familiar. since ynys had known she was with child, this visionariness had been intensified, this longing had become more and more a deep need. even with alan she felt at times the intrusion of an alien influence. if in her body was a mystery, a mystery also was in her brain and in her heart. alan knew this, and knowing, understood. it was for gladness to him that ynys should do as she would; that in these long hours of solitude she drank deep of the elixir of peace; and that this way of happiness was open to her as to him. never did these isolations come between them; indeed they were sometimes more at one then than when they were together, for all the deep happiness which sustained both upon the strong waters of their love. so, when alan heard from kirsten that ynys had sailed westward, he was in no way alarmed. but when the sun had set, and over the faint blue film of the isle of tiree the moon had risen, and still no sign of ynys, he became restless and uneasy. kirsten begged him in vain to eat of the supper she had prepared. idly he moved to and fro along the rocky ledge, or down by the pebbly shore, or across the green _airidh_; eager for a glimpse of her whom he loved so passing well. at last, unable longer to endure a growing anxiety, he put out in his boat, and sailed swiftly before the slight easterly breeze which had prevailed since moonrise. so far as aoidhu, all the way from aonaig, there was not a haven anywhere, nor even one of the sea caverns which honeycombed the isle beyond the headland. a glance, therefore, showed him that ynys had not yet come back that way. it was possible, though unlikely, that she had sailed right round rona; unlikely because in the narrow straits to the north, between rona and the scattered islets known as the innse-mhara, strong currents prevailed, and particularly at the full of the tide, when they swept north-eastward, dark and swift as a mill-race. once the headland was passed and the sheer precipitous westward cliffs loomed black out of the sea, he became more and more uneasy. as yet, there was no danger; but he saw that a swell was moving out of the west, and whenever the wind blew that way the sea arcades were filled with a lifting, perilous wave, and escape from them was difficult and often impossible. out of the score or more great corridors which opened between aoidhu and ardgorm, it was difficult to know into which to hazard entry in quest of ynys. together they had examined all of them. some twisted but slightly; others wound sinuously till the green, serpentine alleys, flanked by basalt walls hundreds of feet high, lost themselves in an indistinguishable maze. but that which was safest, and wherein a boat could most easily make its way against wind or tide, was the huge, cavernous corridor known locally as the uamh-nan-roin, the cave of the seals. for this opening alan steered his boat. soon he was within the wide corridor. like the great cave at staffa, it was wrought as an aisle in some natural cathedral; the rocks, too, were fluted columnarly and rose in flawless symmetry as though graven by the hand of man. at the far end of this gigantic aisle, there diverges a long, narrow arcade, filled by day with the green shine of the water, and by night, when the moon is up, with a pale froth of light. it is one of the few where there are open gateways for the sea and the wandering light, and, by its spherical shape, almost the only safe passage in a season of heavy wind. half-way along this arched arcade a corridor leads to a round cup-like cavern, midway in which stands a huge mass of black basalt, in shape suggestive of a titanic altar. thus it must have impressed the imagination of the islanders of old, for by them, even in a remote day, it was called teampull-nan-mhara, the temple of the sea. owing to the narrowness of the corridor, and to the smooth, unbroken walls which rise sheer from the green depths into an invisible darkness, the strait of the temple is not one wherein to linger long, save in a time of calm. instinctively, however, alan quietly headed his boat along this narrow way. when, silently, he emerged from the arcade, he could just discern the mass of basalt at the far end of the cavern. but there, seated in her boat, was ynys; apparently idly adrift, for one oar floated in the water alongside, and the other suspended listlessly from the tholes. his heart had a suffocating grip as he saw her whom he had come to seek. why that absolute stillness, that strange, listless indifference? for a dreadful moment he feared that death had indeed come to her in that lonely place where, as an ancient legend had it, a woman of old time had perished, and ever since had wrought death upon any who came thither solitary and unhappy. but at the striking of the shaft of his oar against a ledge, ynys gave a low cry and looked at him with startled eyes. half rising from where she crouched in the stern, she called to him in a voice that had in it something strangely unfamiliar. "i will not hear!" she cried. "i will not hear! leave me! leave me!" fearing that the desolation of the place had wrought upon her mind, alan swiftly moved toward her. the very next moment his boat glided along hers. stepping from the one to the other, he kneeled beside her. "_ynys-ghaolaiche_, ynys, my darling, what is it? what gives you dread? there is no harm here. all is well. look! see, it is i, alan; alan, whom you love! listen, dear; do you not know me; do you not know who i am? it is i, alan; alan who loves you!" even in that obscure light he could clearly discern her pale face, and his heart smote him as he saw her eyes turn upon him with a glance wild and mournful. had she indeed succumbed to the sea madness which ever and again strikes into a terrible melancholy one here and there among those who dwell in the remote isles? but even as he looked, he noted another expression come into the beautiful eyes, and almost before he realized what had happened, ynys's head was on his breast, and she sobbing with a sudden gladness and passion of relief. the dusk deepened swiftly. in those serpentine arcades darkness grows from hour to hour, even on nights when the moon makes the outer sea a blaze of silver fire. but sweet it was to lie there in that solitary place, where no sound penetrated save the low, soughing sigh of ocean, audible there only as the breath of a sleeper: to lie there in each other's arms, and to feel the beating of heart against heart, knowing that whether in the hazard of life or death, all was well, since they two were there and together. for long ynys could say no word. and as for alan--too glad was he to have her again, to know that she lived indeed, and that his fear of the sea madness was an idle fantasy; too glad was he to urge her to speak, when her recovered joy was still sweet in her heart. but at last she whispered to him how that she had sailed westward from caisteal-rhona, having been overcome by the beauty of the day, and longing to be among those mysterious green arcades where thought rose out of the mind like a white bird and flew among shadows in strange places, bringing back with it upon its silent wings the rumor of strange voices, and oftentimes singing a song of what ears hear not. deeply upon the two had lain the thought of what was to be; the thought of the life she bore within her, that was the tangible love of her and of alan, and yet was so strangely and remotely dissociate from either. happy in happy thoughts, and strangely wrought by vague imaginings, she had sailed past precipice after precipice, and so at last into the strait of the temple. just before the last light of day had begun to glide out of the pale green water, she had let her boat drift idly alongside the teampull-mhara. there, for a while, she had lain, drowsily content, dreaming her dream. then, suddenly her heart had given a leap like a doe in the bracken, and the pulses in her veins swung like stars on a night of storm. for there, in that nigh unreachable and forever unvisited solitude was the figure of a man. he stood on the summit of the huge basalt altar, and appeared to have sprung from out the rock, or, himself a shadowy presence, to have grown out of the obscure unrealities of the darkness. she had stared at him, fascinated, speechless. when she had said this ynys stopped abruptly, for she felt the trembling of alan's hand. "go on," he said hoarsely, "go on. tell me all!" to his amaze, she did not seem perturbed in the way he had dreaded when she began to tell what she had seen. "but did you notice nothing about him, ynys ... about his face, his features?" "yes. his eyes filled me with strange joy." "with joy? oh, ynys! ynys! do you know whom--_what_--it was you saw? it was a vision, a nothingness, a mere phantom; and that phantom was ... was ... myself!" "you, alan! oh, no, alan-aghray! dear, you do not know whom i saw--nor do i, though i know it was not you!" "we will talk of this later, my fawn," alan muttered. "meanwhile, hold on to this ledge, for i wish to examine this mass of rock that they call the altar." with a spring he was on the ledge. then, swift and sure as a wild-cat, he scaled the huge bowlder. nothing; no one! there was not a trace of any human being. not a bird, not a bat; nothing. moreover, even in that slowly blackening darkness he could see that there was no direct connection between the summit or side with the blank, precipitous wall of basalt beyond. overhead there was, so far as he could discern, a vault. no human being could have descended through that perilous gulf. was the island haunted? he wondered, as slowly he made his way back to the boat. or had he been startled into some wild fantasy, and imagined a likeness where none had been? perhaps, even, he had not really seen any one. he had read of similar strange delusions. the nerves can soon chase the mind into the dark zone wherein it loses itself. or was ynys the vain dreamer? that, indeed, might well be, and she with child, and ever a visionary. mayhap she had heard some fantastic tale from morag macneill or from old marsail macrae; the islanders had _sgeul_ after _sgeul_ of a wild strangeness. in silence he guided the boats back into the outer arcade, where a faint sheen of moonlight glistered on the water. thence, in a few minutes, he oared that wherein he and ynys sat, with the other fastened astern, into the open. when the moonshine lay full on her face, he saw that she was thinking neither of him nor of where she was. her eyes were heavy with dream. what wind there was blew against their course, so alan rowed unceasingly. in silence they passed once again the headland of aoidhu; in silence they drifted past a single light gleaming in a croft near aonaig--a red eye staring out into the shadow of the sea, from the room where the woman marsail lay dying; and in silence their keels grided on the patch of shingle in caisteal-rhona haven. but when, once more, alan found himself with ynys in the safe quietudes of the haven, he pressed her eagerly to give him some clear description of the figure she had seen. ynys, however, had become strangely reticent. all he could elicit from her was that the man whom she had seen bore no resemblance to him, except in so far as he was fair. he was taller, slimmer, and seemed older. he thought it wiser not to speak to her on what he himself had seen, or concerning his conviction that it was the same mysterious stranger who had appeared to both. chapter xiii the message for days thereafter alan haunted that rocky, cavernous wilderness where he had seen the herdsman. it was in vain he had everywhere sought to find word of this mysterious dweller in those upland solitudes. at times he believed that there was indeed some one upon the island of whom, for inexplicable reasons, none there would speak; but at last he came to the conviction that what he had seen was an apparition, projected by the fantasy of overwrought nerves. even from the woman, morag macneill, to whom he had gone with a frank appeal that won its way to her heart, he learned no more than that an old legend, of which she did not care to speak, was in some way associated with his own coming to rona. ynys, too, never once alluded to the mysterious incident of the green arcades which had so deeply impressed them both; never, that is, after the ensuing day which followed, when, simply and spontaneously, she told alan that she believed that she had seen a vision. when he reminded her that she had been convinced of its reality, ynys answered that for days past she had been dreaming a strange dream, and that doubtless this had possessed her so that her nerves played her false, in that remote and shadowy place. what this dream was she would not confide, nor did he press her. but as the days went by and as no word came to either of any unknown person who was on the island, and as alan, for all his patient wandering and furtive quest, both among the upland caves and in the green arcades, found absolutely no traces of him whom he sought, the belief that he had been duped by his imagination deepened almost to conviction. as for ynys, day after day, soft veils of dream obscured the bare realities of life. but she, unlike alan, became more and more convinced that what she had seen was indeed no apparition. whatever lingering doubt she had was dissipated on the eve of the night when old marsail macrae died. it was dusk when word came to caisteal-rhona that marsail felt the cold wind on the soles of her feet. ynys went to her at once, and it was in the dark hour which followed that she heard once more and more fully the strange story which, like a poisonous weed, had taken root in the minds of the islanders. already from marsail she had heard of the prophet, though, strangely enough, she had never breathed word of this to alan, not even when, after the startling episode of the apparition in the teampull-mhara, she had, as she believed, seen the prophet himself. but there in the darkness of the low, turfed cottage, with no light in the room save the dull red gloom from the heart of the smoored peats, marsail, in the attenuated, remote voice of those who have already entered into the vale of the shadow, told her this thing. * * * * * "yes, ynys, wife of alan macalasdair, i will be telling you this thing before i change. you are for knowing, sure, that long ago uilleam, brother of him who was father to your man, had a son? yes, you know that, you say, and also that he was called donnacha bàn? no, mo-run-geal, that is not a true thing that you have heard, that donnacha bàn went under the wave years ago. he was the seventh son, and was born under the full moon; 'tis himself will be knowing whether that was for or against him. of these seven none lived beyond childhood except the two youngest, kenneth and donnacha. kenneth was always frail as a february flower, but he lived to be a man. he and his brother never spoke, for a feud was between them, not only because that each was unlike the other and that the younger hated the older because thus he was the penniless one--but most because both loved the same woman. i will not be telling you the whole story now, for the breath in my body will soon blow out in the draught that is coming upon me; but this i will say to you: darker and darker grew the gloom between these brothers. when kirsteen macdonald gave her love to kenneth, donnacha disappeared for a time. then, one day, he came back to borosay, and smiled quietly with his cold eyes when they wondered at his coming again. now, too, it was noticed that he no longer had an ill-will upon his brother, but spoke smoothly with him and loved to be in his company. but, to this day, no one knows for sure what happened. for there was a gloaming when donnacha bàn came back alone, in his sailing boat. he and kenneth had sailed forth, he said, to shoot seals in the sea arcades to the west of rona; but in these dark and lonely passages, they had missed each other. at last he had heard kenneth's voice calling for help, but when he had got to the place, it was too late, for his brother had been seized with the cramps, and had sunk deep into the fathomless water. there is no getting a body again that sinks in these sea galleries. the crabs know that. "well, this and much more was what donnacha bàn told to his people. none believed him; but what could any do? there was no proof; none had ever seen them enter the sea caves together. not that donnacha bàn sought in any way to keep back those who would fain know more. not so; he strove to help to find the body. nevertheless, none believed; and kirsteen nic dugall mòr least of all. the blight of that sorrow went to her heart. she had death soon, poor thing! but before the cold grayness was upon her, she told her father, and the minister that was there, that she knew donnacha bàn had murdered his brother. one might be saying these were the wild words of a woman; but, for sure, no one said that thing upon borosay or rona, or any of these isles. when all was done, the minister told what he knew, and what he thought, to the lord of the south isles, and asked what was to be put upon donnacha bàn. 'exile forever,' said the chief, 'or if he stays here, the doom of silence. let no man or woman speak to him or give him food or drink; or give him shelter, or let his shadow cross his or hers.' "when this thing was told to donnacha bàn carmichael, he laughed at first; but as day slid over the rocks where all days fall, he laughed no more. soon he saw that the chief's word was no empty word; and yet he would not go away from his own place. he could not stay upon borosay, for his father cursed him; and no man can stay upon the island where a father's curse moves this way and that, forever seeking him. then, some say a madness came upon him, and others that he took wildness to be his way, and others that god put upon him the shadow of loneliness, so that he might meet sorrow there and repent. howsoever that may be, donnacha bàn came to rona, and, by the same token, it was the year of the great blight, when the potatoes and the corn came to naught, and when the fish in the sea swam away from the isles. in the autumn of that year there was not a soul left on rona except kirsten macdonald and the old man ian, her father, who had guard of caisteal-rhona for him who was absent. when, once more, smoke rose from the crofts, the rumor spread that donnacha bàn, the murderer, had made his home among the caves of the upper part of the isle. none knew how this rumor rose, for he was seen of none. the last man who saw him--and that was a year later--was old padruic mcvurich, the shepherd. padruic said that, as he was driving his ewes across the north slope of ben einaval in the gloaming, he came upon a silent figure seated upon a rock, with his chin in his hands, and his elbows on his knees--with the great, sad eyes of him staring at the moon that was lifting itself out of the sea. padruic did not know who the man was. the shepherd had few wits, poor man! and he had known, or remembered, little about the story of donnacha bàn carmichael, so, when he spoke to the man, it was as to a stranger. the man looked at him and said: "'you are padruic mcvurich, the shepherd.' "at that a trembling was upon old padruic, who had the wonder that this stranger should know who and what he was. "'and who will you be, and forgive the saying?' he asked. "'_am faidh_--the prophet,' the man said. "'and what prophet will you be, and what is your prophecy?' asked padruic. "'i am here because i wait for what is to be, and that will be for the birth of a child that is to be a king.' "and with that the man said no more, and the old shepherd went silently down through the hillside gloaming, and, heavy with the thoughts that troubled him, followed his ewes down into aonaig. but after that neither he nor any other saw or heard aught of the shadowy stranger; so that all upon rona felt sure that padruic had beheld no more than a vision. there were some who thought that he had seen the ghost of the outlaw donnacha bàn; and mayhap one or two who wondered if the stranger that had said he was a prophet was not donnacha bàn himself, with a madness come upon him; but at last these rumors went out to sea upon the wind, and men forgot. but, and it was months and months afterward, and three days before his own death, old padruic mcvurich was sitting in the sunset on the rocky ledge in front of his brother's croft, where then he was staying, when he heard a strange crying of seals. he thought little of that; only, when he looked closer, he saw, in the hollow of the wave hard by that ledge, a drifting body. "_am faidh--am faidh!_" he cried; "the prophet, the prophet!" at that his brother and his brother's wife ran to see; but it was nothing that they saw. "it would be a seal," said pol mcvurich; but at that padruic had shook his head, and said no, for sure, he had seen the face of the dead man, and it was of him whom he had met on the hillside, and that had said he was the prophet who was waiting there for the birth of a king. "and that is how there came about the echo of the thought, that donnacha bàn had at last, after his madness, gone under the green wave and was dead. for all that, in the months which followed, more than one man said he had caught a glimpse of a figure high up on the hill. the old wisdom says that when christ comes again, or the prophet who will herald christ, it will be as a herdsman on a lonely isle. more than one of the old people on rona and borosay remembered that _sgeul_ out of the _seanachas_ that the tale-tellers knew. there were some who said that donnacha bàn had never been drowned at all, and that he was this prophet, this herdsman. others would not have that saying at all, but believed that the mysterious herdsman was indeed am buchaille bàn, the fair-haired shepherd, who had come again to redeem the people out of their sorrow. there were even those who said that the herdsman who haunted rona was no other than kenneth carmichael himself, who had not died, but had had the mind-dark there in the sea caves where he had been lost, and there had come to the knowledge of secret things, and so was at last _am faidh chriosd_." * * * * * a great weakness came upon the old woman when she had spoken thus far. ynys feared that she would have breath for no further word, but after a thin gasping, and a listless fluttering of weak hands upon the coverlet, whereon her trembling fingers plucked aimlessly at the invisible blossoms of death, she opened her eyes once more and stared in a dim questioning at her who sat by her bedside. "tell me," whispered ynys, "tell me, marsail, what thought it is that is in your own mind?" but already the old woman had begun to wander, though ynys did not know this. "for sure, for sure," she muttered, "_am faidh_ ... _am faidh_ ... an' a child will be born ... an' a king he will be, an' ... that will be the voice of domhuill, my husband, i am hearing ... an' dark it is, an' the tide comin' in ... an'----" then, sure, the tide came in, and if in that darkness old marsail macrae heard any voice at all, it was that of domhuill who years agone had sunk into the wild seas off the head of barra. an hour later, with tears still in her eyes, ynys walked slowly home through the cloudy night. all she had heard came back to her with a strange familiarity. something of this, at least, she had known before. some hints of this mysterious herdsman had reached her ears. in some inexplicable way his real or imaginary presence there upon rona seemed a preordained thing for her. all that dreaming mysticism, which had wrought so much of beauty and wonder into her girlhood in brittany, had expanded into a strange flower of the imagination--a flower whose subtle fragrance affected her inward life. sometimes she had wondered if all the tragic vicissitudes which happened at kerival, with the strange and dreamlike life which she and alan had led since, had so wrought upon her that the unreal became real, and the actual merely phantasmal; for now she felt more than ever assured that some hidden destiny had controlled all this disastrous mischance, had led her and alan there to that lonely island. she knew that the wild imaginings of the islanders had woven the legend of the prophet, or at any rate of his message, out of the loom of the longing and the deep nostalgia whereon is woven that larger tapestry, the shadow-thridden life of the island gael. laughter and tears, ordinary hopes and pleasures, and even joy itself, and bright gayety, and the swift, spontaneous imagination of susceptible natures--all this, of course, is to be found with the island gael as with his fellows elsewhere. but every here and there are some who have in their minds the inheritance from the dim past of their race, and are oppressed as no other people are oppressed by the gloom of a strife between spiritual emotion and material facts. it is the brains of dreamers such as these which clear the mental life of the community; and it is in these brains are the mysterious looms which weave the tragic and sorrowful tapestries of celtic thought. it were a madness to suppose that life in the isles consists of nothing but sadness or melancholy. it is not so, or need not be so, for the gael is a creature of shadow and shine. but whatever the people is, the brain of the gael hears a music that is sadder than any music there is, and has for its cloudy sky a gloom that shall not go, for the end is near, and upon the westernmost shores of these remote isles, the voice--as has been truly said by one who has beautifully interpreted his own people--the voice of celtic sorrow may be heard crying, "_cha till, cha till, cha till mi tuille_"--i will return, i will return, i will return no more. ynys knew all this well; and yet she too dreamed her celtic dream--that, even yet, there might be redemption for the people. she did not share the wild hope which some of the older islanders held, that christ himself shall come again to redeem an oppressed race; but might not another saviour arise, another redeeming spirit come into the world? and if so, might not that child of joy be born out of suffering and sorrow and crime; and if so, might not that child be born of her? with startled eyes she crossed the thyme-set ledge whereon stood caisteal-rhona. was it, after all, a message she had received from him who appeared to her in that lonely cavern of the sea; was he indeed _am faidh_, the mysterious prophet of the isles? chapter xiv the laughter of the king what are dreams but the dust of wayfaring thoughts? or whence are they, and what air is upon their shadowy wings? do they come out of the twilight of man's mind; are they ghosts of exiles from vanished palaces of the brain; or are they heralds with proclamations of hidden tidings for the soul that dreams? it was a life of dream that ynys and alan lived; but ynys the more, for, as week after week went by, the burden of her motherhood wrought her increasingly. ever since the night of marsail's death, alan had noticed that ynys no longer doubted but that in some way a special message had come to her, a special revelation. on the other hand, he had himself swung back to his former conviction, that the vision he had seen upon the hillside was, in truth, that of a living man. from fragments here and there, a phrase, a revealing word, a hint gleaming through obscure allusions, he came at last to believe that some one bearing a close, and even extraordinary, resemblance to himself lived upon rona. although upon the island itself he could seldom persuade any one to speak of the herdsman, the islanders of seila and borosay became gradually less reticent. he ascertained this, at least: that their fear and aversion, when he first came, had been occasioned by the startling likeness between him and the mysterious being whom they called am buchaille bàn. on borosay, he was told, the fishermen believed that the _aonaran nan chreag_, the recluse of the rocks, as commonly they spoke of him, was no other than donnacha bàn carmichael, survived there through these many years, and long since mad with his loneliness and because of the burden of his crime. it was with keen surprise that alan learned how many of the fishermen of borosay and berneray, and even of barra, had caught a glimpse of the outcast. it was this relative familiarity, indeed, that was at the root of the fear and aversion which had met him upon his arrival. almost from the moment he had landed in borosay, the rumor had spread that he was indeed no other than donnacha bàn, and that he had chosen this way, now both his father and alasdair carmichael were dead, to return to his own place. so like was alan to the outlaw who had long since disappeared from touch with his fellow men, that many were convinced that the two could be no other than one and the same. what puzzled him hardly less was the fact that, on the rare occasions when ynys had consented to speak of what she had seen, the man she described bore no resemblance to himself. from one thing and another, he came at last to the belief that he had really seen donnacha bàn, his cousin; but that the vision of ynys's mind was born of her imagination, stimulated by all the tragedy and strange vicissitudes she had known, and wrought by the fantastic tales of marsail and morag macneill. by this time, too, the islanders had come to see that alan macalasdair was certainly not donnacha bàn. even the startling likeness no longer betrayed them in this way. the ministers and the priests laughed at the whole story and everywhere discouraged the idea that donnacha bàn could still be among the living. but for the unfortunate superstition that to meet the herdsman, whether the lost soul of donnacha bàn or indeed the strange phantom of the hills of which the old legends spoke, was to meet inevitable disaster; but for this, the islanders might have been persuaded to make such a search among the caves of rona as would almost certainly have revealed the presence of any who dwelt therein. but as summer lapsed into autumn, and autumn itself through its golden silences waned into the shadow of the equinox, a quiet happiness came upon both alan and ynys. true, she was still wrought by her strange visionary life, though of this she said little or nothing; and, as for himself, he hoped that with the birth of the child this fantastic dream life would go. whoever the mysterious herdsman was--if he indeed existed at all except in the imaginations of those who spoke of him either as the buchaille bàn, or as the _aonaran nan chreag_--alan believed that at last he had passed away. none saw him now: and even morag macneill, who had often on moonlight nights caught the sound of a voice chanting among the upper solitudes, admitted that she now heard nothing unusual. st. martin's summer came at last, and with it all that wonderful, dreamlike beauty which bathes the isles in a flood of golden light, and puts upon sea and land a veil as of ineffable mystery. one late afternoon ynys, returning to caisteal-rhona after an unexplained absence of several hours, found alan sitting at a table. spread before him were the sheets of one of the strange old gaelic tales which he had ardently begun to translate. she took up the page which he had just laid down. it was from the _eachdaireachd challum mhic cruimein_, and the last words that alan had translated were these: "and when that king had come to the island, he lived there in the shadow of men's eyes; for none saw him by day or by night, and none knew whence he came or whither he fared; for his feet were shod with silence, and his way with dusk. but men knew that he was there, and all feared him. months, even years, tramped one on the heels of the other, and perhaps the king gave no sign, but one day he would give a sign; and that sign was a laughing that was heard somewhere, be it upon the lonely hills, or on the lonely wave, or in the heart of him who heard. and whenever the king laughed, he who heard would fare ere long from his fellows to join that king in the shadow. but sometimes the king laughed only because of vain hopes and wild imaginings, for upon these he lives as well as upon the strange savors of mortality." * * * * * ynys read the page over and over; and when alan saw how she brooded upon it, he regretted that he had left it for her to see. he the more regretted this when he learned that that very afternoon she had again been among the sea caves. she would not say what she had seen or heard, if indeed she had heard or seen any thing unusual. but that night she woke suddenly, and taking alan by the hand, made him promise to go with her on the morrow to the teampull-mhara. in vain he questioned her as to why she asked this thing. all she would say was that she must go there once again, and with him, for she believed that a spirit out of heaven had come to reveal to her a wonder. distressed by what he knew to be a madness, and fearful that it might prove to be no passing fantasy, alan would fain have persuaded her against this intention. even as he spoke, however, he realized that it might be better to accede to her wishes, and, above all, to be there with her, so that it might not be one only who heard or saw the expected revelation. and it was a strange faring indeed, that which occurred on the morrow. at noon, when the tide was an hour turned in the ebb, they sailed westward from caisteal-rhona. it was in silence they made that strange journey together; for, while alan steered, ynys lay down in the hollow of the boat, with her head against his knees, and he saw that she slept, or at least lay still with her eyes closed. when, at last, they passed the headland and entered the first of the sea arcades, she rose and sat beside him. hauling down the now useless sail, he took an oar and, standing at the prow, urged the boat inward along the narrow corridor which led to the huge sea cave of the altar. in the deep gloom--for even on that day of golden light and beauty the green air of the sea cave was heavy with shadow--there was a deathly chill. what dull light there was came from the sheen of the green water which lay motionless along the black basaltic ledges. when at last the base of the altar was reached, alan secured the boat by a rope passed around a projecting spur; and then lay down in the stern beside ynys. "tell me, dear, what is this thing that you expect to hear or see?" she looked at him strangely for a while, but, though her lips moved, she said nothing. "tell me, dear," he urged again, "who is it you expect to see or hear?" "_am buchaille bàn_," she answered, "the herdsman." for a moment he hesitated. then, taking her hand in his, and raising it to his lips, he whispered in her ear: "dearest, all this is a vain dream. there is no herdsman upon rona. if ever there was a man there who lived solitary--if ever, indeed, there was an _aonaran nan chreag_--he is dead long since. what you have seen and heard has been a preying upon you of wild thoughts. think no more of this vision. we have both suffered too much, and the knowledge of what is behind us has wrought upon us too hardly. it is a mistake to be here, on rona, now. ynys, darling, you and i are young, and we love; let us leave this melancholy isle--these melancholy isles--and go back into the green, sunny world wherein we had such joy before; yes, let us even go back to kerival; anywhere where we may live our life with joy and glad content--but not here, not in these melancholy, haunted isles, where our dreams become more real than our life, and life itself, for us at least, the mere shadow of being. ynys, will you come? will you go?" "all shall be as you will, alan--_afterward_. but first, i must wait here till our child is born, for i have heard that which is a message. and one part of that message concerns you and me; and one concerns others. and that which concerns you and me is that in this way, in this child, to be born here in this place, lies the redemption of that evil by which your father was slain by my father. it is not enough that you and i have forgotten the past; the past remains. what we cannot do, or no man or woman can do, the powers that are beyond the grave can accomplish. not our love, not even ours, can redeem that crime. but if, born of us, one will come, who will be dowered with our love and free from the blood shadow which lies upon us, then all will be well and the evil shall be done with forever more. but also, has not the prophet said that one shall be born upon this island who will redeem his oppressed people? and this prophet, alan, i have seen and heard. never have i seen his face aright, for it has ever been in the shadow; but i have heard his voice, for he has spoken to me, and what he has said is this: that in the fulness of time the child i shall bear will be he of whom men have dreamed in the isles for ages past. sure, dear, you and i must be believing that thing, since he who tells it is no mere erring _faidh_, but himself an immortal spirit." alan looked at the speaker in amaze. there could be no question of her absolute sincerity; for the beautiful face was lit with a strange light, and in her eyes was a proud gleam of conscious sacrifice. that it was all a madness, a fantasy, he knew well. long ago had lois de kerival spoken of the danger that lay for ynys; she being the inheritor of a strange brooding spirit which belonged to her people. now, in this remote place, the life of dream and the life of reality had become one; and ynys was as a drifted ship among unknown seas and mists. but on one point he believed he might convince her. "why do you speak of the herdsman as a spirit, ynys? what proof have you of this? if you or i have seen any one at all, be sure it is a mortal man and no spirit; nay, i know who it must be, if any one it is, for throughout the isles men say that donnacha bàn, the son of the brother of my father, was an outlaw here, and has lived long among the caves." "this man," she said quietly, "is not donnacha bàn, but the prophet of whom the people speak. he himself has told me this thing. yesterday i was here, and he bade me come again. he spoke out of the shadow that is about the altar, though i saw him not. i asked him if he were donnacha bàn, and he said 'no.' i asked him if he were _am faidh_, and he said 'yes.' i asked him if he were indeed an immortal spirit, and herald of that which was to be, and he said 'even so.'" for a long while after this, no word was spoken betwixt the twain. the chill of that remote place began to affect ynys, and she shivered slightly at times. but more she shivered because of the silence which prevailed, and because that he who had promised to be there gave no sign. sure, she thought, it could not be all a dream; sure, the herdsman would come again. then, at last, turning to alan, she said, "we must come on the morrow; for to-day he is not here." "no, dear; never, never shall we come here again. this is for the last time. henceforth, we shall dwell here in rona no more." "you will do this thing for me, alan, that i ask?" "i will do what you ask, ynys." "then take this written word, and leave it upon the top of the great rock there that is called the altar." with that she placed in his hand a slip of paper whereon she had already written certain words. what they were, alan could not discern in that shadowy light; but, taking the slip in his hand, he stepped on the black ledges at the base of the altar, and slowly mounted the precipitous rock. ynys watched him till he became himself a shadow in that darkness. her heart leaped when suddenly she heard a cry fall to her out of the gloom. "alan, alan!" she cried, and a great fear was upon her when no answer came; but at last, with passionate relief, she heard him clambering slowly down the perilous slope of that obscure place. when he reached the ledge, he stood still, regarding her. "why do you not come into the boat, alan?" she asked. "dear, i have that to tell you which will let you see that i spoke truth." she looked at him with parted lips, her breath coming and going like that of a caged bird. "what is it, alan?" she whispered. "ynys, when i reached the top of the altar, and in the dim light that was there, i saw the dead body of a man lying upon the rock. his head was lain back so that the gleam from a crevice in the cliff overhead fell upon it. the man has been dead many hours. he is a man whose hair has been grayed by years and sorrow, but the man is he who is of my blood; he whom i resemble so closely; he that the fishermen call _aonaran nan chreag_; he that is the herdsman." ynys made no reply; still she looked at him with large, wondering eyes. "ynys, darling, do you not understand what it is that i say? this man, that they call the buchaille bàn--this man whom you believe to be the herdsman of the old legend--is no other than donnacha bàn, he who years and years ago slew his brother and has been an exile ever since on this lonely island. how could he, then, a man as i am, though with upon him a worse blood-shadow than lies upon us--how could he tell you aught of what is to be? what message could he give you that is himself a lost soul? "would you be for following a herdsman who could lead you to no fold? this man is dead, ynys; and it is well that you brought me here to-day. that is a good thing, and for sure god willed it. out of this all our new happiness may come. for now we know what is this mysterious shadow that has darkened our lives ever since we came to rona. now we have knowledge that it was no mere phantom i saw upon the hillside; and now also we know that he who told you these strange, wild things of which you speak was no prophet with a message from the world of the spirit, but a man wrought to madness, a man who for all these years had lived his lonely, secretive life upon the hills, or among these caves of the sea. come, then, dear, and let us go hence. sure, at the last, it is well that we have found this way. come, ynys, we will go now and never come here again." he looked eagerly for her assenting eyes. with pain in his heart, however, he saw that the dream--the strange, inexplicable fantasy--had not yet gone out of them. with a sigh, he entered the boat and took her hand. "let us go," she said, and that was all. slowly alan oared the boat across the shadowy gulf of the cave, along the narrow passage which led therefrom, and out into the pale green gloom of the arched arcade wherein the sight and sound of the sea made a music in his ears. but the short november day was already passing to its end. all the sea westward was aflame with gold and crimson light, and in the great dome of the sky a wonderful radiance lifted above the paleness of the clouds whose pinnacled and bastioned heights towered in the south-west. a faint wind blew eastwardly; so, raising the sail, alan made it fast and then sat down beside ynys. but she, rising, moved along the boat to the mast, and leaned there with her face against the setting sun. idly they drifted onward. deep silence prevailed betwixt them; deep silence was all about them, save for the endless, inarticulate murmur of the sea, the splash of low waves against the rocks of rona, and the sigh of the surf at the base of the basalt precipices. and this was their homeward sailing on that day of revelation; ynys, with her back against the mast, and her face irradiated by the light of the setting sun; he, steering, with his face in shadow. on a night of rain and amid the rumor of tempest, three weeks later, ynys heard the laughter of the king, when the child who was to be the bearer of so fair a destiny lay by her side, white and chill as the foam thrown up for a brief while upon the rocks by the unheeding sea. book third _the beauty of the world_ chapter xv the beauty of the world when, once more, the exquisite mystery of spring came upon the world, there was a not less wonderful rebirth in the heart of ynys. with the coming of that child upon whom such high hopes had been set--its birth, still and quiet as a snowdrop fallen before an icy wind upon the snow which nurtured it--all the fear of a mysterious nemesis, because of her union with alan despite the shadow of tragic crime which made that union ominous of evil destiny; all the vague forebodings which had possessed her ever since she left kerival; and, at the last, all the mystic elation with which her mind had become a winged and wandering spirit, passed from her. the gloom of that northern winter was tonic to them both. as soon as her weakness was past, and once more she was able to go about with alan, her old joyousness returned. in her eyes it was almost as though the islanders shared her recovered happiness. for one thing, they no more avoided her and alan. with the death of the man who had so long sustained a mysterious existence upon rona, their superstitious aversion went; they ceased to speak of _am buchaille bàn_ and, whether donnacha bàn had found on rona one of the hidden ways to heaven or had only dallied upon one of the byways to hell, it was commonly held that he had paid his death-eric by his lonely and even appalling life of unredeemed solitude. now that there was no longer any possibility of confusion between the outcast who had come to his tragic end, among the sea caves of rona, and his kinsman who bore to him so extraordinary a resemblance, a deep sense of the injustice that had been done to alan carmichael prevailed among the islanders. in many ways they showed their regret; but most satisfactorily, so far as alan was concerned, by taking him as one of themselves; as a man no longer under the shadow of doom or in any way linked to a disastrous fate. true, there were still some of the isle folk on borosay and barra who maintained that the man who had been found in the sea cave, whether donnacha bàn or some other, had nothing to do with the mysterious herdsman, whose advent, indeed, had long been anticipated by a section of the older inhabitants. it was only seven years since murdo macphail--better known as murdo-bronnach-namhara, brown murdoch of the sea, from his habit of preaching to the islanders from where he stood waist-deep in the water--had prophesied that the herdsman who was shepherd of israel would indeed come again, and that within seven years. and had he not added that if the fair lonely one were not accepted of the people, there would be deep sorrow for one and all, and a bitter wrong upon all the isles of the west? these murmurers now shook their heads and whispered often. of a truth, they said, the herdsman was come as foretold, and alan carmichael was blind indeed not to see that ynys, his wife, had received a vision, and, because of her silence, been punished in the death of her first-born. but with the white growth of winter, the pleasant, familiar intercourse that everywhere prevailed wrought finally against the last threadbare fabric of superstition. before the glow of the peats the sadness and gloom slowly dissipated. it was a new delight to both alan and ynys to find that the islanders could be so genial and almost gay, with a love of laughter and music and grotesque humor which, even in the blithe little fishing haven of ploumaliou, they had never seen surpassed. the cold months passed for them in a quiet content. that could not be happiness upon which was the shadow of so much pain; but there was something akin to it in the sweet serenity which came like calm after storm. possibly they might have been content to remain in rona; to find in the island their interest and happiness. ynys, indeed, often longed to leave the place where she had been so sadly disillusioned; and yet she did not urge that the home at caisteal-rhona should be broken up. while they were still in this state of quiet suspense, news came that affected them strangely. they had had no word from kerival since they left, but one windy march day a boat from borosay put into the haven with letters from alan's agents in edinburgh. among them was one from the abbé cæsar de la bruyère, from kerloek. from this alan learned strange news. * * * * * on the very day that he and ynys had left kerival, annaik had disappeared. none knew where she had gone. at first it was thought that judik kerbastiou had something to do with her absence, but two days after she had gone he was again at kerival. the house was a place of anarchy. no one knew whom to obey; what to do. with the marquise lois in her grave, with both ynys and annaik mysteriously absent and apparently with no intention to return, and with tristran the silent more morosely taciturn than his wont, and more than ever an invalid, with all this it was difficult for those in authority to exact the habitual duties. but in addition to this there were the imperious claims of judik kerbastiou, emphasized by his refusal to be addressed by any other name than the sieur jud de kerival. when, suddenly, and while quietly dictating a letter, the marquis tristran died, it seemed at last as though judik's triumph had come. for a brief while he was even addressed as m. le marquis. but on the noon following that day he had a rude awakening. a notary from ploumaliou arrived with the family lawyers, and produced a written and signed confession on the part of the woman whom he had called mother, that he was not her child at all, that her own child was dead, and that kerbastiou was really a forest foundling. as if this were not enough, the notary also proved, even to the conviction of judik, that the written marriage testimony from the parish books was an impudent forgery. so the man who had made so abrupt and dramatic an appearance on the threshold of kerival had, in the very moment of his triumph, to retreat once more to his obscurity as a homeless woodlander. the sole heirs now were annaik and ynys, but of neither was any thing known. the difficulty was partially solved by the abrupt appearance of annaik on the day of the second conclave. for a time thereafter all went well at kerival. then rumor began to spread mysterious whispers about the lady annaik. she would see none of her neighbors, whether from far or near, and even the sieur de morvan and his kith or kin were denied. then, too, she disappeared for days at a time. some thought she went to ploumaliou or kerloek, some that she had gone as far away as rennes or st. brieuc, and a few even imagined the remote paris to be her goal. none dreamed that she had gone no further than the forest of kerival. but as the autumn waned, rumors became more explicit. strange things were said of annaik de kerival. at last the anxious curé of ploumaliou took it upon himself to assure all who spoke to him about the lady of kerival that he had good reason to believe she was privately married. this, at least, drew some of the poison out of the gossip that had arisen. then a day came when the lady annaik dismissed the servants at kerival, and left none in the house save an old gardener and his wife. she was going away for a time, she said. she went, and from that day was not seen again. then came, in the abbé cæsar de la bruyère's letter, the strangest part of the mystery. annaik, ever since the departure of alan and ynys, had been living the forest life. all her passionate sylvan and barbaric instincts had been suddenly aroused. for the green woods and the forest ways she suffered an intolerable nostalgia. but over and above this was another reason. it seemed, said the abbé cæsar, that she must have returned the rude love of judik kerbastiou. however this might be, she lived with him for days at a time, and he himself had a copy of their marriage certificate made out at a registrar's in a remote little hill-town in the montagnes noires. this union with the morose and strange judik kerbastiou had not been known to any of the peasants until her trouble came to her. when the day was near she did not return to kerival, but kept to the gypsy tent which she shared with judik. after the birth of the child, every one knew, and every one marvelled. it was a madness: that was what all said, from kerloek to ploumaliou. but neither the union nor the child brought happiness to these twain, so much at one in their woodland life, so hopelessly alien in all else. one day a man named iouenn kerbac'h, passing by the tent where judik and annaik had taken shelter from a violent thunder-storm, overheard a savage upbraiding on the part of kerbastiou. annaik was his wife, it was true--so he cried--but a wife who had in nothing short of madness renounced every thing, and now would claim nothing of her own nor allow him to claim aught; a wife whom he loved with another madness, and yet hated because she was so hopelessly remote from himself; a wife who had borne a child, but a child that had nothing of the gypsy eyes and swarthy darkness of judik kerbastiou, but was fair, and with skin as white and eyes as blue as those of alan de kerival. it was this, and the terrible words that were said, which made iouenn kerbac'h hurry onward, dreading to listen further. yet nothing that he overheard gave him so strange a fear as the laugh with which annaik de kerival greeted a savage, screaming threat of death, hurled at her because of her silence after the taunting accusation he had made ... had made, and defied her to refute. none heard or saw annaik kerbastiou after that day, till the night of the evening when judik came into haut-kerloek and went straight to jehan rusgol, the maire. when asked what he had come for he had replied simply: "the woman annaik is dead." it was commonly thought that he had killed her, but there was no evidence of this, and the end of the inevitable legal procedure was the acquittal of the woodlander. from that day the man was rarely seen of his fellows, and even then, for the most part, only by charcoal-burners and others who had forest business. a few peasants knew where his hut was, and now and again called to speak with him, or to drink a cup of cider; but oftener than not he was absent, and always with the child. the boy had survived his mother's death, and in some strange way had suddenly become so dear to judik kerbastiou that the two were inseparable. this, then, was the tidings which startled alan and ynys out of their remote quiescence. the unexpected news, coupled with the urgent request that both should return to kerival, if only for a brief while, so as to prevent the property falling into absolute ruin, came as a whip upon alan's mind. to all he said ynys agreed, and was even glad to leave rona and return to brittany. * * * * * so it was that, with the first days of april, they bade farewell to ian and his sister, whom they left at caisteal-rhona, which was henceforth to be their home, and to all upon the island, and set forth in a fishing smack for borosay. it was not till the last of the precipices of rona was lost to view behind the south headland of borosay that ynys clearly realized the deep gladness with which she left the lonely isle of the caves. that it would have been impossible for her to live there long she was now well assured; and for alan, too, the life was not suitable. for the north, and for the islands, they would ever have a deep feeling, almost sacred in its intensity; but all that had happened made living there a thing difficult and painful for them, and moreover each, though ynys most, missed that green woodland beauty, the ceaseless forest charm, which made the very memory of kerival so fragrant. they went away, then, not as travellers who fare far with no thought of return, but rather as pilgrims returning homeward from a shrine sacred to them by profound and intimate associations. that was, indeed, for them a strange home-going. from the first there was something dreamlike, unreal, about that southward flight; in the long sail across hebrid seas, calm as glass until the south headlands of mull were passed, and then storm-swept; in the rapid journey across scotland and through england; and in the recrossing of that narrow sea which had once seemed to them a gulf of ultimate division. but when once more they saw the grotesque bulbous spire of ploumaliou rising above the sand-dunes by which, from st. malo, they approached the dear, familiar country, all this uncertainty went from them. with light hearts they realized it was indeed true; that they were free at last of a life for which they were now unfitted, and that the lost threads in the maze had been found. by their own wish the home-coming was so private that none knew of it save the doctor, the curé, the lawyer who accompanied them from ploumaliou, and the old gardener and his wife. as they neared the château from the north, alan and ynys alighted from the dishevelled carriage which was the sole vehicle of which ploumaliou could boast. m. auriol could drive on alone; for themselves, they chose to reach their home by the dunes and scattered pines, and thence by the yew close behind the manor-house. the day was windless and of a serene beauty. ever since noon the few clouds, suspensive in the azure flood like islets of snow, had waned till they were faint and light as blown swan's-down, then filmy as vapor lifted against the sun, and at last were no more visible; there had been the same unfathomable depths of azure, through which the tides of light imperceptibly ebbed from the zenith. the sea, too, was of a vivid though motionless blue, save where luminous with a white sheen or wrought with violet shadows and straits of amethyst. upon the land lay a golden peace. a richer glow involved the dunes, where the pine-shadows cast long, motionless blue shapes. as, hand in hand, ynys and alan moved athwart the pine glade whence they could pass at once either westward into the cypress alley or eastward through the yew close, they stopped instinctively. beyond them rose the chimneys and gables of the house of kerival, strangely still and remote, for all their familiar look. what a brief while ago it seemed since he and she had walked under these pines, wrought by the first ecstasy of their virginal love. then, those who now lay quiet in the darkness of the earth were alive; lois de kerival, with her repressed, passionate heart still at last; the marquis tristran, with the young grass growing soft and green over his bitterness; alasdair carmichael, with the echo of the island waves stilled under the quiet bells of the little church which guarded the grave-yard of st. blaise; and annaik--poor lost waif of beautiful womanhood, submerged forever in the green woods she loved so well, and sleeping so sound a sleep at last in an unmarked hollow beneath an ancient tree in some obscure glade or alley. a shadow was in alan's eyes--a deeper shadow than that caused by thought of the dead who lay heedless and listless, at once so near and such depths away--a deeper shadow than that cast by memory of the crime which overlay the past. as his eyes wandered to the cypress alley, his heart knew again a pain almost beyond endurance; a pain that only the peace of rona had translated into a strong acquiescence in the irrevocable past--a pain become less haunting under the stress of all which had happened in connection with the herdsman, till it knew a bitter resurrection when alan came to read of the tragic fate of the woman who had loved him. through some wayward impulse ynys abruptly asked him to go with her through the cypress alley, so that they should approach the château from the forest. silently, and with downcast eyes, he walked by her side, his hand still in hers. but his thoughts were with the dead woman, on the bitter hazard of love, and on what lay, forever secret, between annaik and himself. and as he communed with himself, in an austere pain of remembrance, he came to see more and more clearly that in some strange way the herdsman episode, with all involved therein, was no arbitrary chance in the maze of life, but a definite working out of destiny. none could ever know what annaik had foretold, had known, on that terrible night when the silence of the moonlit peace was continuously rent by the savage screams of the peacocks; nor could any other than himself discern, against the dark tapestries of what veiled his inner life, the weaving of an inextricable web. it was difficult for him to believe that she was dead--annaik, who had always been so radiantly, superbly alive. now there was dust upon that wonderful bronze hair; darkness upon those lambent eyes; no swift pulse beating in the red tide in the veins; a frost against the heart. what a burden it had carried, poor heart! "oh, annaik, annaik!" he muttered below his breath, "what a hard wayfaring because of a passion crucified upon the bitter tree of despair; what a fierce, silent, unwavering tyranny over the rebellious voices crying unceasingly from every nerve, or swept this way and that on every stormy tide of blood." that annaik who loved the forest so passing well, and in whom the green fire of life flamed consumingly, should no longer be alive to rejoice in the glory of spring, now once again everywhere involving the brown earth and the purple branches, was an almost unrealizable thing. to walk in that cypress alley once more; to cross that open glade with its single hawthorn; to move in the dark green shadow of that yew close; to do this and remember all that annaik had suffered, and that now she lay quiet and beyond all pain or joy to touch her, was to alan a thought almost too poignant to be borne. it was with an effort he answered ynys when she spoke, and it was in silence that they entered the house which was now their home, and where--years ago, as it seemed--they had been young and happy. but that night he sat alone for a time in the little room in the tower which rose from the east wing of kerival--the room he had fitted up as an observatory, similar, on a smaller scale, to that in the tour de l'ile where he had so deeply studied the mystery of the starry world. here he had dreamed many dreams, and here he dreamed yet another. for out of his thoughts about annaik and ynys arose a fuller, a deeper conception of womanhood. how well he remembered a legend that ynys had told him on rona: a legend of a fair spirit which goes to and fro upon the world, the weaver of tears. he loves the pathways of sorrow. his voice is low and sweet, with a sound like the bubbling of waters in that fount whence the rainbows rise. his eyes are in quiet places, and in the dumb pain of animals as in the agony of the human brain: but most he is found, oftenest are the dewy traces of his feet, in the heart of woman. tears, tears! they are not the saltest tears which are on the lids of those who weep. fierce tears there are, hot founts of pain in the mind of many a man, that are never shed, but slowly crystallize in furrows on brow and face, and in deep weariness in the eyes; fierce tears, unquenchable, in the heart of many a woman, whose brave eyes look fearlessly at life; whose dauntless courage goes forth daily to die, but never to be vanquished. in truth the weaver of tears abides in the heart of woman. o mother of pity, of love, of deep compassion! with thee it is to yearn forever for the ideal human; to bring the spiritual love into fusion with human desire; endlessly to strive, endlessly to fail; always to hope in spite of disillusion; to love unswervingly against all baffling and misunderstanding, and even forgetfulness! o woman, whose eyes are always stretched out to her erring children, whose heart is big enough to cover all the little children in the world, and suffer with their sufferings, and joy with their joys! woman, whose other divine names are strength and patience, who is no girl, no virgin, because she has drunk too deeply of the fount of life to be very young or very joyful. upon her lips is the shadowy kiss of death; in her eyes is the shadow of birth. she is the veiled interpreter of the two mysteries. yet what joyousness like hers, when she wills; because of her unwavering hope, her inexhaustible fount of love? so it was that, just as alan had long recognized as a deep truth how the spiritual nature of man has been revealed to humanity in many divine incarnations, so he had come to believe that the spiritual nature of woman has been revealed in the many marys, sisters of the beloved, who have had the keys of the soul and the heart in their unconscious keeping. in this exquisite truth he knew a fresh and vivid hope. was it all a dream that ynys had dreamed, far away among the sea arcades of rona? had the herdsman, the shepherd of souls, indeed revealed to her that a child was to be born who would be one of the redeemers of the world? a woman saviour, who would come near to all of us, because in her heart would be the blind tears of the child, and the bitter tears of the man, and the patient tears of the woman; who would be the compassionate one, with no end or aim but compassion--with no doctrine to teach, no way to show, but only deep, wonderful, beautiful, inalienable, unquenchable compassion? for, in truth, there is the divine, eternal feminine counterpart to the divine, eternal male, and both are needed to explain the mystery of the dual spirit within us--the mystery of the two in one, so infinitely stranger and more wonderful than that triune life which the blind teachers of the blind have made a rock of stumbling and offence out of a truth clear and obvious as noon. we speak of mother nature, but we do not discern the living truth behind our words. how few of us have the vision of this great brooding mother, whose garment is the earth and sea, whose head is pillowed among the stars; she who, with death and sleep as her familiar shapes, soothes and rests all the weariness of the world, from the waning leaf to the beating pulse; from the brief span of a human heart to the furrowing of granite brows by the uninterrupted sun, the hounds of rain and wind, and the untrammelled airs of heaven. not cruel, relentless, impotently anarchic, chaotically potent, this mater genetrix. we see her thus, who are flying threads in the loom she weaves. but she is patient, abiding, certain, inviolate, and silent ever. it is only when we come to this vision of her whom we call isis or hera or orchil, or one of a hundred other names, our unknown earth-mother, that men and women will know each other aright, and go hand in hand along the road of life without striving to crush, to subdue, to usurp, to retaliate, to separate. ah, fair vision of humanity to come! man and woman side by side, sweet, serene, true, simple, natural, fulfilling earth's and heaven's behests; unashamed, unsophisticated, unaffected, each to each and for each; children of one mother, inheritors of a like destiny, and, at the last, artificers of an equal fate. pondering thus, alan rose and looked out into the night. in that great stillness, wherein the moonlight lay like the visible fragrance of the earth, he gazed long and intently. how shadowy, now, were these lives that had so lately palpitated in this very place; how strange their silence, their incommunicable knowledge, their fathomless peace! was it all lost ... the long endurance of pain, the pangs of sorrow? if so, what was the lesson of life? surely, to live with sweet serenity and gladness, content against the inevitable hour. there is solace of a kind in the idea of a common end, of that terrible processional march of life wherein the myriad is momentary, and the immeasurable is but a passing shadow. but, alas! it is only solace of a kind; for what heart that has beat to the pulse of love can relinquish the sweet dream of life, and what coronal can philosophy put upon the brows of youth in place of eternity? no, no! of this he felt sure. in the beauty of the world lies the ultimate redemption of our mortality. when we shall become at one with nature, in a sense profounder even than the poetic imaginings of most of us, we shall understand what now we fail to discern. the arrogance of those who would have the stars as candles for our night, and the universe as a pleasaunce for our thought, will be as impossible as the blind fatuity of those who say we are of dust, briefly vitalized, that shall be dust again, with no fragrance saved from the rude bankruptcy of life, no beauty raised up against the sun to bloom anew. it is no idle dream, this; no idle dream that we are a perishing clan among the sons of god, because of this slow waning of our joy, of our passionate delight in the beauty of the world. we have been unable to look out upon the shining of our star, for the vision overcomes us; and we have used veils which we call "scenery," "picturesqueness," and the like--poor, barren words that are so voiceless and remote before the rustle of leaves and the lap of water; before the ancient music of the wind, and all the sovran eloquence of the tides of light. but a day may come--nay, shall surely come--when indeed the poor and the humble shall inherit the earth; they who have not made a league with temporal evils, and out of whose heart shall arise the deep longing, that shall become universal, of the renewal of youth. * * * * * often, in the days that followed their return to kerival, alan and ynys talked of these hopes and fears. and, gradually, out of the beauty of the spring, out of the intensity of the green fire of life which everywhere flamed in the brown earth, on the hills, in the waters, in the heart and brain of man, in the whole living, breathing world, was born of them a new joy. they were as the prince and princess of the fairy tales, for whom every thing was wonderful. hand in hand they entered into the kingdom of youth. it was theirs, thenceforth; and all the joy of the world. to live, and love, and be full of a deep joy, a glad content, a supporting hope! what destiny among the stars fairer than this? they would be harbingers of joy. that was what they said, one to another. they would be so glad with sweet life that others would rejoice; out of their strength they would strengthen, out of their joy they would gladden, out of their peace they would comfort, out of their knowledge they would be compassionate. nor was their dream an unfulfilled vision. as the weeks slipped into months, and the months lapsed into years, alan and ynys realized all that it is possible for man and woman to know of happiness. happiness, duties, claims held them to kerival; but there they lived in fair comradeship with their fellows, with the green forest, with all that nature had to give them for their delight through wind and wave, through shadow and shine, through changing seasons and the exquisite hazard of every passing hour. to them both, too, came the added joy which they feared had been forfeited at rona. when ynys felt the child's hands on her breast, she was as one transformed by a light out of heaven. alan, looking at mother and child, understood, with all his passion for the intimate wonder and mystery of nature, the deeper truth in the words of one of the greatest of men ... "the souls of the living are the beauty of the world." that sometimes a shadow fell was inevitable. none ever so dusked the sun-way of alan's mind as when, remote in the forest of kerival, he came upon the unkempt figure of judik kerbastiou, often carrying upon his shoulder a little child whose happy laughter was sweet to hear, in whose tawny hair was a light such as had gleamed in annaik's, and whose eyes were blue as the north seas and as alan's were. often, too, alan, alone in his observatory, where he was wont to spend much of his time, knew that strange nostalgia of the mind for impossible things. then, wrought for a while from his vision of green life, and flamed by another green fire than that born of the earth, he dreamed his dream. with him, the peopled solitude of night was a concourse of confirming voices. he did not dread the silence of the stars--the cold remoteness of the stellar fire. in that other watch-tower in paris, where he had spent the best hours of his youth, he had loved that nightly watch of the constellations. now, as then, in the pulse of the planets he found assurances which faith had not given him. in the vast, majestic order of that nocturnal march, that diurnal retreat, he had learned the law of the whirling leaf and the falling star; of the slow, æon-delayed comet and of the slower wane of solar fires. looking with visionary eyes into that congregation of stars, he realized, not the littleness of the human dream but its divine impulsion. it was only when, after long vigils into the quietudes of night, he turned his gaze from the palaces of the unknown, and thought of the baffled, fretful swarming in the cities of men, that his soul rose in revolt against the sublime ineptitude of man's spiritual leaguer against destiny. destiny--_an dan_--it was a word familiar to him since childhood, when first he had heard it on the lips of old ian macdonald. and once, on the eve of the feast of paschal, when alan had asked daniel darc what was the word which the stars spelled from zenith to nadir, the astronomer had turned and answered simply, "_c'est le destin_." but alan was of the few to whom this talismanic word opens lofty perspectives, even while it obscures those paltry vistas which we deem unending and dignify with vain hopes and void immortalities. the end transcriber's note variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical errors. italics are shown thus _italic_. transcriber's note: inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. obvious typographical errors have been corrected. italic text is denoted by _underscores_. incorrect page numbers in the table of contents have been corrected. [illustration: "keransiflan and i, sitting on our wheelbarrow, were allowed to go on eating in peace"] a childhood in brittany eighty years ago by anne douglas sedgwick with illustrations by paul de leslie new york the century co. copyright, , , by the century co. _published, october, _ contents chapter page i quimper and bonne maman ii eliane iii the fÊte at ker-eliane iv the old house at landerneau v tante rose vi the demoiselles de coatnamprun vii bon papa viii le marquis de ploeuc ix loch-ar-brugg x the pardon at folgoat xi bonne maman's death xii the journey from brittany a childhood in brittany this little sheaf of childish memories has been put together from many talks, in her own tongue, with an old french friend. the names of her relatives have, by her wish, been changed to other names, taken from their breton properties, or slightly altered while preserving the character of the breton original. a childhood in brittany chapter i quimper and bonne maman i was born at quimper in brittany on the first of august, , at four o'clock in the morning, and i have been told that i looked about me resolutely and fixed a steady gaze on the people in the room, so that the doctor said, "she is not blind, at all events." the first thing i remember is a hideous doll to which i was passionately attached. it belonged to the child of one of the servants, and my mother, since i would not be parted from it, gave this child, to replace it, a handsome doll. it had legs stuffed with sawdust and a clumsily painted cardboard head, and on this head it wore a _bourrelet_. the _bourrelet_ was a balloon-shaped cap made of plaited wicker, and was worn by young children to protect their heads when they fell. we, too, wore them in our infancy, and i remember that i was very proud when wearing mine and that i thought it a very pretty head-dress. i could not have been more than three years old when i was brought down to the _grand salon_ to be shown to a friend of my father's, an englishman, on his way to england from india, and a pink silk dress i then wore, and my intense satisfaction in it, is my next memory. it had a stiff little bodice and skirt, and there were pink rosettes over my ears. but i could not have been a pretty child, for my golden hair, which grew abundantly in later years, was then very scanty, and my mouth was large. i was stood upon a mahogany table, of which i still see the vast and polished spaces beneath me, and mr. john dobray, when i was introduced to him by my proud father, said, "so this is sophie." [illustration: "quimper is an old town"] mr. dobray wore knee-breeches, silk stockings, and a high stock. i see my father, too, very tall, robust, and fair, with the pleasantest face. but my father's figure fills all my childhood. i was his pet and darling. when i cried and was naughty, my mother would say: "take your daughter. she tires me and is insufferable." then my father would take me in his arms and walk up and down with me while he sang me to sleep with old breton songs. one of these ran: jésus péguen brasvé, plégar douras néné; jésus péguen brasvé, ad ondar garan té! this, as far as i remember, means, "may jesus be happy, and may his grace make us all happy." at other times my father played strange, melancholy old breton tunes to me on a violin, which he held upright on his knee, using the bow across it as though it were a 'cello. he was, though untaught, exceedingly musical, and played by ear on the clavecin anything he had heard. it must have been from him that i inherited my love of music, and i do not remember the time that i was not singing. i see myself, also, at the earliest age, held before my father on his saddle as we rode through woods. he wore an easy byronic collar and always went bareheaded. he spent most of his time on horseback, visiting his farms or hunting. my father was of a wealthy bourgeois family of landerneau, and it must have been his happy character and love of sport rather than his wealth--he was master of hounds and always kept the pack--that made him popular in quimper, for the gulf between the _bourgeoisie_ and the _noblesse_ was almost impassable. yet not only was he popular, but he had married my mother, who was of an ancient breton family, the rosvals. one of the rosvals fought in the combats de trente against the english, and the dying and thirsty beaumanoir to whom it was said on that historic day, "bois ton sang, beaumanoir," was a cousin of theirs. [illustration: we played in the garden at quimper] my mother was a beautiful woman with black hair and eyes of an intense dark blue. she was unaware of her own loveliness, and was much amused one day when her little boy, after gazing intently at her, said, "_maman_, you are very beautiful." she repeated this remark, laughing, to my father, on which he said, "yes, my dear, you are." my mother was extremely proud, and not at all flattered that she should be plain mme. kerouguet, although she was devoted to my father and it was the happiest _ménage_. i remember one day seeing her bring to my father, looking, for all her feigned brightness, a little conscious, some new visiting-cards she had had printed, with the name of kerouguet reduced to a simple initial, and followed by several of the noble ancestral names of her own family. "what's this?" said my father, laughing. "we needed some new cards," said my mother, "and i dislike so much the name of kerouguet." but my father, laughing more than ever, said: "kerouguet you married and kerouguet you must remain," and the new cards had to be relinquished. my mother, with her black hair and blue eyes, had a charming nose of the sort called "_un nez roxalane_." it began very straight and fine, but had a flattened little plateau on the tip which we called "_la promenade de maman_." my memory of her then is of a very active, gay, authoritative young woman, going to balls, paying and receiving visits, and riding out with my father, wearing the sweeping habit of those days and an immense beaver hat and plume. quimper is an old town, and the _hôtels_ of the _noblesse_, all situated in the same quarter and on a steep street, were of blackened, crumbling stone. from _portes-cochères_ one entered the courtyards, and the gardens behind stretched far into the country. in the courtyard of our _hôtel_ was a stone staircase, with elaborate carvings, like those of the breton churches, leading to the upper stories, but for use there were inner staircases. my mother's boudoir, the _petit salon_, the _grand salon_, the _salle-à-manger_, and the billiard-room were on the ground floor and gave out upon the garden. the high walls that ran along the street and surrounded the garden were concealed by plantations of trees, so that one seemed to look out into the country. flower beds were under the salon-windows, and there were long borders of wild strawberries that had been transplanted from the woods, as my mother was very fond of them. fruit-trees grew against the walls, and beyond the groves and flower beds and winding gravel paths was an orchard, with apricot-, pear-, and apple-trees, and the clear little river odel, with its washing-stones, where the laundry-maids beat the household linen in the cold, running water. it was pleasant to hear the _clap-clap-clap_ on a hot summer day. is it known that the pretty pied water-wagtail is called _la lavandière_ from its love of water and its manner of beating up and down its tail as our washerwomen wield their wooden beaters? beyond the river were the woods where i often rode with my father, and beyond the woods distant ranges of mountains. i looked out at all this from my nursery-windows, with their frame of climbing-roses and heliotrope. near my window was a great lime-tree of the variety known as american. the vanilla-like scent of its flowers was almost overpowering, and all this fragrance gave my mother a headache, and she had to have her room moved away from the garden to another part of the house. how clearly i see this room of my mother's, with its high, canopied four-poster bed and the pale-gray paper on the walls covered with yellow fleurs-de-lis! the wall-paper in my father's room was one of the prettiest i have ever seen, black, all bespangled with bright butterflies. of the _grand salon_ i remember most clearly the high marble mantelpiece, upheld by hounds sitting on their haunches. on this mantelpiece was a huge _boule_ clock, two tall candelabra of venetian glass, and two figures in _vieux saxe_ of a marquis and a marquise that filled us with delight. on each side of the fireplace were two louis xv court chairs--chairs, that is, with only one arm, to admit of the display of the great hoop-skirts of the period. i remember, too, our special delight in the foot-stools, which were of mahogany, shaped rather like gondolas and cushioned in velvet; for we could sit inside them and make them rock up and down. the houses of the _noblesse_ swarmed with servants; many of them were married, and their children, and even their grandchildren, lived on with our family in patriarchal fashion. men and maids all wore the costumes of their respective breton cantons, exceedingly beautiful some of them, stiff with heavy embroideries, the strange caps of the women fluted and ruffled, adorned with lace, rising high above their heads and falling in long lappets upon their shoulders, or perched on their heads like butterflies. these caps were decorated with large gold pins and dangling golden pendants, and these and the materials for the costumes were handed down in the peasants' families from generation to generation. my young nurse jeannie--there was an old nurse called gertrude--wore a skirt of bright-blue woolen stuff and a black-cloth bodice opening in a square over a net fichu thickly embroidered with _paillettes_ of every color. hers was the small flat cap of quimper, with the odd foolscap excrescence, rather like the horn of a rhinoceros, curving forward over the forehead. needless to say, the servants did not do their daily work in this fine array; while that went on they were enveloped from head to foot in large aprons. the servants and the peasants in the brittany of those days had a pretty custom of always using the _thou_ when addressing their masters or the deity, thus inverting the usual association of this mode of address; for to each other they said _you_, and on their lips this was the familiar word, and the _thou_ implied respect. our servants were of the peasant class, but service altered and civilized them very much, and while no peasant spoke anything but breton, they talked in an oddly accented french. i remember a pretty example of this in a dear old man who served my little cousin guénolé du jacquelot du bois-laurel. guénolé and i, because of some naughtiness, were deprived of strawberries one day at our supper, and the fond old man, grieving over the discomfiture of his little master, said, or, rather chanted, half in condolence, and half in playful consolation: "oh, le pauvre guén_o_lé, que tu es dés_o_lé!" accenting the _o_ in a very droll fashion. [illustration: "a very stately autocratic person"] the servants were all under the orders of a very stately autocratic person, the steward or major-domo. it was he who directed the service from behind his master's chair at the head of the table and he who prescribed the correct costume for the servants. his wife had charge of jeannie and of me; it was she who, when two little sisters and a brother had been added to the family, took us down to our breakfast and supervised the meal. we had it in a little tower-room on the ground floor, milk soup or gruel and the delicious bread and butter of brittany. we lunched and dined at ten and five--such were the hours of those days--with our parents in the dining-room, and it was here that one of the most magnificent figures of my childhood appears; for my devoted father brought me back from paris one day a splendid mechanical pony, life-sized and with a real pony-skin, the apparatus by which he was moved simulating an exhilarating canter. upon this steed, after dessert, we children mounted one by one, and we resorted to many ruses in order to get the first ride of the day. this dear pony accompanied all my childhood. he lost his hair as the result of an unhappy experiment we tried upon him, scrubbing him with hot water and soap, one day when we were unobserved. he had a melancholy look after that, but was none the less active and none the less loved. when i saw his dismembered body lying in the garret of a grand-niece not many years ago i felt a contraction of the heart. how he brought back my youth, and since that how many generations had ridden him! we played at being horses, too, driving each other in the garden, where we spent most of our days when at quimper. strange to say, even while we were thus occupied, we always wore veils tightly tied over our bonnets and faces to preserve our skins from the sun. we all wore, even in earliest childhood, stiff little dresses with closely fitting boned bodices. my sister eliane was delicate and wore flannel next her skin; but my only underclothing consisted of cambric chemise, petticoats, and drawers, these last reaching to my ankles and terminating in frills that fell over the foot in its little sandaled shoe. when i came back from a wonderful stay, later on, of four or five years in england, a visit that revolutionized my ideas of life, i wore the easy dress of english children, and had bare arms, much to my mother's dismay. another change that england wrought in me was that i was filled with discomfort when i saw the peasants kneeling before us at loch-ar-brugg, our country home; for in those days, although the revolution had passed over france, it was still the custom for peasants to kneel before their masters, and my mother felt it right and proper that they should do so. i begged her not to allow it, but she insisted upon the ceremony to her dying day, and only when i came as mistress to loch-ar-brugg with my children and grandchildren was it discontinued. another early memory is the long row of family portraits in the _salle-à-manger_. i think i must have looked up at these from my father's shoulder as he walked up and down with me, singing to me while my mother went on with her interrupted dessert, for the awe that some of them inspired in me seems to stretch back to babyhood. some were so dark and severe that it was natural they should frighten a baby; but it was a pastel, in flat, pale tones, of an old lady with high powdered hair, whose steady, forbidding gaze followed me up and down the room, that frightened me most. this was an elder sister of my grandmother's, a march'-inder, who, dressed as a man, had fought with her husband and daughter in the war of the chouans against the republic. her husband was killed, and her daughter, taken prisoner by a french officer, had hanged herself, so the family story ran, to escape insult. another portrait of a great-grandmother enchanted me then, as it has done ever since, a charming young woman seated, with her hands folded before her, her golden hair unpowdered, her dress of citron-colored satin brocaded with bunches of pale, bright flowers. and there was a portrait of my grandmother in youth, with black hair and eyes as black as jet. i thought her very ugly, and could never associate her with my dearly loved _bonne maman_. i must delay no longer in introducing this most important member of the family, my mother's mother, with whom we lived, for the old quimper _hôtel_ was her dower-house. poor _bonne maman_! i see her still, in her deep arm-chair, always dressed in a long gown of puce-colored satin, a white lace mantilla, caught up with a small bunch of artificial buttercups, on her white hair. she wore white-thread lace mittens that reached to her elbows, and her thin, white hands were covered with old-fashioned rings. my mother was her favorite daughter, and i, as the eldest child of this favorite, was specially cherished. both of _bonne maman's_ parents had been guillotined in the revolution. i do not think her husband was of much comfort to her. he came to quimper only for short stays. he was _directeur des ponts et chaussées_ for the district, but also a deputy in paris, and these political duties, according to him, gave him no leisure for family life. he was at least ten years younger than _bonne maman_, very gay and witty, _l'homme du monde_ in all the acceptations of the term, full of deference to _bonne maman_, whom he treated like a queen, with respectful salutes and gallant kissings of the hand. he seemed very fond of his home at quimper when he was in it, but he seldom graced it with his presence. when i went up to see _bonne maman_ in the morning, she would give me her thumb to kiss, an odd formality, since she was full of demonstrations of affection toward me. i did not find the salute altogether agreeable, since _bonne maman_ took snuff constantly, and her delicate thumb and forefinger were strongly impregnated with the smell of tobacco. taking me on her knees, she would then very gravely ask to see my little finger, and when i held it up, she would scrutinize it carefully, and from its appearance tell me whether i had been good or naughty. beside her chair _bonne maman_ had always a little table, the round polished top surrounded by a low brass railing. on this were ranged a number of toilet implements, her glasses, scent-bottle, work-bag, and various knickknacks. a very unique implement, i imagine, was a little stick of polished wood, with a tuft of cotton wool tied by a ribbon at one end. this she used, when her maid had powdered her hair or face, to dust off the superfluous powder, and i can see her now, her little mirror in one hand, the ribboned stick in the other, turning her head from side to side and softly brushing the tuft over her brow and chin. the table was always carried down with her to the _petit salon_, where, her morning toilet over, she was borne in her chair by means of the handles that projected before and behind it. [illustration: "_bonne maman_ was devoted to my father"] _bonne maman_ had an old carriage, an old horse, and an old coachman. none of these was ever used, since she never went out except on easter day, when she was carried in a sedan-chair to hear mass at the cathedral near by. the sedan-chair was gray-green with bunches of flowers painted on it, and upholstered with copper-colored satin. it was carried by four bearers in full breton costume. they wore jackets of a bright light blue, beautifully embroidered along the edges with disks of red, gold, and black; red sashes, tied round their waists, hung to the knees; their full kneebreeches were white, their shoes black, and their stockings of white wool. like all the peasants of that time, they wore their hair long, hanging over their shoulders, and their large, round breton hats were of black felt tied with a thick chenille cord of red, blue, and black, which was held to the brim at one side by a golden fleur-de-lis, and that had a scapular dangling from the end. within the chair sat my grandmother, dressed, as always, in puce color; but this gala costume was of brocade, flowers of a paler shade woven upon a dark ground, and the lace mantilla of every-day wear was replaced by a sort of white tulle head-dress, gathered high upon her head and falling over her breast and shoulders. i remember her demeanor in church on these great occasions, her gentle authority and _recueillement_, and the glance of grave reproach for my mother, who was occupied in looking about her and in making humorous comments on the odd clothes and attitude of her fellow-worshipers. on all other days the curé brought the communion to my grandmother in her room. i remember the first of these communions that i witnessed. i was sitting on _bonne maman's_ bed when the curé entered, accompanied by his acolytes in red and white, and i was highly interested when i recognized in one of these important personages the cook's little boy. the curé was going to lift me from the bed, but _bonne maman_ said: "no; let her stay. when you are gone i will explain to her the meaning of what she sees." this she attempted to do, but not, i imagine, with much success. old gertrude, jeannie's chief in the nursery, had of course already told me of _le petit jesus_, and i had learned to repeat, "seigneur, je vous donne coeur." but _bonne maman_ was grieved to find that i did not yet know "our father." "sophie does not know her pater," she said to my mother. "she must learn it." "oh, she is too young to learn it," said my mother. but _bonne maman_ was not at all satisfied with this evasion and saw that the prayer was taught to me. she was very devout, and confessed twice a week; but more than this, she was the best of women. i never heard her speak ill of any one or saw her angry at any time, nor did i ever see her give way to mirth, though i remember a species of silent laughter that at times shook her thin body. _bonne maman_ was devoted to my father, even more devoted than to her own sons, of whom she had had eight. they had been so severely brought up by her, but especially, i feel sure, by my grandfather, that through exaggerated respect and absurd ceremony they almost trembled during the short audiences granted to them by their parents. my father trembled before nobody. he was always cheerful, good-tempered, and kind. during our life at quimper he was not much at home, as he had a horror of receptions and visits,--all the bother, as he said, of social life,--and the time not spent in hunting was fully occupied in seeing after his farms, his crops, and his peasants. therefore, when he came back for a three-or-four-days' stay with us, it was a delight to young and old. i see him now, sitting in a low chair beside _bonne maman's_ deep _bergère_, his head close to hers, his pipe between his teeth,--yes, his pipe--for _bonne maman_ not only permitted, but even commanded, him to smoke in her presence, so much did she value every moment of the time he could be with her. so they smiled at each other while they talked,--the snowy, powdered old head and the fair young one enveloped in the midst of smoke,--understanding each other perfectly; and although their opinions were diametrically opposed, politics was their favorite theme. they must have taught me their respective battle-cries, for i well remember that, riding my father's knee and listening, while he varied the gait from trot to gallop, i knew just when to cry out, "_vive le roi!_" in order to please _bonne maman_, and "_vive la république!_" to make papa laugh. when disputes occurred in _bonne maman's_ room, they were between my father and mother, if that can be called a dispute where one is so gay and so imperturbable. it was _maman_ who brought all the heat and vehemence to these differences, and, strange to say, _bonne maman_ always took my father's side against her beloved daughter. my mother's quick temper, i may add, displayed itself toward me pretty frequently in slaps and whippings, no doubt well deserved, for i was a naughty, wilful child; whereas in all my life i never received a punishment from my father. i remember his distress on one of these occasions and how he said, "it is unworthy to beat some one who cannot retaliate." to which my mother, flushed and indignant, replied, "it would indeed need only that." she was a charming and lovable woman, but i loved my father best. [illustration: "i heard music constantly"] _bonne maman_ was very musical, and in the _petit salon_, when she was installed there for the day, i heard music constantly, performed by two young _protégés_ of the house. one of these was mlle. ghislaine du guesclin, the youngest descendant of our great breton hero. it was a very poor, very haughty family, and extremely proud of its origin. ghislaine's father, the marquis du guesclin (for with a foolish conceit he had separated the particle from the name) had died, leaving his daughter penniless and recommending her to my grandfather, who placed her as _dame de compagnie_ beside my mother and _bonne maman_. ghislaine was an excellent musician, and their relation was of the happiest. the other _protégé_ was called yves le grand, and was the son of _bonne maman's coiffeur_. his story was curious. as a boy of fourteen or fifteen he had come three times a week to wash the windows and doors, and while he worked he sang all sorts of breton songs and strange airs that, as was learned later, were his own improvisations. _bonne maman_, noticing his talent, had him taken to paris by her husband, and he was educated in the conservatory, where, after ten years of admirable study, he took the second prize. he returned to quimper, and earned a handsome livelihood by giving pianoforte lessons while remaining in a sense our private musician, for he was much attached to us all and accompanied us on all our travels. ghislaine sang in a ravishing fashion, and yves accompanied her on the clavecin that stood in the _petit salon_, mingling the grave accents of his baritone with her clear soprano. when i first heard them i was almost stupefied by the experience, cuddling down into _bonne maman's_ arms, my head sunk between her cheek and shoulder, but listening with such absorption and with such evident appreciation that _bonne maman_ loved me more than ever for the community of taste thus revealed between us. i must often have tired her. i was a noisy, active child, and sometimes when i sat on her knee and prattled incessantly in my shrill, childish voice, she would pass her hand over her forehead and say: "not so loud, darling; not so loud. you pierce my ear-drums; and you know that _le bon dieu_ has said that one must never speak without first turning one's tongue seven times round in one's mouth." at this i would gaze wide-eyed at _bonne maman_ and try involuntarily to turn my tongue seven times, an exercise at which i have never been successful. i may add in parenthesis that i have often regretted it. another amusing adage i heard at the same time from gertrude. if a child made a face, it was told to take care lest the wind should turn, and the face remain like that forever. i was much troubled by this idea on one occasion when _maman_ and ghislaine had been to a fancy dress ball. ghislaine told me next day about the dances and dresses. _maman_ had danced a minuet dressed in a pompadour costume, and she herself had gone as a deviless, with a scarlet-and-black dress and little golden horns in her black hair. i felt this to have been a very dangerous proceeding, for if _le bon dieu_ had noticed ghislaine's travesty, he might have made the wind turn, and she would then have remained a deviless and been forced to live in hell for all eternity. a pretty custom at that time and in that place was that the young matrons who went to such balls and dinner-parties were expected to bring little silk bags in which they carried home to their children the left-over sweetmeats of the dessert; so that we children enjoyed these entertainments as much as ghislaine and _maman_. ghislaine taught me my letters from a colored alphabet in the _petit salon_, showing an angelic patience despite my yawns and whimperings. my memories of the alphabet are drolly intermingled with various objects in the _petit salon_ that from the earliest age charmed my attention. one of these was an immense tortoise-shell mounted on a tripod, and another a vast chinese umbrella of pale yellow satin, with silk and crystal fringes, that, suspended from the ceiling in front of the long windows that gave on the garden, was filled with flowers. this had been an ingenious contrivance of my father's, and _bonne maman_ found it as bewitching as i did, never failing to say to visitors, after the first greetings had passed: "do you see my chinese umbrella?" when i had learned seven letters _bonne maman_ gave me four red _dragées de baptême_,--the sugar-almonds that are scattered at christenings,--and promised me as many more for each new attainment. thus sustained, i was able to master the alphabet and to pass by slow degrees to Æsop's fables, with pictures and a yellow cover. it was later on that ghislaine began to coach me in all the _départements_ of france and their capitals. _maman_ lent a hand in this and instituted a method that was singularly successful. i still laugh in remembering how at any time of the day, before guests, at meals, or while we were at play, she might suddenly call out to us, "gers!" for instance, to which one must instantly reply "auch." or else it was "gironde!" and the reply, "bordeaux," must follow without hesitation. if i replied correctly, i was given fifty centimes; if incorrectly, i received a slap. i used to dream of the _départements_ and their capitals at night. one rainy day i was playing in the _petit salon_, lying at full length on the floor and making a castle of blocks, when _maman_, coming suddenly out of the library, a great tray of books in her arms, cried out to me as she came, walking very quickly, "gare!" ["take care!"] without moving and without looking up, i replied obediently, "nîmes" (the capital of gard), and an avalanche of books descended upon me, poor _maman_ and her tray coming down with a dreadful clatter. _maman_ was not hurt, but very much afraid that i was. when she found us both, except for a few bruises, safe and sound, she went off into a peal of laughter, and i followed suit, much relieved; for i had imagined for one moment that i had made a mistake in my answer, and i found the punishment too severe. "you are sure i have not hurt you, darling?" said _maman_, kissing me; and i replied with truth: "no, _maman_; but i should have preferred the _gifle_." on that day, instead of fifty centimes, i received a franc for consolation. it was not until my brother's tutor came to us, when i was eight or nine years old, that i ever had any teacher but ghislaine. poor ghislaine! hers was a rather sad story. she had great beauty, thick, black hair, white skin, her small prominent nose full of distinction, but one strange peculiarity: there were no nails on her long, pointed fingers. this, while not ugly, startled one in noticing her hands. as i have said, she had been left penniless, and it was difficult in france, then as now, to find a husband for a _jeune fille sans dot_. ghislaine only begged that he should be a gentleman. but after _bonne maman's_ death, when we had gone to live in paris, ghislaine was left behind with my aunt's family, and they finally arranged a marriage for her with a notary. my mother was much distressed by this prosaic match. she had for a time cherished the romantic project of a marriage between ghislaine and yves, who, besides being an artist, was the best of men, sincere, devoted, and delicate. [illustration: "ghislaine taught me my letters"] for a descendant of du guesclin the _coiffeur's_ son would, however, have been as inappropriate as was the notary. the latter, too, was an excellent man, and ghislaine was not unhappy with him. chapter ii eliane an important event in my child life was the birth of my sister eliane. i remember coming in from the garden one day with a little basket full of cockchafers that i had found, and running to show them to _maman_. she was lying in her large bed, with its four carved bedposts and high canopy, and, smiling faintly, she said: "oh, no, my little girl; take them away. they will creep and fly over everything." i was, however, so much disappointed at this reception of my gift that _maman_, bending from her pillows, selected a specially beautiful green cockchafer and said that that one, at all events, she would keep. when next morning i was told that i had a little sister, old gertrude, in answer to my eager, astonished questions, informed me that it was the cockchafer who, fed on milk, had become very large during the night and had given birth to a baby cockchafer, which it had presented to my mother. this story of the cockchafer became a family jest, and later on, after my mother had had four children, i remembered that when cockchafers were referred to she would laugh and say: "no! no! no more cockchafers for me, if you please! i have had enough of their gifts." the story, which was repeated to me on the occasion of each subsequent birth, made a rather painful impression upon me. i did not like the idea of the baby cockchafer. nor did i like my little sister eliane into whom the cockchafer had grown. _maman_ remained in bed for a long time and paid no more attention to me, and i was deeply jealous. i was no longer allowed to go in and out of her room as had been my wont, and when my father took me in his arms and carried me gently in to see my little sister, and bent with me over the small pink cradle so that i might give her a kiss, i felt instead a violent wish to bite her. one day i was authorized to rock eliane while my father and mother talked together. i was much pleased by this mark of confidence, and i slipped into the cradle, unnoticed, my horrible doll josephine, all untidy and disheveled, not to say dirty, so that she, too, might have a rocking. she lay cheek to cheek with eliane, already a young lady ten days old, and the contact of this cold, clammy cheek woke my little sister, who began to cry so loudly that, in order to quiet her, i rocked with might and main, and unless papa had rushed to the rescue it is probable that eliane and josephine would have been tossed out upon the floor. jeannie was at once summoned to take me away in disgrace, and in _bonne maman's_ room i was consoled by two _dragées_, one white, i remember, and one pink. "you love your little sister, don't you, my darling?" asked _bonne maman_, to whom jeannie related the affair of the rocking. "no," i replied, the pink _dragée_ in my mouth. "why not, dear?" "she is horrid," i said. and as _bonne maman_, much distressed, continued to question and expostulate, i burst, despite the _dragées_, into a torrent of tears and cried: "she is bad! she is ugly! she cries!" eliane's christening was a grand affair. her godmother was _bonne maman_, and her godfather my uncle de salabéry, who brought her a casket in which was a cup and saucer in enamel and also an enamel egg-cup and tiny, round egg-spoon, and this i thought very silly, since eliane, like the cockchafer, ate only milk. the casket was of pale-blue velvet, and had eliane's name written upon it in golden letters. she was carried to the cathedral by her nurse, who wore a gray silk dress woven with silver fleurs-de-lis, a special silk, with its silver threads, made in brittany. the bodice opened on a net guimpe thickly embroidered with white beads. the apron was of gray satin scattered over with a design, worked in beads, that looked like tiny fish. her coif was the tall medieval hennin of plougastel, a flood of lace falling from its summit. eliane, majestically carried on her white-lace cushion, wore a long robe of lace and lawn, and again i found this very silly, since if by chance she wished to walk, she would certainly stumble in it! the curé was replaced by the bishop of the cathedral, who walked with a tall golden stick, twisted at the top into a pretty design. papa, who was near me, explained to me that this was called a crozier (_crosse_), which puzzled me, as _crosse_ is also the name for the drumstick of a chicken. i also learned that what i called the bishop's hat was a miter. when he passed before us every one knelt down except me, for i wished to gaze with all my eyes at the magnificent apparition. the bishop leaned toward me, smiling, and made a little cross on my forehead with his thumb, and then he put his hand, which was very white and adorned with a great ring of amethyst and diamond, before my lips. "kiss monseigneur's hand," papa whispered, and, again much puzzled, i obeyed, for _maman_ and _bonne maman_ gave their hands to be kissed by men and never kissed theirs. when the bishop put the salt in eliane's mouth she made the most hideous grimace. heavens! how ugly she was! _maman_ took her into her arms to calm her. i was near _bonne maman_ who had been borne in her sedan-chair into the cathedral, and i whispered to her: "you say that she is pretty, _bonne maman_. only look at her now! doesn't she look like an angry little monkey!" but _bonne maman_ reminded me in a low voice that unless i was very good, i was not to come to the christening breakfast, and, hastily, i began to turn my tongue in my mouth. [illustration: the beach of loctudiy] i remember that on this day _bonne maman_ had left her puce-color and looked like an old fairy as she sat, covered with all her jewels, in the sedan-chair, dressed in orange-colored velvet. when we came out of the cathedral the square was full of people, and all the children of quimper were there. my father, leading me by the hand, was followed by a servant who carried a basket of _dragées_. he took out a bagful and told me that i was to throw them to the children, and this i did with great gusto. what a superb bombardment it was! the children rolled upon the ground, laughed, and howled, while _maman_, and _bonne maman_ from the window of her chair, scattered handfuls of _centimes_, _sous_, and _liards_, an old coin of the period that no longer exists. never in my life have i seen happier children. they accompanied us to our door and stayed for a long time outside in the street, singing breton canticles and crying, "vive mademoiselle liane!" it must have been at about this time that i first saw the sea and had my first sea-bath. papa said one day that he would take me to the beach of loctudiy, near quimper, with old gertrude. it is a vast sandy beach, with scattered rocks that, to my childish eyes, stood like giants around us. gertrude took off my shoes and stockings, and we picked up the shells that lay along the beach in the sunlight like a gigantic rainbow. what a delight it was! some were white, some yellow, some pink, and some of a lovely rosy mauve. i could not pick them up fast enough or carry those i already had. my little pail overflowed, and the painful problem that confronts all children engaged in this delicious pursuit would soon have oppressed me if my thoughts had not been turned in another direction by the sight of papa making his way toward the sea in bathing-dress. the sea was immense and mysterious, and my beloved papa looked very small before it. i ran to him crying: "don't go, papa! don't go! you will be drowned!" "there is no danger of that, my pet," said my father. "see how smooth and blue the water is. don't you want to come with me?" i felt at once that i did, and in the twinkling of an eye gertrude had undressed me, my father had me in his arms, and before i could say "ouf!" i was plunged from head to foot in the atlantic ocean. it was my second baptism, and i still feel an agreeable shudder when i remember it. my father held me under the arms to teach me to swim, and i vigorously agitated my little legs and arms. then i was given back to gertrude, who dried me and, taking me by the hand, made me run up and down on the hot sand until i was quite warm. when i came home, full of pride in my exploits, i told _bonne maman_ that during my swim i had met a whale which had looked at me. "and were you afraid of it?" asked _bonne maman_. "oh, no," i replied. "they do not eat children. i patted it." perhaps my tendency to tell tall stories dates from this time. chapter iii the fÊte at ker-eliane it was shortly after eliane's christening, and to celebrate my mother's recovery, that my father gave a great entertainment at ker-eliane, near loch-ar-brugg. loch-ar-brugg, which means place of heather, was an old manor and property that my father had bought and at that time used as a hunting-lodge, and ker-eliane was a wild, beautiful piece of country adjoining it, a pleasure resort, called after my mother's name. to reach loch-ar-brugg we all went by the traveling carriage to my father's native town of landerneau. i dreaded these journeys, since inside the carriage i always became sick; but on this occasion i sat outside near an old servant of my grandmother's called soisick, the diminutive of françois, and was very happy, since in the open air i did not suffer at all. soisick was an old breton from brest. he wore the costume of that part of the country, a tightly fitting, long, black jacket opening over a waistcoat adorned with white-bone buttons, full knee-breeches of coarse, white linen girded over the waistcoat with a red woolen sash, with white woolen stockings, and black shoes. one still sees very old bretons wearing this costume, but nowadays the peasants prefer the vulgar, commonplace dress of modern work-people. my father was waiting for us on the quay of landerneau. what joy i felt when i saw him! when he climbed up beside me and soisick my happiness was complete. [illustration: "the château de ker-azel near by, where we were to stay"] loch-ar-brugg at that time was not suitably arranged for our habitation, and we drove on to the château de ker-azel near by, where we were to stay with my _tante_ de laisieu. this elder sister of my mother's was a fat, untidy, shiftless woman who had once been a beauty, but whose abundant fair hair was now faded, and who went about her house and gardens in the mornings _en camisole_. when dressed for the day her appearance was hardly more decorous, for she wore no stays, and fastened the slender bodices of her old dresses across her portly person in a very haphazard fashion, so that intervals of white underclothing showed between the straining hooks. she was a singular contrast to my mother, always so freshly perfect in every detail of her toilet. the château was partly old and partly new and very ugly, though the park that sloped down to it was fine. near the château stood a very old and beautifully carved font that must have belonged to a church long since destroyed. later on, in the days of her descendants, it was kept filled with growing flowers and was a beautiful object, but my aunt merely used it as a sort of waste-paper basket for any scraps she picked up in the park. we children used to conceal ourselves in it in our games of hide-and-seek. i enjoyed myself among my many cousins, for i was at this time so young and so naughty that they tended to give way to me in everything. one of them, however, a singularly selfless and devout boy called france, was fond of me for myself, and though i never paid much attention to him, victim rather than play-mate as he usually was in the games of the others, i was always aware of his gentle, protecting presence, and happy when his peaceful gaze rested upon me. after long years of separation and in our great old age we discovered, france and i, that we had always been dear friends, and in the few years that remained to us before his recent death we saw each other constantly. but i must return to the fête. my mother and my aunt were absorbed in preparations. it was a general hurly-burly, every one running north, south, east, and west--to landerneau, to morlaix, to brest, to every place, in short, that could boast some special delicacy. and at last the great day came, and we children were up with the lark. there was first to be a luncheon for the huntsmen, friends of papa's, and the ladies were to follow in carriages and to enter ker-eliane from the highroad. but we preferred the shorter way, by the deep paths overgrown with hawthorn and blackberry. the boys rushed along on the tops of the _talus_, the sort of steep bank that in brittany takes the place of hedges, and even with jeannie to restrain me i was nearly as torn and tattered as they when we arrived at ker-eliane. what a fairy-land it was! rocks and streams, heathery hills, and woods full of bracken. an old ruin, strange and melancholy, with only a few crumbling walls and a portion of ivy-clothed tower left standing, rose among trees on a little hill near the entrance, and farther on, surrounded by woods of beech or pine, were three lakes, lying in a chain one after the other. water-lilies grew upon them, and at their brinks a pinkish-purple flower the name of which i never knew. the third lake was so somber and mysterious that my father had called it the styx. an ancient laurel-tree--in brittany the laurels become immense trees--had been uprooted in a thunderstorm and had fallen across the styx, making a natural rustic bridge. we children were forbidden to cross on it, but on this day i remember my adventurous cousin jules rushing to and fro from one bank to the other in defiance of authority. at the foot of the hill, below the ruin, a clear, delicious stream sprang forth from a stony cleft and wound through a valley and out into the lower meadows, and at the entrance to the valley, among heather and enormous mossy rocks, rose a cross of gray stone without christ or ornaments. the peasants made pilgrimages to it on good friday, but i never learned its history. it was among the lower meadows, in a charming, smiling spot planted with chestnuts, poplars, and copper beeches, that the table for the thirty huntsmen was laid in the shade of a little avenue. already the _crêpe_-makers from quimper, renowned through all the country, were laying their fires upon the ground under the trees, and i must pause here to describe this breton dish. a carefully compounded batter, flavored either with vanilla or malaga, was ladled upon a large flat pan and spread thinly out to its edge with a wooden implement rather like a paper-cutter. by means of this knife the _crêpes_, when browned on one side, were turned to the other with a marvelous dexterity, then lifted from the pan and folded at once into a square, like a pocket-handkerchief, for, if allowed to cool, they cracked. they were as fine as paper--six would have made the thickness of an ordinary pancake, and were served very hot with melted butter and fresh cream, of which a crystal jar stood before each guest, and was replenished by the servants as it was emptied. the _crêpes_ were eaten at the end of the luncheon as a sweet, and among the other dishes that i remember was the cold salmon,--invariable on such occasions, salmon abounding in our breton rivers,--with a highly spiced local sauce, _filet de boeuf en aspic_, york ham, fowls, russian salad, and the usual cakes and fruits. the huntsmen seated at this feast did not wear the pink coats and top-hats of more formal occasions, but dark jackets and knee-breeches and the small, round breton cap with upturned brim that admitted of a pipe being tucked into it at one side. and so they carried their pipes, as the peasants did, and the legitimists among them had a golden fleur-de-lis fixed in front. the ladies of the party, in summer dresses and wide-brimmed hats, arrived when the more substantial part of the repast was over, and their carriages filled the highroad outside the precincts of ker-eliane. a feast was spread at a little distance for the peasants, and wine flowed all day. after the feasting two famous _biniou_-players took up their places on the high _talus_ that separated ker-eliane from loch-ar-brugg and played the _farandol_, the _jabadao_, and other country-dances for the peasants to dance to. the _biniou_ is rather like a small bagpipe and produces a wild, shrill sound. the players wore a special costume: their caps and their stockings were bright red; their jackets and waistcoats bright blue, beautifully embroidered; their full white breeches of coarse linen. like all the peasants at that time, they wore their hair long, falling over the shoulders. it was a charming sight to see the peasants dancing, all in their local costumes. the women's skirts were of black or red stuff, with three bands of velvet, their bodices of embroidered velvet, and they all wore a gold or silver breton cross, hung on a black velvet ribbon, round their necks, and a _saint esprit_ embroidered in gold on the front of their bodices. among the coifs i remember several beautiful tall hennins. what a day it was! landerneau talked of it for years, and i have never forgotten it. we children had our luncheon sitting on the grass near the big table, and afterward there were endless games among the heather and bracken. my little sister eliane appeared, carried in her pink basket, and seemed to look about her with great approval. [illustration: "a feast was spread at a little distance from the peasants, and wine flowed all day"] later on in the day, when the dancing had begun, we went to look on at that, and i wanted very much to dance, too; but nobody asked me, for i was too little. i must by that time have begun to get very tired and troublesome, for i remember that _maman_ promised me a little wheelbarrow if i would be good and allowed jeannie to take me back to ker-azel. i was already sleepy, as i had drunk a quantity of champagne, with which the servants had replenished my little liqueur-glass, and i allowed myself at last to be carried away by jeannie, and fell asleep in her arms. chapter iv the old house at landerneau during these early years of my life our time, though mainly spent with _bonne maman_ at quimper, was also given for many months of the year to landerneau, and a little later on was divided between these two houses and loch-ar-brugg. at landerneau we lived in a vast old house that had been part of my mother's marriage dowry. the family house, equally old and vast, of the kerouguets was also at landerneau, and the house of dear tante rose, my father's eldest sister. landerneau was a picturesque old town, so near the sea that the tides rose and fell in the river elorn, which flowed through it. a legend ran that the part of landerneau lying on the southern banks of the river, still all wild with great rocks that seemed to have been hurled together by some giant's hand, had been reduced to this condition by the devil. he had been traveling through the country, and the inhabitants of the southern half of landerneau had refused to give him food and drink, whereas those of the northern half had suitably and diplomatically entertained him; and it was in vengeance that he had hurled these great rocks across the river, to remain as permanent, if picturesque, embarrassments to southern landerneau. the morality of the story was disconcerting, and very much puzzled me when i was told it by old gertrude. our house formed a corner of the principal street in the northern side of the town. in the days of the terror, not so far distant in my childhood, it had been used, with the house of tante rose across the way, as a prison where the condemned were put on their way to be guillotined at brest, and a subterranean passage that ran between the two houses, under the street, conveyed the unfortunates swiftly and unobtrusively, if occasion required it, from one prison to the other. another lugubrious memento of that terrible time were the small square openings in the floors of the upper rooms in these houses. in our days they were used to summon servants from below, but their original purpose had been for watching the captives unobserved. in the panels of the great oaken door that opened on the street, in our house, were little grated squares through which those who knocked for admittance could be cautiously examined, and this feature gave a further idea of the strange and perilous circumstances of bygone days. the kitchen, which was entered from a stone hall, was our delight; it was called the every-day kitchen. enormous logs burned in a vast open fireplace, archaically carved. at that time coal was little known in the country, and the joints were roasted on a spit before this fire, which looked like the entrance to an inferno. there was a little oven for stews and sweets, etc. under a square glass case on the mantel-shelf, lifted high above the busy scene, stood a statue of the virgin, very old and very ugly, dressed in tinsel, a necklace of colored beads around its neck. this was a cherished possession of nicole's, an old cook of my grandmother's, who followed us everywhere, and at its foot, under the glass cover, lay her withered orange-flower wedding-wreath. the kitchen was lighted at night by numbers of tallow candles that burned in tall brass candlesticks, each with its pincers and snuffer. (a candle with us does not "take snuff"; it has "its nose blown"--_on mouchait la chandelle_.) brass warming-pans, which we children called bluebeard's wives, were ranged along the walls, and a multitude of copper saucepans hung in order of size, glittering with special splendor on those spaces that could be seen from the street, for "_où l'orgueil ne va t'il pas se nicher_?" through an opening in the wall opposite the big windows dishes could be passed to the servants in the dining-room during meals. the dining-room windows looked out at a garden full of flowers, the high walls embroidered with espalier fruit-trees, plum-, cherry-, mulberry-, and medlar-trees growing along the paths. at the bottom of the garden was a large aviary containing golden and silver pheasants, magpies, canaries, and exotic birds that my father's naval friends had brought him from their long oriental voyages. my father himself tended these birds, and i can answer for it that they lacked nothing. i must tell here of the strange behavior of a golden pheasant. despite papa's gentleness and care, this bird seemed to detest him and would not let him enter the aviary; but when i came with papa, the pheasant would run to the wires and eat the bread i held out to it from my hand. papa was surprised and interested, and suggested one day that i should go with him into the aviary and "see what the pheasant would say." no sooner said than done. the bird rushed at papa and pecked at his feet with a singular ferocity; then, feeling, evidently, that he had disposed of his enemy, he turned to me, spread out his wings before me, bowed up and down as if an ecstasy of reverent delight, and taking the bread i held out to him, he paid no more attention at all to papa. [illustration: "in the panels of the great oaken door ... were little grated squares"] the principal rooms on the ground floor of the house opened on a stone hall with an inlaid marble floor, where, in a niche carved in the wall, and facing the wide stone staircase, stood another virgin, much larger and even older than nicole's. she was of stone, with a blunted, gentle countenance, and hands held out at each side in a graceful, simple gesture that seemed to express surprise as much as benediction. as we came down from our rooms every morning it was as if she greeted us always with a renewed interest. fresh flowers were laid at her feet every day, and we were all taught, the boys to lift their hats, the girls to drop deep curtseys before her. indeed, these respects were paid by us to all the many statues of the virgin that are seen on our breton roads. from the hall one entered the salon, with its inlaid parquet floor, so polished that we were forbidden to slide upon it, for it was as slippery as ice, and falls were inevitable for disobedient children. on the mantelpiece was a clock representing marius weeping over the ruins of carthage. his cloak lay about his knees, and we used to feel that he would have done much better had he drawn it up and covered his chilly-looking bronze shoulders. on each side of the clock were white vases with garlands in relief upon them of blue convolvulus and their green leaves. but what bewitched us children were the big chinese porcelain figures, mandarins sitting cross-legged, with heads that nodded gently up and down at the slightest movement made in the room. their bellies were bare, their eyes seemed to laugh, and they were putting out their tongues. black ibises upon their robes opened wide beaks to catch butterflies. i remember crossing the hall on tiptoe and opening the salon-door very softly and looking in at the mandarins sitting there in their still merriment; and it required a little courage, as though one summoned a spell, to shake the door and rouse them into life. the heads gently nodded, the eyes seemed to laugh with a new meaning at me now; and i gazed, half frightened, half laughing, too, until all again was motionless. it was as if a secret jest had passed between me and the mandarins. in an immense room to the left of the salon that had once, perhaps, been a ball-room, but was now used as a laundry, was a high sculptured fireplace that was my joy. on each side the great greyhounds, sitting up on their hind legs, sustained the mantelpiece, all garlanded with vines. among the leaves and grapes one saw a nest of little birds, with their beaks wide open, and the father and mother perched above them. and, most beautiful of all, a swallow in flight only touched with the tip of a wing a leaf, and really seemed to be flying. only my father appreciated this masterpiece, which must have been a superb example of renaissance work, and when, years afterward, my mother sold the house, the new owner had it broken up and carted away because it took up too much room! on the two floors above were many bedrooms not only for our growing family, but for that of my aunt de laisieu, who, with all her children, used to pay us long and frequent visits, so that even in the babyhood of eliane and ernest and maraquita i never lacked companionship. my mother's room was called _la chambre des colonnes_, because at the foot of the bed, and used there instead of bedposts, were two great stone pillars wreathed with carving and reaching to the ceiling. what a pretty room it was! in spring its windows looked down at a sea of fruit-blossoms and flowers in the garden beneath. the bed had a domed canopy, with white muslin curtains embroidered in green spots. above the doors were two allegorical paintings, one of love, who makes time pass, and one of time, who makes love pass. a deep, mysterious drawer above the oaken mantelpiece was used by _maman_ for storing pots of specially exquisite preserves that were kept for winter use. on her dressing-table, flowing with muslin and ribbons, i specially remember the great jar of _eau de cologne_, which one used to buy, as if it were wine, by the liter. from this room led papa's, more severe and masculine. here there were glass cabinets fitted on each side into the deep window-seats and containing bibelots from all over the world. a group of family miniatures hung on the wall near the fireplace. on a turning of the staircase was a bath-room, with a little sort of sentry-box for cold douches, and at the top of the house an enormous garret, filled with broken old spinning-wheels and furniture, bundles of old dresses, chests full of dusty papers. i found here one day _bonne maman's_ betrothal-dress. it was of stiff, rich satin, a wide blue and white stripe, with a dark line on each side of the blue and a little garland of pink roses running up the white. the long, pointed bodice was incredibly narrow. a strange detail was the coarseness with which this beautiful dress was finished inside. it was lined with a sort of sacking, and the old lace with which it was still adorned was pinned into place with brass safety-pins. finally, for my description of the house, there was a big courtyard, with the servants' quarters built round it, and a clear little stream ran through a _basse-cour_ stocked with poultry. i had not seen this house for over fifty years when, some time ago, i went to visit it. the new proprietor, an unprepossessing person, was leaning against the great oaken door. he permitted me, very ungraciously, to enter. i went through all these rooms that two generations ago had rung with the sounds of our happy young life, and it was misery to me. in the kitchen, which had been so beautiful, the window-panes were broken, and the dismantled walls daubed with whitewash, with dusty, empty bottles where nicole's virgin had stood. upon the table was a greasy, discolored oil-cloth, where one saw m. thiers, with knitted eyebrows and folded arms, surrounded by tricolor flags. the salon--i sobbed as i stood and looked about it; all, all that i had known and loved had disappeared. the stone virgin was gone from her niche in the hall. trembling, i mounted to my dear parents' rooms. what desolation! unmade beds and rickety iron bedsteads; dust, disorder, and dirt. the carved chimneypiece, with its great drawer, was gone; the paper was peeled from the walls. only over the doors, almost invisible under their cobwebs, were the painted panels of love, who makes time pass, and time, who makes love pass. the garden was a dung-heap. when i came out, pale and shaken, the proprietor, still complacently leaning against the door, remarked, "_eh bien_, madam is glad to have seen her house, isn't she!" the animal! i could have strangled him! [illustration: "i felt that tante rose was enchanting"] chapter v tante rose over the way lived tante rose. we children liked best to go to her house by means of the subterranean passage. it was pitch-dark, and we felt a fearful delight as we galloped through it at full speed, and then beat loudly upon the door at the other end, so that old kerandraon should not keep us waiting for a moment in the blackness. in the salon, between the windows, her tame magpie hopping near her, we would find tante rose spinning at her wheel. there were pink ribbons on her distaff, and her beautiful, rounded arms moved gently to and fro drawing out the fine white linen thread. sitting, as i see her thus, with her back to the light, her white tulle head-dress and the tulle bow beneath her chin surrounded her delicate, rosy face with a sort of aureole. she had a pointed little chin and gay, blue eyes, and though she had snowy hair, she looked so young and was so active that she seemed to have quicksilver in her veins. a tranquil mirth was her distinguishing characteristic, and even when hardly more than a baby i felt that tante rose was enchanting. her first question was sure to be, "are you hungry?" and even if we had just risen from a meal we were sure to be hungry when we came to see tante rose. she would blow into a little silver whistle that hung at her waist, and old kerandraon (we children pronounced it ker-le dragon) would appear with his benevolent, smiling face. "take mademoiselle sophie's orders, kerandraon," tante rose would say; but the dear old man, who was a great friend, did not need to wait for them. "demoiselle would like _crêpes_ and fresh cream; and there is the rest of the chocolate paste which demoiselle likes, too." [illustration: "she did not conceal that she found him a dull companion"] "bring what pleases you," tante rose would say, "and take my key, kerandraon, and fetch the box of _sucre d'orge_ from the shelf in my wardrobe." when kerandraon had come ambling back with his laden tray he would stop and talk with us while we ate. he was seventy years old and had a noble air in his long louis xv jacket. tante rose's mother had taken him from the streets when he was a little beggar-boy of twelve. he lived in the family service all his life, and when he died at seventy-five he was buried in the family vault. jacquette, the magpie, sometimes became very noisy on these festive occasions, and tante rose would say: "go into the garden, jacquette. _tu m'annuis_" (so she pronounced _ennuies_). and jacquette, who seemed to understand everything she said, would go obediently hopping off. in the garden, adjoining the salon, was a greenhouse full of grapes and flowers, and that was another haven of delight on our visits to tante rose. it was the prettiest sight to see her mounted on a step-ladder cutting the grapes. a servant held the ladder, and another the basket into which the carefully chosen bunches were dropped. tante rose's little feet were shod in a sort of high-heeled brown-satin slipper called _cothurnes_, probably because they tied in classic fashion across the instep, little gold acorns hanging at the ends of the ribbons. i have the most distinct recollection of these exquisite feet as i stood beside the ladder looking up at tante rose and waiting for her to drop softly a great bunch of grapes into my hands. the fruit-trees of tante rose's garden were famous. a great old fig-tree there was so laden with fruit that supports had to be put under the heavy branches; there were wonderful smyrna plums, and an apple-tree covered with tiny red apples that were our joy. from a high terrace in the garden one could watch all that went on in the town below. tante rose's cream, too, was famous. great earthenware pans of milk stood on the wide shelves of her dairy, and when _maman_ came to see her she would say, "may i go into the dairy, rose?" it was always known what this meant. _maman_ would skim for herself a bowlful of the thick, golden cream. even the kitchen had an elegance, a grace, and sparkle all its own, and it is here that i can most characteristically see tante rose distributing milk for the poor of landerneau. her farmers' wives had brought it in from the country in large, covered pails, and tante rose, dressed in a morning-gown of puce-colored silk (like _bonne maman_ in this, she wore no other color), her full sleeves, with their wide lawn cuffs turned back over her arms, ladled it into jars, giving her directions the while to the servants: "this for yann. this for hervé [an old cripple]. did this milk come from the yellow? it is sure, then, to be very good; take it to the hospital and--wait! this little jug of cream to the _supérieure_; she is so fond of it. and, laic, this large jar is for the prison," for tante rose forgot nobody, and all with such quiet grace and order. the poor of landerneau adored her. the thread she spun was woven at her country place, la fontaine blanche, into linen to make clothes for them, and she knitted socks and waistcoats even as she went about the streets on her errands of mercy. if the poor loved her, it was respect mingled with a little fear that the _bourgeoisie_ felt, for she had no patience with scandal-mongering and sharply checked their gossiping, provincial habits. the chatelaines of the surrounding country sought her out and delighted in her charm, her accomplishments, and her devil-may-care wit. tante rose was married to a wealthy and excellent landernean, joseph goury, whom we called tonton joson, and his friends, jason. he had a placid, kindly face, and stout, fine calves incased in silk stockings. still in love with his wife, he was patiently submissive to her gay sallies; for though very fond of him, she did not conceal that she found him a dull companion. very drolly, though she tutoyéd him, she used always to address him as "monsieur goury." "_tais-toi, monsieur goury_," she would say; "you are as tiresome as the flies." and after enduring his prosy talk for some time she would say quite calmly: "i am beginning to drink hemlock. go away, monsieur goury--_va t'en_. you bore me to distraction. you stun and stupefy me. go away. _je n'en puis plus._" and poor tonton joson remaining helplessly gazing, she would lift the little trap-door beside her chair, if the scene took place in her room, and call out to the servants below, "tell laic to come up and help monsieur on with his coat." "but, my dear, i was not thinking of going out," tonton joson would protest; and tante rose would reply: "_mais tu sors, monsieur goury._" tante rose was very devout, but after her own fashion. she read the office to herself every day, but had many _librepensant_ friends, with whom she used good-temperedly to argue. any bishop who came to landerneau stayed always with tante rose. her cuisine was the best i have ever eaten; and oh, the incredible abundance of those days! all the courses were served at once upon the immense table. the great silver soup-tureen, big enough for a baby's bath, and so tall that she had to stand up to it, was in front of tante rose, and before she began to ladle out the platefuls, with the light, accurate movements of her arms characteristic of her, a servant carefully fastened behind her her long sleeves _à la pagode_. it was really charming to watch her serving the soup, and i remember one guest asserting that he would eat _potage_ four times if mme. goury helped him to it. an enormous salmon usually occupied the center of the table, and there were six _entrées_, _four rôtis_, two hot and two cold, and various _entremets_ and desserts. a favorite _entrée_ was a _purée_ of pistachio nuts, with roasted sheeps' tails on silver spits stuck into it. the hot dishes stood on silver heaters filled with glowing charcoal. between the courses little pots of cream, chocolate, vanilla, and coffee were actually passed and actually eaten! chocolate cream to fill the gap between woodcock and _foie-gras_, for instance! champagne-bottles stood in silver coolers at each corner of the table. i wonder that we all survived. on the other hand, when tante rose or my mother received the visits of their friends, there was no afternoon tea to offer them, as nowadays. the servants merely passed round little glasses of spanish wines and plates of small biscuits. the good ladies of landerneau afforded, i imagine, much amusement to my mother and to tante rose, who, though a native, was of a very different caliber. one little trait i remember was very illustrative of the bourgeois habit of mind. at that time, as now, lengths of velvet were included in every _corbeille_ offered to a bride by the bridegroom's family, and the velvet dresses made from them were dignified institutions worn year after year. one knows how marked and unsightly velvet soon becomes if sat upon, and it was a wise and crafty fashion to have a breadth of perfectly matching silk introduced between the full folds at the back of these dresses, so that when one sat down it was upon the silk. it was in regard to this sensible contrivance that the ladies of landerneau were reported to declare that it was strange indeed to see the _noblesse_ so miserly that they could not afford a whole velvet dress, and therefore let silk into the back. [illustration: "i had only to sweep up the rubbish ... and carry it out of the wood in my little wheelbarrow"] some of tante rose's children were, like herself, very clever and charming, some very stupid, like tonton joson. it can be imagined what games we all had. once, in the coach-house, my older cousins put young raoul into a large basket with a number of smooth stones under him and told him that they were eggs and that if he were quiet and patient, they would hatch out. then by means of a rope and pulley to which the basket was attached (it must have been used for raising and lowering hay and fodder) we pulled poor raoul up to the rafters, and there we left him and forgot all about him. his desolate cries were heard after a time, and when he was rescued, it was found that the rocking of the basket had made him very seasick. of all our games the best were those in the woods of la fontaine blanche. this property of tante rose's, with its old manor-house dating from the time of queen anne of brittany, was near landerneau, and since papa went there nearly every day, caring for it as if it were his own, we were able to go with him and take full possession of the beautiful woods. we were given planks and tools, and we built a little hut on the banks of the stream. i was so young that my share of the labors was unexacting, as i had only to sweep up the rubbish left by the builders and carry it out of the wood in my little wheelbarrow; but i remember that pride with which i felt myself associated in any capacity with such marvels of construction. not only was the hut entirely built by my cousins, but they made an oven inside it and even fabricated a sort of earthenware service with the clay soil found along the banks of the stream. it would never fire properly, however, and therefore our attempts to bake bread were not successful. but _crêpes_, as pure-blooded young bretons, we could make, and our parents were often entertained by us and regaled with them as they sat under the trees. oh, how happy we were! the woods were full of lilies of the valley, and our hut had been baptized by the curé of landerneau the château de la muguetterie, while we were called _robinson crusoes_, and this was to us all our greatest glory. chapter vi the demoiselles de coatnamprun across the way from our house in landerneau lived two old maiden ladies, the demoiselles de coatnamprun. the marquis and marquise de coatnamprun, their father and mother, had died many years ago, and most of the small fortune had been filched from them in some iniquitous lawsuit. i remember them very clearly, for i often went to see them with _maman_ and tante rose, who watched over them and protected them; gentle, austere figures, dressed always in threadbare black, almost like nuns, with long, white bone rosaries hanging at their sides, and on their breasts, tied with a red cord, great crucifixes of brass and wood. around their necks they wore white handkerchiefs folded, the points behind, and when they went out, old-fashioned black _capotes_, which were large bonnets mounted and drawn on wires, a quilling of white inside around the face. the elder was called isménie, and the younger suzette; they had the tenderest love for each other. their house was one of the oldest in landerneau and was covered with strange carvings. the great knocker always fascinated me, for it represented a devil with his pitchfork, and one lifted the pitchfork to knock. almost always it was one of the demoiselles de coatnamprun who answered, and she always held a clean white handkerchief by the center, the points shaken out, and always swept us, as she appeared before us in the doorway, a wonderful, old-fashioned, stately court curtsey. the sisters were plain, with dark, mild eyes, faded skins, and pale, withered lips; but their teeth were beautiful, and they had abundant hair. isménie's features were harsh, and her half-closed, near-sighted eyes gave her a cold and haughty expression; but in reality she was a lamb of gentleness, and no one seeing the sisters in their poverty would have taken them for anything but _grandes dames_. [illustration: "gentle, austere figures, dressed always in threadbare black"] when we were ushered into the house it was usually into the dining-room that we went. the drawing-room, which was called the _salle de compagnie_, was used only on ceremonious occasions, easter, the bishop's visit, or when the _noblesse_ from the surrounding country called, and the proudest among them were proud to do so. so in the _salle de compagnie_, where engravings of the family coats of arms hung along the walls, the ugly, massive mahogany furniture was usually shrouded in cotton covers, and it was in the dining-room that the sisters sat, making clothes for the poor. here the pictures interested me very much; they were _naif_, brightly colored prints bought at the landerneau fairs, and representing events in the lives of the saints. st. christopher, bending with his staff in the turbulent stream, bore on his shoulder a child so tiny that i could never imagine why its weight should incommode him, and another doll-like child stood on the volume held by st. anthony of padua. the oil-cloth cover on the table had all the kings and queens of france marching in procession round its border, the dates of their reigns printed above their heads. the chairs were common straw-bottomed kitchen chairs. _maman_ sometimes tried to persuade the sisters to paint the chairs, saying that if they were painted bright red, for instance, it would make the room so much more cheerful. but to any such suggestion they would reply, with an air of gentle surprise: "oh, but _maman_ had them like that. we can't change anything that _maman_ had." their large bedroom was on the first floor, looking out at the street. it was a most dismal room. the two four-posted beds, side by side, had canopies and curtains of old tapestry, but this was all covered with black cambric muslin and had the most funereal air imaginable. at the head of isménie's bed, crossed against the black, were two bones that she had brought from the family vault on some occasion when the coffins had been moved or opened. the only cheerful thing i remember was a childish little _étagère_ fastened in a corner and filled with the waxen figures of the _petit jésus_, and the tiny china dogs, cats and birds that had been among their presents on christmas mornings. to give an idea of the extreme simplicity and innocence of the demoiselles de coatnamprun i may say here that to the end of their lives they firmly believed that _le petit jésus_ himself came down their kitchen chimney on christmas eve and left their presents for them on the kitchen table. _le petit jésus_, as a matter of fact, was on these occasions impersonated by _maman_ and tante rose. tante rose always had the key of the sisters' house, so that at any time she could go in and see that nothing was amiss with _ses enfants_, as she tenderly called them,--and indeed to the end they remained lovely and ingenuous children,--so she and _maman_, when the sisters were safely asleep, would steal into the house and pile every sort of good thing, from legs of mutton to _galettes_, upon the table, and fill the garden sabots that stood ready with bonbons, handkerchiefs, and the little china figures of animals the sisters so cherished. and always there was a waxen figure of _le petit jésus_ and the card with which he made his intention clear; for "_aux demoiselles de coatnamprun, du petit jésus_" was written upon it. [illustration: old kerandraon] other instances of the sisters' ignorance of life and the world i might give, but they would simply be received with incredulity. such types no longer exist, and even then the sisters were unique. i do not believe that in all their lives they knew an evil thought; they were incapable of any form of envy or malice or uncharitableness, and filled with delight at any good fortune that came to others and with gratitude for their own lot in life. sometimes suzette, in the intimacy of friends, would refer with simple sadness to the one drama, if such it can be called, that had befallen them. "_oui_," she would say, "_isménie a eu un chagrin d'amour_." once, when they were young, in their parents' lifetime, an officer had been quartered with them, a kindly, intelligent, honest young fellow of the _bourgeoisie_, and at once aware of the atmosphere of distinction that surrounded him. he showed every attention to the sisters, and poor isménie found him altogether charming. he never even guessed at her attachment. indeed, no such a marriage at that time would have been possible, but she was broken-hearted when he went away. her sister was her confidante, and this was the _chagrin d'amour_ to which suzette sometimes referred. i have said that when they walked out they wore _capotes_. on one occasion mlle. suzette found in a drawer, among old rubbish put away, a crumpled artificial rose, a pink rose, and had the strange idea of fastening it in front of her _capote_. isménie, when her near-sighted eyes caught sight of it, stopped short in the street and peered at her sister in astonishment. "but, suzette, what have you there?" she asked. suzette bashfully told her that she had found the rose and thought it might look pretty. "no, no," said isménie, turning with her sister back to the house, "you must not wear it. _maman_ never wore anything in her _capote_." it required all my mother's skill to persuade them to allow her to dress their hair for them on the occasion of an evening party at tante rose's, to which, as usual, they were going, as "_maman_" had gone, wearing black-lace caps. "_voyons_, but you have such pretty hair," said _maman_. "let me only show you how charmingly it can be done." they were tempted, yet uncertain and very anxious, and then _maman_ had the opportune memory of an old picture of the marquise in youth, her hair done in puffs upon her forehead. she brought it out triumphantly, and the sisters yielded. they could consent to have their hair done as "_maman's_" had been done in her youth. [illustration: "they were buried together on the same day"] we children always went with our parents to the evening parties in landerneau. _maman_ did not like to leave us, and it will be remembered that in those days one dined at five o'clock and that we children had all our meals except breakfast with our parents. it was at a dinner-party at tante rose's that mlle. suzette, next whom i sat, said to me smiling, with her shy dignity, "i have a present here for a little girl who has been good," and she drew a small paper parcel from the silk reticule that hung beside the rosary at her side. i opened it, and found, to my delight, a sugar mouse and a tiny pipe made of red sugar such as i knew _maman_ would never allow us to eat when we went to the confectioner's. but here, in the presence of mlle. suzette, and the gift a gift from her, i felt that i was safe, and i devoured mouse and pipe at once, quite aware of _maman's_ amused and rallying glance from across the table. "i saw you," she said to me afterward. "little ne'er-do-well, you know that i could not forbid it when mademoiselle suzette was there!" the only flower that grew in the demoiselles de coatnamprun's garden was heliotrope, for that had been "_maman's_" favorite flower. they were poor gardeners, and the little _bonne_ who came in by the day to do the housework could give them no help in the garden. so it was tante rose, trotting on her high heels, a little garden fork on her shoulder, who appeared to do battle with the moss and dandelions and to restore a little order. she always gave to this service the air of a delightful game, and indeed, in her constant care of the poor old ladies, had the prettiest skill imaginable in making her gifts weigh nothing. "my dears," she would say, leaning forward to look at their black robes, "aren't these dresses getting rather shabby? hasn't the time come for new ones?" "they are shabby," isménie would answer sadly, "but _que voulez-vous, chère madame_, our means, as you know, are so narrow. it costs so much to buy a dress. we could hardly afford new ones now." "but, on the contrary, it doesn't cost so much," tante rose would say. "i know some excellent woolen material, the very thing for your dresses, and only five francs for the length. you can well afford that, can't you? so i'll buy it for you and bring it to-morrow." and so she would, the innocent sisters imagining five francs the price of material for which tante rose paid at least thirty. since the sisters were very proud, for all their gentleness, and could consent to accept nothing in the nature of a charity, and since indeed they could hardly have lived at all on what they had, tante rose had woven a far-reaching conspiracy about them. her tradespeople had orders to sell their meat and vegetables to the demoiselles de coatnamprun at about a fifth of their value. packets of coffee and sugar arrived at their door, and milk and cream every morning, and when they asked the messenger what the price might be, he would say: "_ces dames régleront le compte avec monsieur le curé_," and since they did not like to refuse gifts from the curé, the innocent plot was never discovered. of course fruits from tante rose's garden and cakes from her kitchen were things that could be accepted. she would bring them herself, and have a slice of _galette_ or a fig from the big basketful with them. they were rather greedy, poor darlings, and since any money they could save went to the poor, they could never buy such dainties for themselves. one extravagance, however, they had: when they came out to pay a visit, a piece of knitting was always drawn from the reticule, and when one asked what it was one was told in a whisper: "silk stockings--a christmas present for suzette," or isménie, as the case might be. beautifully knitted, fine, openwork stockings they were. another contrivance for their comfort was invented by tante rose. they were great cowards, afraid of the dark and in deadly fear of the possible robbers that might enter their house at night. tante rose arranged that when they went to bed a lighted, shaded lamp should be placed in their window, the shade turned toward their room, the light toward the street, so that any robbers passing by would be deceived into thinking the house still on foot and forego their schemes for breaking in. their hearts were tender toward all forms of life. i can see one of them rising from her work to rescue a fly that had fallen into trouble and, holding it delicately by the wings, lift the _persiennes_ to let it fly away. one day in their garden i cried out in disgust at the sight of a great earthworm writhing across a border. "oh, the horrid worm! quick! a trowel, mademoiselle, to cut it in two." but mademoiselle suzette came to look with grieved eyes. "and why kill the poor creature, sophie? it does us no harm," she said, and helped the worm to disappear in the soft earth. the demoiselles de coatnamprun died one winter of some pulmonary affection and within a day of one another. they died with the simplicity and sincerity that had marked all their lives, and toward the end they were heard to murmur continually, while they smiled as if in sleep, "_maman--papa_." isménie died first; but since it was seen that suzette had only a few hours to live, the body was kept lying on the bed near hers, and she did not know that her beloved sister had been taken from her. they were buried together on the same day. * * * * * [illustration: "in the days of the terror ... it had been used ... as a prison"] there was another and very different old lady in landerneau of whom i was very fond and whom, since she took a great fancy to me, i saw often. her daughter was a friend of _maman's_ and made a _mésalliance_ that caused the doors of landerneau to close upon her. _maman_, however, remained devoted to her, and continued to see as much of her as ever, and her mother, my old friend, was entirely indifferent to the doors, closed or open, of landerneau. she wore a brightly colored turkish silk handkerchief tied turban-wise about her head, and soft gray-leather riding boots,--men's boots,--so that she was known in her quarter as _chat-botté_. in her own house she wore men's dress-breeches, short jacket, and high boots. her feet were remarkably small, and the wave of hair on her forehead was as black as jet. she was very downright and ready of speech, and used to talk to me as though i were a person of her own age. "do you see, sophie," she would say, "my poor daughter is a great goose. she struggles to be received, and gets only buffets for her pains. why give oneself so much trouble for nothing?" the disconsolate daughter and the son-in-law made their home with her in a great old house standing on the banks of the river. he was a wholesale wine merchant, and barrels and casks of wine stood about the entrance. my old friend lived almost entirely in her own room on the first floor, the strangest room. it was at once spotlessly clean and completely untidy. the bed had no posts or canopy and was shaped like a cradle. bottles of salad-oil stood on the mantel-shelf, and a bunch of carrots might be lying on the table among bundles of newspapers. from the windows one had beautiful views up and down the river and could see the stone bridge that had old houses built upon it. across the river were her gardens, and she used often to row me over to them and to show me the immense old cherry-tree, planted by her grandfather, that grew far down the river against the walls of an old tower. this tower had its story, and i could not sleep at night for thinking of it. in her girlhood mad people were shut up there. there was only a dungeon-room, and the water often rose in it so that the forsaken creatures stood up to their knees in water. food was thrown to them through the iron bars of the windows, but it was quite insufficient, and she gave me terrible descriptions of the faces she used to see looking out, ravenous and imploring. she remembered that the bones protruded from the knuckles of one old man as he clutched the bars. she used to pile loaves of bread in her little boat, row across to the tower, and fix the loaves on the end of an oar so that she could pass them up to the window, and she would then see the mad people snatching the bread apart and devouring it. and when the cherries on the great tree were ripe she used to climb up into the branches and bend them against the window so that they might gather the fruit themselves from among the leaves, and she herself would gather all she could reach and throw them in. they had not even straw to sleep on. when one of them died, the body was taken out, and this was all the care they had. such were the horrors in a town where people across the river quietly ate and slept, and the church-bells rang all day. chapter vii bon papa my most vivid recollections of grandfather de rosval place him at landerneau, where he would stop with us on his way to quimper during his tours of inspection. his arrivals in the sleepy little town were great affairs and caused immense excitement: post-chaise, postilion, whips cracking, horns blowing, and a retinue of parisian servants. we children never had more than a glimpse of him at first, for he withdrew at once to his own rooms to rest and go through his papers. when he made his entry into the salon,--the salon of the slippery parquet and the nodding mandarins,--all the household was ranged on each side, as if for the arrival of a sovereign, and we had all to drop deep curtseys before him. [illustration: grandfather de rosval] he was a rather imposing figure, with splendid clothes, the coat thickly embroidered along the edge with golden oak-leaves, and a fine, handsome head; but he was enormously, even ridiculously, stout. with an often terrifying and even repellent severity he mingled the most engaging playfulness, and our childish feelings toward him were strangely compounded of dislike and admiration. when he arrived in the salon a lackey came behind him, carrying a large linen bag filled with a sweetmeat bought at seugnot's, the great parisian confectioner. i always associate these sweetmeats with _bon papa_. they were called _croquignoles_, were small, hard, yet of the consistency of soft chalk when one bit into them, and glazed with pink, white, or yellow. after the salutations, _bon papa_ would take up his position before the mantelpiece and beckon the servant to give him the bag of _croquignoles_. we children, quivering with excitement, each of us already provided with a small basket, stood ready, and as _bon papa_, with a noble gesture, scattered the handfuls of _croquignoles_ far and wide, we flung ourselves upon them, scrambling, falling, and filling our baskets, with much laughter and many recriminations. then, besides the little case for _maman_, also from seugnot's, filled with tablets of a delicious _sucre-de-pomme_ in every flavor, were more dignified presents, bracelets and rings for her and for our _tante de laisieu_ and boxes of beautiful toys for us. the only cloud cast over these occasions was that after having distributed all his bounties, _bon papa_ sat down, drew a roll of manuscript from his pocket, and composed himself to read in a sonorous voice poems of his own composition. their theme, invariably, was the delight of reëntering one's family and country, and they were very pompous and very long, sometimes moving _bon papa_ almost to tears. the comic scene of family prayers that followed was pure relief, for even we children felt it comic to see _bon papa_ praying. "and are they good children?" he would ask. "have they said their prayers?" [illustration: "the château was one of the oldest in finisterre"] "not yet, _mon père_," _maman_ would answer. "they always say their prayers at bedtime." but _bon papa_ was not to be so deterred from yet another ceremony. "good, good!" he would reply. "we will all say the evening prayers together, then." and when we had all obediently knelt down around the room, _bon papa_ recited the prayers in the same complacent, sonorous voice, making magnificent signs of the cross the while. on one of these occasions we were almost convulsed by poor little ernest, whom _bon papa_ had taken in his arms, and who was so much alarmed by the great gestures going on over his head that he broke at last into a prolonged wail and had to be carried hastily away. one of _bon papa's_ poetic works i can still remember, of a very different and more endearing character. i was taken ill one morning while we were living with him in paris and had been given to console me by a cousin of ours staying with us, the duchesse de m----, a delicious little purse in white, knitted silk, embroidered with pale blue forget-me-nots. i told _maman_ that i wished very much to show this purse to _bon papa_, and that he should be informed of my illness. so i wrote him a note, and it was taken, with the purse, to his room. presently the little parcel, much heavier, was brought back to me, and on opening my purse, i found inside it a centime, a liard, a sou--every coin, in fact, up to and including a golden twenty-franc piece. and this is the poem that was sent with the purse: "vous voulez jeune princesse que je me rends près de vous? que je baise de votre altesse les pieds, les mains, et les genoux? dans un instant je vais me rendre a vos désirs et à vos voeux, mais vous me permettrez de prendre deux baisers sur vos beaux yeux bleus." such a grandfather, it must be admitted, had advantages as well as charms, yet our memory of him was always clouded by the one or two acts of cruel severity we had witnessed and of which i could not trust myself to speak. chapter viii le marquis de ploeuc in the château de ker-guélegaan, near quimper, lived an old friend of my family's, the marquis de ploeuc. the château was one of the oldest in finisterre, an immense weather-beaten pile with a moat, a drawbridge, a great crenellated tower, and a turret that, springing from the first story, seemed, with its high-pointed roof, to be suspended in the air. tall, dark trees rose in ordered majesty about the château, and before it a wide band of lawn, called a _tapis vert_, ran to the lodge-gates that opened on the highroad. from the upper windows one saw the blue brittany sea. along the whole length of the front façade ran a stone terrace with seven wide steps; the windows of the _salle d'honneur_ opened upon this, and the windows of the _petit salon_ and the dining- and billiard-room. the furniture in the _salle d'honneur_ was of louis xv white lacquer, court chairs, and _tabourets de cour_. there were tall mirrors all along the walls, and in the corners hung four great crystal chandeliers. the curtains and portières were of a heavy, white silk that had become gray with time; they were scattered with bouquets of faded flowers, and caught up and looped together with knots of ribbon that had once been rose-colored. this glacial and majestic room was seldom used; it was in the _petit salon_, leading from it, that guests usually sat. here the chairs were carved along their tops with garlands of roses and ribbons so delicate that we children were specially forbidden to touch them. the walls were hung with tapestries, at which i used often to gaze with delight. one saw life-sized ladies and gentlemen dancing in stately rounds or laughing under trees and among flowers and butterflies. the great dining-room was paneled with dark wood carved into frames around the portraits of ancestors that were ranged along it. the coffers and the sideboards, where the silver stood, were of the same carved wood. i remember once going down to peep at the kitchen in the basement, and the dark immensity, streaming, as it were, with cooks, servants, kitchen-boys, and maids, so bewildered and almost frightened me that i never ventured there again. the old marquis was a widower, and his married daughters, the marquise de l---- and mme. d'a----, usually lived with him and his unmarried daughter rosine, who became a nun. he was a splendid old gentleman, tall, with a noble carriage and severe, yet radiant, countenance. in the daytime he dressed always in gray coat and knee-breeches, with gray-and-black striped stockings and buckled shoes. at night his thick, white hair was gathered into a _catogan_,--a little square black-silk bag, that is to say,--tied with a bow, and he wore a black-silk suit. on festal occasions, christmas, easter, or his fête-day, he became a magnificent figure in brocaded coat and white-satin waistcoat and knee-breeches; he had diamond shoe- and knee-buckles, diamond buttons on his waistcoat, and golden _aiguillettes_ looped across his breast and shoulder. the diamond buckles he left to me, to be given to me on my first communion, and in his lifetime he had made for me a beautiful missal bound in white parchment and closed with a diamond and emerald clasp; inside were old illuminations. in his youth m. de ploeuc had been an officer of the chouans, and he was, of course, a passionate royalist. he always wore the croix de st. louis, a fleur-de-lis, with the little cross attached by blue ribbon. i asked him once if it was the same sort of decoration as my grandfather de rosval's, which, i said, was larger and was tied with red, and i remember the kindly and ironic smile of my old friend as he answered, "oh, no; that is only the légion d'honneur." [illustration: "he was a splendid old gentleman"] brittany had many marquises, some of them also old and distinguished; but he was the _doyen_ of them all, and was always called simply _le_ marquis. any disputes or difficulties among the local _noblesse_ were always brought to him for his decision, and on such occasions, if the discussions became heated, he would say, "_palsan bleu, mes seigneurs, il me semble que vous vous oubliez ici_," using the dignified oath already becoming obsolete. his french was the old french of the court. he never, for instance, said, "_je vous remercie_," but, "_je vous rends gráce_." guests at ker-guélegaan arrived with their own horses and carriages to stay a month or more, and open house was kept. breakfast was at six for those who did not take communion at the mass that was celebrated every morning in the chapel adjoining the château; these breakfasted on returning. it was permissible for ladies, at this early hour, to appear very informally in _peignoirs_ and _bigoudics_. _bigoudics_ are curl-papers or ribbons. the marquis almost always took communion, but he usually appeared at the six o'clock breakfast. after mass, once his correspondence dealt with, he played billiards with rosine, the beautiful girl who became a nun in the order of the carmelites, an order so strict that those who entered it died, to all intents and purposes, since their relatives never saw them again, and at that time were not even informed of their death. i see rosine very clearly, bending over the billiard-table under her father's fond gaze, and i can also see her kneeling to pray in a corner of the _petit salon_. it was with such simplicity that any suspicion of affectation or parade was out of the question. in the midst of a conversation she would gently ask to be excused and would go there apart and pray, sometimes for an hour. the ladies quietly gossiping over their embroidery-frames took it quite as a matter of course that rosine should be praying near them. [illustration: "guests at ker-guélegaan arrived with their own horses and carriages"] _déjeuner_ was at ten, and it was then that one saw how strongly feudal customs still survived at ker-guélegaan. the marquis sat at the head of the table, and behind his chair stood his old servant yvon, dressed in breton mourning-costume in memory of his defunct mistress; that is to say, in blue, black, and yellow. the other servants wore the livery of the house. half-way down the table the white cloth ended, and the lower half had a matting covering. here sat all the farmers of ker-guélegaan and their families, taking their midday meal with their master, while m. de ploeuc and his guests and family sat above. we children were usually placed at a little side-table. the meal aways began by m. de ploeuc rising and blessing the company with two outstretched fingers, like a bishop, and he then recited a benediction. he was always served first, another survival of patriarchal custom, forced upon him, rather, for i remember his protesting against it and wishing my mother, who sat next him, to be served before him; but she would not hear of it. during the repasts a violinist and a _biniou_-player, dressed in his breton costume, played to us. after luncheon the ladies drove or rode or walked as the fancy took them, or, assembled in the _petit salon_, talked over their work. on hot days the blinds would be drawn down before the open windows, but in the angle of each window was fixed a long slip of mirror, so that from every corner one could see if visitors, welcome or unwelcome, were driving up to the _perron_. _goûter_, at three, consisted of bread, fruit, and milk, and dinner was at five. after that the ladies and gentlemen assembled in the _petit salon_ and talked, told ghost-stories and legends, or played games till the very early bedtime of the place and period. this was the _train de vie_ at ker-guélegaan; but my memories of the place center almost entirely around the figure of my old friend. i was his constant companion. when he rode out after luncheon to visit his farms, i would sit before him on his old horse pluton. he never let pluton gallop for fear of tiring him. "do you see, _ma petite_," he would say, "pluton is a comrade who has never failed me. he has earned a peaceful old age." we passed, in the wood behind the château, a monument of a templar that frightened and interested me. he lay with his hands crossed over his sword, his feet stayed against a couchant hound, and i could not understand why he wore a knitted coat. my old friend burst out laughing when i questioned him, and said that i was as ignorant as a little carp, and that it was high time i went to the sacré coeur. he told me that the knitted coat was a coat of mail, and tried to instil a little history into my mind, telling me of the crusades and st. louis; but i am afraid that my mind soon wandered away to pluton's gently pricked ears and to the wonders of the woods that surrounded us. we had walks together, too, and went one day to the sea-shore, where there was a famous grotto often visited by strangers. when we arrived at the black arch among the rocks and i heard it was called the devil's grot, i was terrified, clinging to m. de ploeuc's hand and refusing to enter. [illustration: "_maman_ wrote secretly to _bon papa_ in paris"] "but why not, sophie? why not?" he questioned me. "i am here to take care of you, and there is no danger at all. see, yann is lighting the torches to show us the way." "but the devil--the devil will get me," i whispered; "jeannie told me so." jeannie, indeed, was in the habit of punishing or frightening me by tales of the devil and his fork and tail and flames, and of how he would come and carry off disobedient little girls; so it was not to be wondered at that i feared to enter his grot. i imagined that he himself lurked there and would certainly carry me off, for i was well aware that i was often very disobedient. m. de ploeuc sat down on a rock, took me on his knee, and said: "it is very wrong of jeannie to fill your head with such nonsense, my little one. nothing like her devil exists in the whole world, and you must pay no attention to her stories." he told me that the cavern was filled with beautiful stalactites, like great clusters of diamonds, and was so gentle and merry and reasonable that the devil was exorcised from my imagination forever, and i consented to enter the grotto. yann and the guide, a young farmer of ker-guélegaan, led us in with their lighted torches, and i suddenly saw before me, strangely illuminated, a somber, yet gorgeous, fairy-land. diamonds indeed! pillars of diamonds rose from the rocky floor to the roof, and pendants hung in long clusters, glittering in inconceivable vistas of splendor. i was so dazzled and amazed that i gave the vaguest attention to m. de ploeuc's explanation of the way in which the stalactites were formed among the rocks. indeed, that night i could not sleep, still seeing diamond columns and pillars, and my dear old friend was full of self-reproach next day when he heard that during the night the devil's grot had given me a fever. [illustration: "as a country gentleman he had lived and as a country gentleman he intended to go on living"] sometimes the marquis de l---- accompanied us on our expeditions, and sometimes i was even left in his charge for an afternoon. i disliked this very much, for he had no amusing stories to tell me and walked very fast, and when my pace flagged, he would pause to look at me reproachfully, tapping his foot on the ground, and crying out, as though i were one of his horses, "get up! get up!" m. de ploeuc often took me, after lunch, into his little study and played the flute to me. i liked being in the study, but it rather frightened me to see my old friend remove his teeth before beginning to play. their absence sadly altered his beautiful and stately countenance, and gave, besides, an odd, whistling timbre to his music. still, i listened attentively, looking away now and then from his rapt, concentrated countenance to the _tapis vert_ outside, where the cows were cropping the short grass, or glancing around rather shrinkingly at the headless bust of marie antoinette that stood on the mantelpiece. the head lay beside the bust, and there was, even to my childish imagination, a terrible beauty in the proud shoulders thus devastated. this was one of two such busts that had been decapitated by the revolutionists. the other belonged, i think, later on, to the empress eugénie. when the marquis had finished his thin, melancholy airs, it was my turn to perform, and that i liked much better. i saw that he loved to hear the old breton songs sung in my sweet, piping little voice, and it was especially pleasant, our music over, to be rewarded by being given chocolate pastils from a little enamel box that stood on the writing-desk. while i softly crunched the pastils m. de ploeuc told me about the countries where the plant from which the chocolate came grew. it was not at all common in brittany at that time, and the pastils much less sweet than our modern bon bons. m. de ploeuc also carried for his own delectation small violet and peppermint lozenges in a little gold box that he drew from his waistcoat-pocket, and these gave the pleasantest fragrance to his kiss. i often sat on with him in the study, looking at the pictures in the books he gave me while he read or wrote. he wore on the third finger of his right hand an odd black ring that had a tiny magnifying-glass fixed upon it, and while he read his hand moved gently across the page. i owe a great deal to this dear old friend. he took the deepest interest in my deportment, and _maman_ was specially delighted that he should extirpate from my speech provincial words and intonations. he entirely broke me of the bad habits of shrugging my shoulders and biting my nails. "only wicked men and women bite their nails," he told me, and pointed out to me as a terrible warning the beautiful and coquettish mme. de g----, one of his guests, who had bitten her nails to the quick and quite ruined the appearance of her hands. "and is she so wicked?" i asked. at which he laughed a little, and said that she must become so if she continued to bite her nails. he made me practise coming into and going out of a room until he was satisfied with my ease and grace. "do you see, _ma petite sophie_," he said, "a woman, when she walks well, is a goddess. walk always as if on clouds, lightly and loftily. or imagine that you are skimming over fields of wheat, and that not an ear must bend beneath your tread." chapter ix loch-ar-brugg and now i must tell of loch-ar-brugg, the center of my long life and the spot dearest to me upon earth. it was situated amidst the beautiful, wild, heathery country that stretched inland from landerneau. i first saw it one day when i drove over from landerneau with my father, and my chief recollection of this earliest visit is the deep shade under the high arch of the beech avenue and the aromatic smell of black currants in an upper room where we were taken to see the liqueur in process of being made. i was given some to drink in a tiny glass, and i never smell or taste _cassis_ that the scent, color, warmth, and sweetness of that long-distant day does not flash upon me. the liqueur was being made by the farmer's wife; for part of the house, which, as i have said, papa at that time used only as a hunting-lodge, was inhabited by a belgian farmer and his family. they were all seated at their midday meal when we arrived, and another thing i remember is that the eldest daughter, a singularly beautiful young creature, with sea-green eyes and golden hair, was so much confused at seeing us that she put a spoonful of the custard she was eating against her cheek instead of into her mouth, greatly to my delight and to papa's. "monsieur must excuse her," said the mother; "she is very timid." on which my father replied with some compliment which made all the family smile. i see them all smiling and happy, yet it must have been soon after that a tragedy befell them. news was brought to my father that the farmer had hanged himself. the poor man's rent was badly in arrears, but when he had last spoken to my father about it, the latter, as was always his wont in such circumstances, told him not to torment himself and that he could pay when he liked. _maman_ always suspected that my father's agent had threatened the poor fellow and that he had done away with himself in an access of despondency. papa, overcome with grief, hastened to loch-ar-brugg and remained there for a week with the mourning family. he gave them money to return to belgium, and the beautiful young daughter became, we heard, a very skilful lace-maker. [illustration: on the road to loch-ar-brugg] i was too young for this lugubrious event to cast a shadow on my dear loch-ar-brugg, but for many years _maman_ disliked the place. we still lived at quimper or landerneau, using loch-ar-brugg as a mere country resort; but by degrees the ugly walls, nine feet high, that shut in the house from the gardens and shut out the view were pulled down, lawns were thrown into one another, great clumps of blue hydrangeas were planted all down the avenue, on each side, between each beech-tree, and the house, if not beautiful, was made comfortable and convenient. it was when we were really established at loch-ar-brugg that _maman_ began to take the finances of the household into her capable hands. she reproached my father with his lack of ambition, and asked him frequently why he did not find an occupation, to which he always replied, "_ma chère_, i have precisely the occupations i care for." _maman_ wrote secretly to _bon papa_ in paris and begged him to find a post for her husband there, and an excellent one was found at the treasury. but when the letter came, and _maman_, full of joy, displayed it to him, papa cheerfully, but firmly, refused to consider for a moment any such change in his way of life. as a country gentleman he had lived and as a country gentleman he intended to go on living, and so indeed he continued to the end of his long life. i don't imagine that he made any difficulties as to _maman_ taking over the financial management. he was quite incapable of saying no to a farmer who asked to have his rent run on unpaid, and realized, no doubt, that his methods would soon bring his family to ruin. so it was _maman_ who received and paid out all the money. i see her now, sitting at the end of the long table in the kitchen, between two tall tallow candles, the peasants kneeling on the floor about her while she assessed their indebtedness and received their payments. she was never unkind, but always strict, and i was more than once the sympathetic witness of an incident that would greatly have incensed her. my father, meeting a disconsolate peasant going to an interview with _la maîtresse_, would surreptitiously slide the needful sum into his hand! what would _maman_ have said had she known that the money so brightly and briskly paid to her had just come out of her husband's pocket! [illustration: "my father, meeting a disconsolate peasant, ... would surreptitiously slide the needful sum into his hand"] i was always a great deal with papa at loch-ar-brugg. at first i used to walk with him,--when he did not take me on his horse,--trotting along beside him, my hand in his. later on, when tante rose had given me a dear little pony, i rode with him, and he had secretly made for me, knowing that _maman_ would not approve, a very astonishing riding-costume. it had long, tightly fitting trousers, a short little jacket, like an eton jacket, with a red-velvet collar,--red was my father's racing color,--and on my long golden curls a high silk hat. _maman_ burst out laughing when she saw me thus attired and was too much amused to be displeased. she herself rode a great deal at this time, but it was to hunting- and shooting-parties, from which she would return with her "bag" hanging from a sort of little pole fixed to her saddle; and i remember that one day she brought a strange beast that none of us ever saw in brittany again, a species of armadillo (_tatou_) that her horse had trodden upon and killed. it was at loch-ar-brugg, on one of those early walks with papa, that my first vivid recollection of a landscape seen as a beautiful picture comes to me. we had entered a deep lane where gnarled old trees interlaced their fingers overhead and looked, with their twisted trunks, like crouching men or beasts; and as we advanced, it became so dark and mysterious that i was very much frightened and hung to papa's hand, begging to be taken out. he pointed then before us, and far, far away i saw a tiny spot of light. "don't be frightened, sophie," he said; "we are going toward the sunlight." so i kept my eyes fixed on the widening spot, holding papa's hand very tightly in the haunted darkness; and when we suddenly emerged, we were on the brink of a great gorge, and beyond were mountains, and below us lay a tranquil, silver lake. i have never forgotten the strange, visionary impression, as of a beauty evoked from the darkness. papa told me the story of the lake; it was called "le lac des korrigans." the korrigans are breton fairies--fairies, i think, more melancholy than those of other lands, and with something sinister and _macabre_ in their supernatural activities. they danced upon the turf, it is true, in fairy-rings, but also, at night, they would unwind the linen from the dead in the churchyards and wash it in this lake. i felt the same fear and wonder on hearing this story that all my descendants have shown when they, in their turn, have come to hear it, and my little granddaughter, in passing near the lake with me, has often said, shrinking against me, "je ne veux pas voir les blanchisseuses, grand'mère." [illustration: le lac des korrigans] unlike the marquis, who filled my mind, or tried to fill it, with the facts of nature and history, papa, on our walks, told me all these old legends, not as if he believed them, it is true, but as if they were stories quite as important in their way as the crusades; and perhaps he was right. sometimes, when we were walking or riding, we met convicts who had escaped from the great prison at brest. i was strictly forbidden ever to go outside the gates alone; but once, at evening, i slipped out and ran along the road to meet papa, who, i knew, was coming from landerneau on foot. he was very much perturbed when he saw me emerge before him in the dusk, and drew me sharply to his side, and i then noticed that two men were following him. presently they joined us and asked papa, very roughly, for the time. "it is nine, i think," said my father, eyeing them very attentively. "you think? haven't you a watch, then?" said one of them. i suppose they imagined that the rifle papa carried over his shoulder was unloaded; but unslinging it in the twinkling of an eye, he said sternly: "walk ahead. if you turn or stop, i shoot." they obeyed at once, and as they went along we heard a queer clink come from their ankles. "escaped convicts," said papa in a low voice. "poor devils! and you see, sophie, how dangerous it is for little girls to wander on the roads at night." [illustration: "papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink"] on another occasion we found a wretched, exhausted man lying by the roadside, and papa stopped and asked him what was the matter. he must have felt the kindness of the face and voice, for he said: "i am an escaped convict, monsieur. for god's sake! don't betray me. i am dying of hunger." papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink, and then, when we saw that the brandy had given him strength, he put some money into his hand and said: "it is against the law that i should help you, but i give you an hour before i raise the alarm. go in that direction, and god be with you!" the church-bells were rung everywhere, answering one another from village to village when a convict was known to be at large; but on this occasion i know that my father did not fulfil his duty, the poor creature's piteous face had too much touched him. once, too, when we children were walking with jeannie along the highroad we caught sight of a beggar-woman sleeping in the ditch. in peering over cautiously to have a good look at her, we saw huge men's boots protruding from her petticoats, and, at the other end, a black beard, and we then made off as fast as our legs would carry us, realizing that the beggar-woman was a convict in disguise. at an inn not far from loch-ar-brugg there was a woman of bad character who sold these disguises to the escaped convicts. papa and my little brother and sister (maraquita was not then born) were not my only companions at loch-ar-brugg. the property of ker-azel adjoined ours, and i saw all my laisieu cousins continually, dear, gentle france, domineering jules, and the rest. there were nine of them. it was jules who told us one day that he had been thinking over the future of france (the country, not his brother), and had come to the conclusion that we should all soon suffer from a terrible famine. famines had come before this, said jules, so why not again? it was only wise to be prepared for them; and what he suggested was that we should all accustom ourselves to eat grass and clover, as the cattle did. if it nourished cows, it would nourish us. all that was needed was a little good-will in order that we should become accustomed to the new diet. jules was sincerely convinced of the truth of what he said; but he was a tyrannous boy, and threatened us with beatings if we breathed a word of his plan to our parents. we were to feign at meals that we were not hungry, and to say that we had eaten before coming to the table. i well remember the first time that we poor little creatures knelt down on all fours in a secluded meadow and began to bite and munch the grass. we complained at once that we did not like it at all, and jules, as a concession to our weakness, said that we might begin with clover, since it was sweeter. for some time we submitted to the ordeal, getting thinner and thinner and paler, growing accustomed, it is true, to our tasteless diet and never daring to confess our predicament; we were really afraid of the famine as well as of jules. at last our parents, seriously alarmed, consulted the good old doctor, as nothing could be got from us but stout denials of hunger. he took me home with him, for i was his special pet, and talked gravely and gently to me, reminding me that i was now eight years old and of the age of reason, going to confession and capable of sin. it was a sin to tell lies, and if i would tell him the truth, he would never betray my confidence. thus adjured, i began to cry, and confessed that we had all been eating nothing but grass and clover. the doctor petted and consoled me, told me that it was all folly on the part of jules, and that he would set it right without any one knowing that i had told him. he kept his promise to me. it was as if by chance he found us all in our meadow next day, on all fours, munching away. jules sprang up, sulky and obstinate. "yes; we are eating grass and clover," he said, "and we are quite accustomed to it now and like it very much, and we shall be better off than the rest of you when the famine comes." the doctor burst out laughing, and his laughter broke the spell jules had cast upon us. he told us that not only was there no probability of a famine, no possibility even, france being a country rich in food, but that even were there to be a famine, we should certainly all be dead before it came if we went on eating as the cattle did, since we were not accommodated with the same digestive apparatus as they. he described to us this apparatus and our own, and at last even jules, who was as thin and as weary as the rest of us, was convinced, and glad to be convinced. it was not till many years afterward that we told our parents the story. one day we children were all in a deep lane--perhaps the same that had frightened me years before--when, at a turning, the most inconceivable monster towered above us in the gloom. we recognized it in a moment as a camel (a camel in brittany!), and with it came a band of gipsies, with dark skins, flashing teeth, bright handkerchiefs, and ear-rings. our alarm was not diminished when we saw that they led, as well as the camel, two thin performing bears. but as we emerged into the light with the chattering, fawning crowd, alarm gave way to joyous excitement. the camel and the bears were under perfect control, and the gipsies were not going to hurt us. they asked if they might make the bears dance for us, and we ran to show them the way to loch-ar-brugg. _maman_, in her broad garden hat, was walking in the beech-avenue, and came at once to forbid the gipsies to enter, as they were preparing to do; but as we supplicated that we should be allowed to see the bears dance, she consented to allow the performance to take place in the highroad before the _grille_. we sat about on the grass; the camel towered against the sky, gaunt, tawny, and melancholy; and the bears, armed with wooden staffs, went through their clumsy, reluctant tricks. _maman_, from within the _grille_, surveyed the entertainment with great disfavor, and it lost its charm for us when we heard her say: "how wretchedly thin and miserable the poor creatures look! they must be dying of hunger." we then became very sorry for the bears, too, and glad to have them left in peace, and while we distributed sous to the gipsies, _maman_ went to the house and returned with a basket of broken bread and meat, which she gave to the famished beasts. how they snatched and devoured it, and how plainly i see _maman_ standing there, the deep green vault of the avenue behind her, the clumps of blue hydrangeas, her light dress, her wide-brimmed garden hat, and her severe, solicitous blue eyes as she held out the bread to the hungry bears! [illustration: "a woman of bad character, who sold these disguises to escaped convicts"] a great character at loch-ar-brugg was the curé. it was he who had baptized me, for i was baptized not at quimper, but in the little church of st. eloi that stood at the foot of the loch-ar-brugg woods and had been in the kerouguet family for generations. during my earliest years there he was our chaplain, inhabiting one of the _pavillons_ in the garden with his old servant; later on he was given the living of plougastel, some miles away, and my father had to persuade him to accept it, for he was very averse to leaving loch-ar-brugg and our family. still, even at plougastel we saw him constantly; he drove over nearly every day in his little pony-trap, and officiated every sunday at the seven o'clock mass at st. eloi. what a dear, honest fellow he was, and what startling sermons i have heard him preach! once he informed his congregation that they would all be damned like jean-jacques rousseau and fénélon! this threat, pronounced in breton, was especially impressive, and how he came by the two ill-assorted names i cannot imagine, for he was nearly as ignorant of books as his flock. he was devoted to my father body and soul, being the son of one of his farmers. they were great comrades. whenever my father had had a good day's shooting he would go to the _pavillon_ and cry: "come to dinner! there are woodcocks." and the curé never failed to come. i see him now, with his rustic, rugged face, weather-tanned, gay, and austere. one of my first memories is of the small, square neck ornament (_rabat_) that the clergy wear,--a _bavette_ we children called them,--stitched round with white beads. i longed for these beads, and when he took me on his knee i always fixed my eyes upon them. unattainable indeed they seemed, but one day, noticing the intentness of my gaze, he questioned me, and i was able to express my longing. "but you shall have the beads!" he cried, touched and delighted. "i have two _rabats_, and one is old and past wearing. nothing is simpler than to cut off the beads for you, my little sophie." his performance was even better than his promise, for he brought me a bagful of the beads, collected from among his curé friends, and for days i was blissfully occupied in making chains, rings, and necklaces. some of these ornaments survived for many years. the curé was not at all happy in the presence of fine people. "_je me sauve!_" he would exclaim if such appeared, and he would make off to the garden, where he was altogether at home, true son of the soil that he was. here he would gird up his _soutane_ over his homespun knee-breeches, open his coarse peasant's shirt on his bare chest, and prune and dig and plant; and when he took a task in hand it went quickly. one of my delights was when he put me into the wheelbarrow and trundled me off to ker-eliane to dig up ferns for _maman's_ garden. he, too, told me many legends. the one of st. eloi especially interested me. st. eloi was the son of a blacksmith and helped his father at the forge in the tiny hamlet called after him. one day as they were working, a little child came riding up, mounted on a horse so gigantic that four men could not have held him. "will you shoe my horse, good friends?" said the child,--who of course was _l'enfant jésus_,--very politely. "his shoe is loose, and his hoof will be hurt." the father blacksmith looked with astonishment and indignation at the horse, and said that he could not think of shoeing an animal of such a size; but the son, st. eloi, said at once that he would do his best. so _l'enfant jésus_ slid down, and took a seat on the _talus_ in front of the smithy, and st. eloi at once neatly unscrewed the four legs of the horse and laid them down beside the enormous body. at this point in the story i always cried out: "but, _monsieur le curé_, did it not hurt the poor horse to have its legs unscrewed?" and the curé, smiling calmly, would reply: "not in the least. you see, this was a miracle, my little sophie." so st. eloi was able to deal with the great hoofs separately, and when all was neatly done, the legs were screwed on again; and the child remounted, and said to st. eloi's father before he rode away: "you are a little soured with age, my friend. your son here is very wise. listen to him and take his advice in everything, for it will be good." it was no doubt on account of this legend that all the horses through all the country far and near were brought to the church of st. eloi once a year to be blessed by the curé. this ceremony was called _le baptême des chevaux_. the horses, from plow-horses to carriage-horses and hunters, were brought and ranged round the church in groups of fours and sixes. at the widely opened western door the curé stood, holding the _goupillon_, or holy-water sprinkler, and the horses were slowly led round the church, row after row, seven times, and each time that they passed before him the curé sprinkled them with holy water. after this initial blessing the curé took up his stand within beside the christening-font, and the horses were led into the church,--i so well remember the dull thud and trampling of their feet upon the earthen floor,--and the curé, with holy water from the font, made the sign of the cross upon each large, innocent forehead. finally the tail of each horse was carefully cut off, and all the tails hung up in the church together, to be sold for the benefit of the church at the end of the year, before _le baptême des chevaux_ took place again. this touching ceremony still survives, but the horses are only led round the church and blessed, not brought inside. [illustration: "a great character at loch-ar-brugg was the curé"] the church of st. eloi was very ancient, and adorned with strange old statues of clumsily carved stone painted in garish colors. one was of a christ waiting for the cross, his hands tied before him. it was a hideous figure, the feet and hands huge and distorted, the eyes staring like those of a doll; yet it had an impressive look of suffering. there were no benches in the church except for our family, near the choir. the peasants, the men on one side, the women on the other, knelt on the bare earth during the office. they had used, always, when they entered the church, to pass round before _les maîtres_, bowing before them; but even my mother objected to this, and the curé was told to give out from the pulpit that _les maîtres_ were no longer to be bowed to in church, where there was only one master. _maman_, however, did not at all like it that my father should insist on us children kneeling with the peasants, and it was the one subject on which i remember a difference of opinion between my grandfather rosval and papa. but the latter was firm, and ernest on the side of the men, eliane and i on the side of the women, we knelt through mass. this was no hardship to us, for the kind peasants spread their skirts for our little knees and regaled us all through the service with _crêpes_. [illustration: "all the breton women smoked"] _crêpes_ seem to be present in nearly all my breton memories. the peasants made them for us when we went to visit them in their cottages, and it would have hurt their feelings deeply had we refused them. we children delighted in these visits not only on account of the _crêpes_, but on account of the picturesque interest of these peasant interiors. the one living-room had an earthen floor and a huge chimney-place of stone, often quaintly carved, and so large that chairs could be set within it about the blazing logs. the room was paneled, as it were, with beds that looked, when their sliding wooden doors were closed, like tall wardrobes ranged along the walls. they were usually of dark old wood and often beautifully carved. a narrow space between the tops of these beds and the ceiling allowed some air (but what air!) to reach the sleepers, and, within, the straw was piled high, and the mattress and feather bed were laid upon it. it was quite customary for father, mother, and three or four children to sleep in one bed, several generations often occupying a room, as well as the servants, who were of the same class as their masters. the beds were climbed into by means of a carved chest that stood beside them. these were called _huches_, and contained the heirloom costumes, a store of bread, and the sunday shoes! potatoes were kept under the bed. in the window stood the table where the family and servants all ate together, and above it hung, suspended by a pulley and string from the ceiling, a curious contrivance for holding spoons. it was a sort of wooden disk, and the spoons were held in notches cut round the edge; it was lowered when needed, and each person took a spoon. a great earthenware bowl of creamy milk stood in the center of the table, and with each mouthful of porridge, or _fare_, the spoons were dipped, in community, into the milk. _fare_ was a sort of thick porridge made of maize, allowed to cool in a large round cake, and cut in slices when cold. it was one of the peasants' staple dishes, and another was the porridge made of oatmeal, rye, or buckwheat, served hot, with a lump of butter. for breakfast they all drank _café au lait_, strong coffee boiled with the milk; fortunately milk and butter were plentiful. of the hygienic habits of the peasants at this time the less said the better; a very minor detail was that the long hair of the men and the closely coiffed tresses of the women swarmed with vermin, and after every visit we paid, our heads were always carefully examined. one peasant, i remember, a good fellow, paul simur by name, of whom my father was specially fond, was so dirty and unwashed that a sort of mask of dirt had formed upon his features. one day, at a hunting-party, papa called to paul to come and sit beside him, and the other huntsmen, with singular bad taste, began to make fun of poor paul, who sat much abashed, with hanging head. papa affectionately laid an arm about his neck and defended him, until his friends finally cried out that they wagered he would not kiss him. at this, although he confessed afterward to the most intense repugnance, he at once kissed paul heartily. poor paul was quite overcome. he came to my father afterward with tears in his eyes and said, standing before him and gazing at him: "_oh, mon maître, que je t'aime!_" "and why don't you ever wash your face, paul?" papa asked him then, and paul explained that he had never been taught to wash and was afraid it would seriously hurt him to begin. papa undertook to teach him. he got soap and soda and hot water and lathered paul, gently and firmly, until at last his very agreeable features were disinterred. paul was perfectly delighted, and his face shone with cleanliness ever after. [illustration: "one sometimes saw such an old woman sitting on a _talus_"] a special friend of mine among the peasants was dear old keransiflan, the lodge-keeper. i was fond of joining him while he tended the road in front of the lodge-gates and sitting on his wheelbarrow with him to talk to him while he ate his midday meal. this consisted of a huge slice of black bread thickly spread with butter, and it seemed to me that no bread and butter had ever looked so good. one day he must have seen how much i longed for it, for he said, holding out the slice, "_demoiselle, en veux-tu_?" i did not need to be asked twice, and can still see the great semicircle that i bit into the slice, and i was happily munching when _maman_ appeared at the lodge-gates. she was very much displeased, and mainly that i should be devouring poor keransiflan's luncheon, and she rated me so soundly that the kind old man interceded for me, saying, "_notre maîtresse, c'est moi qui lui l'ai donné_." i think that _maman_ must have seen that it gave him great pleasure to share his bread with me; at all events, keransiflan and i, sitting on our wheelbarrow, were allowed to go on eating in peace. but the peasants were a hard, harsh race and pitiless in their dealings toward one another. their treatment of their old people was terrible. if an old mother, past work, had no money, she was ruthlessly turned out to beg. one sometimes saw such an old woman sitting on a _talus_, her pitiful bundle of rags beside her, helpless and stupefied. i remember a story that was told me by one of my servants about such an old woman that she had known. she had four hundred francs, and was cared for in the family of one son until it was spent, when she was turned out. another son more kindly took her in; but his wife was a hard woman, and though she finally consented to accept the useless old mother into the household, she grudged every sou spent upon her. thus, though the only two joys remaining her in life were snuff and coffee, only two sous a week was allowed her for tobacco, and as for coffee, she was given never a drop. when she was dying she told the servant from whom i had the story that what made her suffer most had been to sit by in the morning and smell the delicious odor of the coffee as the others drank it. this has always seemed to me a heart-piercing story. all the breton women smoked, by the way, and pipes, and in a curious fashion; for the bowl was turned downward, though why, i do not know. chapter x the pardon at folgoat i was taken while i was a child at loch-ar-brugg to the famous _pardon de folgoat_, to which people came from all brittany. in folgoat was the summer residence of anne de bretagne, and in the vast hall of the château she had held her audiences. the château is now the presbytery, and is opposite the church, of which there is a legend. a poor child, yann salacin, who was devoid of reason, spent hours every day before the altar of the virgin, which he decorated with the wild flowers that he gathered in the fields, and wandered in the forest, swinging on the branches of the trees, always singing ave maria, the only words he was ever heard to pronounce. he begged for food from door to door and slept in the barns. the peasants became impatient with him and began to whisper that he was possessed of an evil spirit, and at last they drove him out of the village. the curé, who was a good man, missed him in the church, sought vainly for him, and at last heard what had happened. he was filled with indignation, and told the peasants that they had committed a crime. then he set out to look for poor yann, and found him at last in a distant forest, dead with hunger. he brought the body back to folgoat and buried it near the church, and one day he saw that a tall white lily had grown up from the grave; when he opened the grave he found that the lily sprang from the lips of the little innocent, and on the petals of the flower one could read in letters of gold ave maria. this legend is believed in all brittany, and a stained-glass window in the church tells the story. behind the church is the well of love, so called because not a day passes that lovers do not come to test their fate by trying to float pins upon the surface of the water. if the pins float, all promises well, and they go away happy. astute ones slightly grease the pins, and thus aid destiny. but to return to the _pardon_. i remember that on this occasion an old cook in the family had permission to start two or three days before the _pardon_, so that she might go all the way on her knees, and during those days one met many such devout pilgrims making their way on their knees along the dusty roads. some of them came from far distances. we children were called before dawn on the august morning, and it was a sleepy, half-bewildered dressing by candle-light. as a closed carriage made me sick, i was put into the coupé with papa and _maman_. eliane, ernest, their nurses, and all the other servants, followed in a sort of omnibus, and behind them came all the horses, trotting gaily along the road to share in the blessings of this great day of the assumption of the virgin. the horses of brittany, it will be conceded, are a specially favored race. although i was in the coupé and had all the freshness of the early air to invigorate me, i remember of the journey from loch-ar-brugg to folgoat only that i was deplorably sick, and the greatest inconvenience to my parents. fortunately, i was restored the moment i set my feet upon the ground. [illustration: "je me sauve," he would exclaim] we were to be entertained for the day at folgoat by the curé, and to lunch with him and with the bishops at the presbytery; but we were already ravenously hungry, so, although papa and _maman_ must continue to fast until after taking communion at the early service, we children had a splendid picnic breakfast in the presbytery garden, and a jellied breast of lamb is my first recollection of the day at folgoat! then we went out to see the great festival. seventy-five years or more have passed since that day, and it still lives in my mind with a beauty more than splendid, a divine beauty. in the vast plain, under the vast, blue sky, six bishops, glittering with gold and precious stones, celebrated mass simultaneously at six great altars among thousands of worshipers. it was a sea of color under the august sun, and the white _coiffes_ of the women were like flocks of snowy doves. there was an early mass, and the high mass at eleven. when this was over, we assembled at the presbytery to lunch with the bishops. the table was laid in anne de bretagne's council-chamber, its stone walls covered with archaic figures, and it must have been a picturesque sight to see the bishops sitting in all their splendor against that ancient background; but what i most remember are the stories they told of louis xi and his misdeeds, which seemed to me more interesting and more cruel than the arabian nights and ali baba and his forty thieves. in the church itself was shown a superbly carved bench where, it was said, while praying, he ordered with a nod the death of a breton noble who had refused to do him homage. when we went into the church after lunch to see this bench, i sat down on it, and my long golden curls were caught in the claws of the interlaced monsters on the back, and i hurt myself so much in wrenching myself free that i hated still more fiercely the wicked king who condemned men to death while he prayed. o the horrid monster! then at three came the great procession. first went the six bishops, mitered and carrying their croziers; then followed the children of the _noblesse_, we among them, all in white, with white wreaths on our heads; then all the vast multitude, twenty or thirty abreast, singing canticles, a stupendous sight and sound, all marching round the plain, from altar to altar, under the burning sun. i remember little after that. the marquis de ploeuc was there, his hair tied in the _catogan_, and wearing his black silk suit: i think he must have lunched with us at the curé's. it was arranged that he and his two eldest daughters were to drive back to loch-ar-brugg with _maman_ and spend some days with us, and so, though i must have been very tired, i was to ride back beside papa on my pony, which had been duly blessed. it was already night when we started, and what a wonderful ride it was! i remember no fatigue. i still wore my white dress, and _maman_ swathed my head and shoulders in a white lace shawl, and all the way back to loch-ar-brugg papa told me stories of hunts, of fairies, of saints, and of escaped convicts. every group of trees, every rock, every turning in the road, had its legend or its adventure. chapter xi bonne maman's death we were at quimper when _bonne maman_ died. she had been failing for some time, and her character, until then so gentle, had altered. mere trifles disquieted her, and she became fretful, alarmed, and even impatient. she seemed so little in her big bed, and, when i wanted to climb up beside her, after my wont, she signed to jeannie to take me away and said that it tired her too much to see children and that the air of a sick-room was not good for them. "tell my daughter--tell her. they must not come!" she repeated several times in a strange, shrill voice. i slid down from the bed, i remember, abashed and disconcerted, and while i longed to see my dear _bonne maman_ as i had known her, i was afraid of this changed _bonne maman_; and it hurt me more for her than for myself that she should be so changed. but one day when _maman_ was in the room, she caught sight of me hanging about furtively in the passage, and called out gently to me to go away, that _bonne maman_ was tired and was going to sleep. then a poor little voice, no longer shrill, very trembling, came from the bed, saying: "let her come, eliane. it will not hurt me. i want to see her for a moment." i approached the bed, walking on tiptoe; the curtains were drawn to shade _bonne maman_ from the sunlight, and i softly came and stood within them. o my poor _bonne maman_! i could hardly recognize her. she seemed old--old and shrunken, and her eyes no longer smiled. she looked at me so fixedly that i was frightened, and she said to _maman_: "lift her up on the bed. i want to kiss her." she took my hand then, and looked at my little finger as she always used to do, and said: "i see that you have been very good with your mother, but that you don't obey your nurse. you must always be obedient. you understand me, don't you, sophie? do you say your prayers?" "yes, _bonne maman_," i answered. "have you said them this morning?" "no, _bonne maman_." "say them now." i made the sign of the cross and said the following prayer, which i repeated morning and evening every day, and with slightly altered nomenclature, my children and grandchildren have repeated, as i did, until the age of reason: "_mon dieu_, bless me and bless and preserve _grand-père_, _bonne maman_, _maman_, _papa_, my sisters, my brother, tiny" [this was my little dog], "ghislaine, france, kerandraon, all my family, and make me very good. amen." when i had finished, _bonne maman_ drew me gently to her, pressed me in her arms, and kissed me on my eyes. [illustration: paul] after this, for how many days i do not remember, everything became very still in the house. the servants whispered when they had to speak, and the older people, when they met us, told us gently to go into the garden and to be very quiet. we did not see _maman_ or _papa_ at all. my _tante_ de laisieu was with us, and dear france. _bon papa_ arrived from paris. one morning was very sunny and beautiful, and as i played with eliane in the garden i forgot the oppression that weighed upon us and began to sing to her a breton song which jeannie had taught me. these were the words: le roy vient demain au château, "ecoute moi bien, ma fleurette, tu regarderas bien son aigrette!" "je regarderai," dit fleurette, "pour bien reconnaître le roy! mes yeux ne verront que toi, et mon coeur n'aimera que toi." while i sang i looked up at _bonne maman's_ window, for i knew how fond she was of hearing me. the window was shut, and this was unusual; so i sang the louder, that she should hear me, of _fleurette_ and _le roy_. then france and one of the servants came running out of the house, and i saw that both had been crying, and france put his arm about me while the servant said, "mademoiselle must not sing." and france whispered: "you will wake _bonne maman_. go into the orchard, dear sophie. there you will not be heard." in the evening papa came for us in the nursery, and i saw that he, too, had been crying. i had never before seen tears in his dear eyes. he took us up to _maman's_ room. all the blinds were drawn down, but i could see her lying on her bed, in her white woolen _peignoir_, her arms crossed behind her head, her black jet rosary lying along the sheet beside her. we kissed her, one after the other, and i saw the great tears rolling down her cheeks. "_maman_--is _bonne maman_ very ill?" i whispered. i felt that something terrible had happened to us all. "my little girl," said _maman_, "your poor _bonne maman_ does not suffer any more. she is very happy now with the angels and _le bon dieu_," but _maman_ was sobbing as she spoke. [illustration: we children had a splendid picnic breakfast] i knew death only as it had come to one of my little birds that lived in the round cage hung in the nursery-window, and i was very much frightened when papa said: "i am going to take sophie to your mother's room, eliane. she is old enough to understand." but i went with him obediently, holding his hand. outside _bonne maman's_ door he paused and stooped to kiss me and said: "i know how much you loved your _bonne maman_, sophie, and i want you to say good-by to her, for you will never see her again. she loved you so much, my little darling, and you shall be the last one to kiss her." the room was all black, and in the middle stood the bed. beside it, on a table, a little _chapelle_ had been made with a great silver cross and candelabra with lighted tapers. a bunch of fresh box stood in a goblet of holy water. _bonne maman_ lay with her arms stretched out before her, the hands clasped on her black wooden crucifix with a silver christ that had always hung upon her wall. her hair was not dressed, but drawn up from her forehead and covered with a mantilla of white silk spanish lace, which fell down over her shoulders on each side. i stood beside her holding papa's hand. her profile was sharply cut against the blackness, and i had never before seen how beautiful it was. her eyes were closed, and she smiled tranquilly. i felt no longer any fear; but when papa lifted me in his arms so that i might kiss _bonne maman_ and my lips touched her forehead, a great shock went through me. how cold her forehead was! o my poor _bonne maman_! even now, after all the lusters that have passed over me, i feel the cold of that last kiss. chapter xii the journey from brittany it was not long after _bonne maman's_ death that we left brittany and went to paris to live with _bon papa_. i remember every detail of this my first long journey. the day began with a very early breakfast, which we all had together in the dining-room and at which we had the great treat of drinking chocolate. then came the complicated business of stowing us all away in our capacious traveling-carriage. it was divided into three compartments. first came what was called the _coupé_, with windows at the sides and a large window in front from which we looked out past the coachman's red-stockinged legs and along the horses' backs to where the postilion jounced merrily against the sky in a red breton costume like the coachman's, his long hair tied behind with black ribbon, a red jockey's cap on his head, and black shoulder-knots with jet _aiguillettes_. after the _coupé_, and communicating with it by a tiny passage, though it had doors of its own, was another compartment for maids, nurses, and children, and behind that another and larger division for all the other servants. on the top were seats beside the coachman, and papa spent most of the day up there smoking. the luggage, carried on the top, was covered by a great leather covering, buckled down all over it, called a _bache_. the horses were post-horses, renewed at every post. it was decided that i was to go in the _coupé_ with _maman_, papa, and little maraquita, as i should get more fresh air there. i wore, i remember, a red cashmere dress made out of a dress of _maman's_. the material had been brought from india and was bordered with a design of palm-leaves. indeed, this red cashmere must have provided me with a succession of dresses, for i remember that when i made my _entrée_ at the _sacré coeur_ years afterwards, the bishop, visiting the convent, stopped, smiling, at my bench, and said, "why, this is a little republican, is it not?" eliane and i both wore _capulets_ on our heads. these were squares of white cloth that fell to the shoulders and that folded back from the forehead and fastened under the chin with bands of black velvet, a spanish head-dress. our cloaks were the full cloaks, gathered finely around the neck and shoulders, that _maman_ had made for us, copied from the peasants' cloaks, of foulard for summer and wool for winter. little maraquita, who spent most of the three days' journey on _maman's_ knees, wore, as always until she was seven or eight, white and pale blue, the virgin's colors, as she had been _vouée au bleu et au blanc_ after a terrible accident that had befallen her in infancy. she had fallen into the fire at landerneau, and her head and forehead had been badly burned, and _maman_ had thus dedicated her to the virgin with prayers that she might not be disfigured--prayers that were more than answered, for maraquita became exquisitely beautiful. papa, i may add here, had many friends and connections in spain; hence my little sister's name, and hence our _capulets_. eliane and ernest traveled in the second compartment with their nurses, eliane carrying tiny and her huge doll, and ernest, unfortunately for our peace of mind, a drum of mine that i had given him and upon which he beat the drumsticks hour after hour. _maman_, in the _coupé_, cried out at intervals that it was intolerable to hear such an incessant noise and that the child must really, now, be made to stop; but papa always mildly soothed her, saying: "let him play. it keeps him distracted; he would probably be crying otherwise." so ernest continued to roll his drum. in the _coupé_ i was fully occupied in playing at horses. real leather reins had been fixed at each side of the front window, passing under it so that, looking out over the horses' haunches, i had the delightful illusion, as i wielded the reins, of really driving them. i do not remember that i was sick at all on the first day. the country was mountainous, and at every steep hill we all got out and walked down, and this also, probably helped to preserve me. one feature of the brittany landscape of those days stands out clearly in my memory, the tall, sinister-looking telegraph-poles that stood, each one just visible to the last, on the heights of the country. when i say telegraph it must not be imagined that they were our modern electric installations, although so they were called. these were of a very primitive and very ingenious construction. at the top of each pole, by means of the projecting arm that gave it the look of a gallows, immense wooden letters were hung out, one after the other; these letters were worked by means of wires that passed down the poles into the little hut at its foot. each wire at the bottom had a label with its corresponding letter, and the operator in the hut, by pulling the wire, pulled the letter into its place at the top of the pole, and was thus able laboriously to spell out the message he had to convey and to make it visible to the operator at the next post, who passed it on to the next. these clumsy telegrams could be sent, as far as i remember, only at certain hours of the day, and i think that it must have been during a wayside halt on this journey that i visited a hut with papa and had the system explained to me and saw a message being sent, for i remember the clatter and shaking as the big letters overhead were pulled into place. i do not know whether this method of communication was used all over france, but one or two of the old poles still survive in brittany. [illustration: the postilion sounded his horn] our first stop that day was at quimperlé. the postilion, as we approached a town or village, sounded his horn, and what excitement it caused in these quiet little places when we came driving up, and how all the people crowded round us! the inn at quimperlé was called the hôtel du trèfle noir, and though very primitive, the thatch showing through the rafters in the roof of the immense kitchen-dining-room, it was scrupulously clean. we all sat down together at the long table, servants, coachman, postilion, and all, and the _déjeuner_ served to us by the good landlady was fit to put before a king. i remember _maman_ laughing and asking her why she served the salmon and, afterward, a heaping golden mound of fried potatoes, on a great plank, and the landlady saying that she had no dishes large enough. there was a turkey, too, stuffed with chestnuts and of course _crêpes_ and cream. next door to us, in a smaller room, a band of commercial travelers were also lunching, and as we finished each course it was carried in to those cheerful young fellows, whose hurrahs of joy added zest to our own appetites. that night we slept at rennes, where i remember only that i was very tired and that a horrid man who came to make a fire in our bedrooms spat upon the floor, to our disgust and indignation. i remember, too, a very pleasant crisp cake, or roll, that _maman_ gave me to eat before i went to bed. it was on the third day that we drove at last into paris, a fairy-land to my gazing, stupefied eyes. what struck me most were the fountains of the place de la concorde, the bronze mermaids holding the spouting fish, and the little sunken gardens, four of them, that at that time surrounded the obelisk. _bon papa_ lived in the rue st. dominique, st. germain, and as we drove up to the door i remember that it was under blossoming acacia-trees and that the postilion blew a great blast upon his horn to announce our arrival. the house, which was, indeed, a very pleasing specimen of louis xv architecture, looked palatial to my childish eyes. _bon papa_ was standing, very portly, on the terrace to welcome us, and we ran into a park behind the house, with an avenue of horse-chestnuts and a high fountain. but brittany was left far behind, and many, many years were to pass before i again saw my loch-ar-brugg. the end flower of the gorse by louis tracy author of the wings of the morning, one wonderful night, etc. [illustration] new york grosset & dunlap publishers ------------------------------------------------------------------------ copyright by edward j. clode. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _dans la ville des meunières, pont aven, pays d'amour, au bord des ruisseaux d'eau claire, fleur d'ajonc chante toujours._ --breton song. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ contents i _the tower and the well_ ii _the feast of sainte barbe_ iii _the wreck_ iv _the home-coming_ v _the lifting of the veil_ vi _a lull_ vii _mischief_ viii _the tightening of the net_ ix _showing how harvey raymond began the attack_ x _madeleine's flight_ xi _mutterings of the storm_ xii _wherein both the reef and mr. raymond yield information_ xiii _showing how tollemache took charge_ xiv _a breton reckoning_ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ flower of the gorse chapter i the tower and the well "_o, là, là!_ see, then, the best of good luck for each one of us this year!" although mère pitou's rotund body, like falstaff's, was fat and scant o' breath, and the pilgrims' way was steep and rocky, some reserve of energy enabled her to clap her hands and scream the tidings of high fortune when the notes of a deep-toned bell pealed from an alp still hidden among the trees. three girls, fifty paces higher up the path, halted when they heard that glad cry--and, indeed, who would not give ear to such augury? "why should the clang of a bell foretell good luck, mother?" cried barbe, the youngest, seventeen that september day, and a true breton maid, with eyes like sloes, and cheeks the tint of ripe russet apples, and full red lips ever ready to smile shyly, revealing the big, white, even teeth of a peasant. "mother" signaled that explanations must await a more opportune moment. "madame pitou can't utter another word," laughed yvonne, the tallest girl of the trio. "she has had some secret on the tip of her tongue all day," said madeleine, who was so like barbe that she might have been an elder sister; though the sole tie between the two was residence in the same village. "don't you remember how she kept saying in the train?--'now, little ones, ask sainte barbe to be kind to you. she'll hear your prayers a kilometer away, even though you whisper them.'" "yes, and mama would have liked us to begin singing a hymn when we started from the foot of the hill, but she thought monsieur ingersoll and monsieur tollemache would only be amused," put in barbe. "they would certainly have been amused before madame pitou reached the top, singing!" tittered yvonne. "is it possible that i shall ever be as stout as mama?" murmured barbe, and the mere notion of such a catastrophe evoked a poignant anxiety that was mirrored in her eyes. "ah, mignonne, now you know the form your petition to sainte barbe must take," smiled yvonne. "it's all very well for you, yvonne, to chaff us smaller ones," pouted madeleine. "you're tall, and slim, and fair, and you carry yourself like the pretty american ladies who come to pont aven in the season, the ladies who wear such simple clothes, and hardly look a year older than their daughters, and walk leagues in men's boots, and play tennis before _déjeuner_. of course you can't help being elegant. you're american yourself." the recipient of this tribute turned it aside deftly. "sometimes i think i am more breton than american," she said. "yes, everyone says that," agreed barbe loyally. "next year, yvonne, they'll make you queen of the gorse." with the innocence of youth, or perhaps with its carelessness, barbe had raised a topic as prickly as the gorse itself, because madeleine had been a maid of honor that year, and might reasonably expect the regal place in the succeeding fête of the fleurs d'ajonc. happily, yvonne, if endowed with a sense of humor, was eminently good-natured and tactful. "nothing of the sort," she replied. "my father will never allow me to be photographed, and there would be a riot in pont aven if the shops couldn't sell picture postcards of the queen." "hurry up!" cried single-minded barbe. "let's pray to sainte barbe before mother comes, or she'll be telling me what i must ask for, and i mean to take your advice, yvonne." * * * * * two faces were turned instantly toward the invisible shrine of the puissant saint, and it would place no heavy strain on the intellect to guess what favors were sought. but yvonne hesitated. she had not been reared in the precise religious faith of her companions. opinions garnered in the bohemian atmosphere of john ingersoll's studio were in ill accord with the uncompromising dogma taught in the convent on the hill overlooking the estuary of the aven and labored by every sermon preached in the picturesque church near the bridge. yet at that instant some words uttered by her father reached her ears, and, moved by sudden impulse, she raised her eyes to the tiny arch of light that marked the spot near the summit where the interlacing branches of the avenue of elms came to an end. "sweet lady barbara," she breathed, "if you have it in your power to favor us poor mortals, please give my dear father a happy year!" the bell, after a few seconds of silence, renewed its clamor, and the pretty unbeliever accepted the omen. her friends, of course, regarded the answer as more than propitious: it was an assurance, an undoubted promise of saintly intercession. "i love mama more than anyone in the world, but i couldn't bear to measure a meter round my waist," said barbe confidently. "even though i may never be queen, it is something to have been a maid of honor," said madeleine, demurely conciliatory now that her prayer was safely lodged. yvonne heard, but paid no heed. she was looking at the three people approaching the ledge of rock on which she and the others were standing. madame pitou, like the girls, wore the costume of brittany, conforming, of course, to the time-honored fashion that allots a special headgear to womankind in each district. thus the coif supplies an unerring label of residence. a woman from pont aven would recognize a woman from riec and another from concarneau though she had never seen either before in her life; while all three would unite, without possibility of error, in saying of a fourth, "she comes from auray." the two men in mère pitou's company were just as surely classed by their attire as the women by their coifs. both were artists, and each obeyed the unwritten law which says that he who would paint must don a knickerbocker suit, wear a wide-brimmed felt hat, disregard collar buttons, and display a loosely knotted necktie. ingersoll, the elder, was content with clothes of brown corduroy which had seen many, if not better, days. his boots were strong and hobnailed, and his easy stride up the rough and uneven track would reassure one who doubted the stamina of his seemingly frail body. tollemache, who affected gray tweed, a french gray silk tie, gray woolen stockings, and brown brogues, looked what he was, a healthy young athlete who would be equally at home on springy heather whether carrying an easel or a gun. tollemache had caught mère pitou's arm when she announced the message of the bell. "one more outburst like that, my fairy, and we'll have to carry you up the remainder of the hill," he grinned. "_mon dieu!_ but i'm glad i made the best part of the pilgrimage in a train and a carriage!" twittered madame. "yet, though i dropped, i had to warn the little ones that the dear saint knew they were coming to her shrine." "is that what it means?" "what else? a pity you are not a good catholic, monsieur tollemache, or you might be granted a favor today." "oh, come now! that's no way to convert a black presbyterian. tell me that sainte barbe will get my next picture crowned by the academy, and i'll fall on my knees with fervor." "_tcha!_ even a saint cannot obtain what heaven does not allow." ingersoll laughed. "mère pitou may lose her breath; but she never loses her wit," he said. "now i put forward a much more modest request. most excellent sainte barbe, send me some mad dealer who will empty my studio at a thousand francs a canvas!" yvonne heard these words; yet, be it noted, she asked the saint to make her father happy, not prosperous. it was then that the bell rang a second time. "_tiens!_" exclaimed madame pitou. "the saint replies!" "like every magician, you achieve your effect by the simplest of contrivances--when one peeps behind the scenes," said ingersoll. "old père jean, custodian of the chapel, who will meet us at the summit, keeps a boy on guard, so that all good pilgrims may be put in the right frame of mind by hearing the bell accidentally. the boy saw our girls first, and then spied us. hence the double tolling. now, madame, crush me! i can see lightning in your eye." "mark my words, monsieur ingersoll, the saint will send that dealer, and he will certainly be mad, since none but a lunatic would pay a thousand francs for any picture of yours." ingersoll seized her free arm. "run her up, for heaven's sake, tollemache!" he cried in english. "her tongue has scarified me every day for eighteen years, and age cannot wither, nor custom stale, its infinite variety." laughing, struggling, crying brokenly that _ces américains_ would be the death of her, and tripping along the while with surprising lightness of foot,--for mère pitou had been noted as the best dancer of the gavotte at any _pardon_ held within a radius of ten miles of pont aven,--she was hurried to the waiting girls. * * * * * "ah, that rascal of a father of yours!" she wheezed to yvonne, relapsing into the breton language, as was her invariable habit when excited, either in anger or mirth. "and this other overgrown imp! when they're beaten in argument they try to kill me. _gars!_ a nice lot i'm bringing to the holy chapel!" "never mind, _chère maman_," said the girl, taking her father's place, and clasping the plump arm affectionately. "when we descend the other side of the hill you'll have them at your mercy. then you can tell them what you really think of them." "they know now. artists, indeed! acrobats, i call them! making sport of a poor old woman! not that i'm astonished at anything monsieur ingersoll does. everybody admits that he is touched here," and she dabbed a fat finger at her glistening forehead, "or he wouldn't bury himself alive in a brittany village, because he really has talent. but that hulking monsieur tollemache ought to be showing off his agility before you girls instead of lugging me up the pilgrims' way. _cré nom!_ when little barbe's father--heaven rest his soul!--met me here one fête day before we were married, he wouldn't rest till he had swung himself round sainte barbe's tower by the shepherd's hooks; and me screaming in fright while i watched him, though bursting with pride all the time, since the other girls were well aware that he was only doing it to find out if i cared whether or not he fell and broke his neck." "what's that?" inquired tollemache; for madame pitou was speaking french again. "where is this tower?" "oh, you'll shiver when you see it! you americans eat so much beef that you can never leave the earth. that's why frenchmen fly while you walk." "or run, my cabbage. you must admit that we can run?" "the good lord gave you those long legs for some purpose, no doubt." "well, _maman_, we offered our petitions. what did you ask for?" said yvonne. madame flung up her hands with a woebegone cry. "may the dear saint forgive me, but the monkey chatter of those two infidels put my prayer clean out of my head!" "gee whizz!" exclaimed tollemache. "this time i'll run in earnest, or i'll catch it hot and strong," and he made off. "no harm done," said ingersoll. "mère pitou has all she wants in this world, and will enter the next with pious confidence." for once the elderly dame kept a still tongue. like every breton woman, she was deeply religious, and rather given to superstition, and the momentary lapse that led her to forget a carefully thought out plea for saintly aid caused a pang of real distress. yvonne guessed the truth, and sympathized with her. "father dear," she said, "promise now, this minute, that you will bring us all here again next year on barbe's fête day, and that we shall fall on our knees while madame offers her prayer, or she will be unhappy all day." ingersoll read correctly the look of reproach his daughter shot at him, and was genuinely sorry. he too understood the tribulation that had befallen his friend. "by jove!" he said instantly, "better than that, though i make the promise willingly, madame pitou and i must do immediate penance for our sins--she for neglect and i for irreverence--by going halfway down the hill again and toiling back." he was by no means surprised when mère pitou took at his word. away they went, and yvonne did not fail to grasp the meaning of her father's significant glance toward the belfry as he turned on his heel. on no account was the boy to miss the arrival of yet a third batch of pilgrims! * * * * * now, the belfry stood on the farther edge of a tiny plateau of rock and gorse that crowned the summit. on the left was père jean's cottage with its stable and weaving shed. among the trees in the background rose the diminutive spire of sainte barbe's chapel, and it was evident that the slope of the hill was precipitous, because spire and treetops, though quite near, were almost on a level with the girl's eyes. from the side of the belfry a paved causeway led to a quaintly carved and weather-beaten open-air altar, and long flights of broad steps fell thence on one hand to the door of the chapel and on the other to the first of many paths piercing the dense woodland of the hillside. père jean, a sprightly and wizened old peasant dressed in white linen, was already chatting with tollemache and the other two girls. the boy, thinking the avenue was clear, had gone to the cottage for a tray of picture postcards. yvonne followed, and sent him to his lookout with definite instructions. "make no mistake," she said, "and we'll buy at least a franc's worth of cards later." then she rejoined her friends. "yes, i've seen it done," père jean was saying. "sailors were the best; but the shepherds were brave lads too. nowadays it is forbidden by the prefect." "why? were there many accidents?" inquired tollemache. "oh, yes, a few. you see, it seems easy enough at the commencement; but sometimes the heart failed when the body was swinging over the cliff. it is fatal to look down." madeleine's shoulders were bent over a low parapet. yvonne, leaning on her, saw that the caretaker was talking of the feat that barbe's father had accomplished many years earlier. the altar at the end of the causeway was shielded by a squat, square tower. in its walls, about six feet above the causeway, some iron rings were visible. they hung loose; but their staples were imbedded in the masonry, and each ring was about a yard apart from its fellow. a mass of rock gave ready access to the first pair; but thenceforth the venturesome athlete who essayed the passage must swing himself in air, gripping a ring alternately in the left hand and in both hands. on one side, the left, the tower sank only to the level of the path beneath; but a glance over the opposite parapet revealed an awesome abyss. madeleine shuddered when she felt yvonne's hand. "to think that men should be so foolish as to risk their lives in such a way!" she murmured. "i suppose that anyone who let go was killed?" said tollemache. "_mais, non, m'sieu'_," père jean assured him. "the blessed saint would not permit that. no one was ever killed, i'm told. but the prefect has forbidden it these twenty years." "are the rings in good condition?" "certainly, m'sieu'. where now does one get such iron as was made in those days?" "let's test some of 'em, anyhow," said tollemache, and before the horrified girls realized what he meant he had leaped from parapet to rock, and was clinging to a couple of rings. * * * * * "oh, monsieur tollemache!" screamed barbe. "please come back, monsieur!" cried madeleine. "hi! hi! it is forbidden by the prefect!" bellowed père jean. but yvonne, though angry and pallid with fright, only said, "don't be stupid, lorry. i should never have thought you would show off in that silly manner." she spoke in english. tollemache, gazing down at her in a comical, sidelong way, answered in the same language. "i'm not showing off. do you think that any frenchman ever lived who could climb where i couldn't?" "no one said a word about you." "yes. mère pitou said i'd shiver when i saw the place. now watch me shiver!" he swung outward. even in her distress, yvonne noticed that he took a strong pull at each ring before trusting his whole weight to it. but she made no further protest, nor uttered a sound; though madeleine and barbe were screaming frantically, and the old caretaker's voice cracked with reiteration of the prefect's commands. tollemache was soon out of sight round the angle of the tower, and the two breton girls ran to the other parapet to watch for his reappearance. not so yvonne. the dread notion possessed her that she might see laurence tollemache dashed to his death on those cruel rocks some sixty feet beneath, and she knew that, once witnessed, the horrific spectacle would never leave her vision. so she waited spellbound in front of the altar, and gazed mutely at some tawdry images that stood there. could they help, these grotesque caricatures of heavenly beings, carved and gilded wooden blocks with curiously inane eyes and thick lips? her senses seemed to be atrophied. she was aware of a feeling of dull annoyance when the boy, attracted by the screams and père jean's shrill vehemence, came running from his post, and thus would surely miss the second appearance of her father and mère pitou. but the young peasant was quick witted. he had seen the "pilgrims" turn and resume the ascent; so he dashed into the belfry, because he could thence obtain a rare view of an event that he had often heard of but never seen,--a man swinging himself round sainte barbe's tower by the shepherd's hooks, such being the local name of the series of rings. so the bell tolled its deep, strong notes, and simultaneously madeleine and barbe shrieked in a wilder pitch of frenzy. tollemache had just swung round the second angle of the tower. his left hand had caught the outermost ring on that side; but the staple yielded, and he vanished. "ah, _mon dieu!_ he has fallen!" cried barbe, collapsing forthwith in a faint. fortunately madeleine saved her from a nasty tumble on the rough stones; though she herself was nearly distraught with terror. père jean raced off down the right-hand flight of steps, moving with remarkable celerity for so old a man, and gasping in his panic: "_mille diables!_ what will _m'sieu' le préfet_ say now?" evidently the caretaker feared lest sainte barbe's miraculous powers should not survive so severe a test. yet his faith was justified. a shout was heard from the tower's hidden face. "_je m'en fiche de ça!_" was the cry. "i'm right as a nail. i've got to return the way i came--that's all." yvonne listened as one in a dream. she saw her father and madame pitou crossing the plateau. for an instant her eyes dwelt on the features of the frightened boy peering through an embrasure in the belfry. from some point beneath came the broken ejaculations of père jean, who was craning his neck from some precarious perch on the edge of the precipice to catch a glimpse of the mad american's shattered body. madeleine was sobbing hysterically over the prostrate barbe, and endeavoring with nervous fingers to undo the stiff linen coif round the unconscious girl's throat. now, after leaving the cottage, yvonne had looked at the chapel, the entrance to which lay at the foot of the left-hand stairway. the sanctuary had a belfry of its own, a narrow, circular tower, pierced with lancet windows beneath a pointed roof. these windows were almost on a line with and about ten feet distant from the top of the wall of rock left by the excavation that provided a site for the building. through one of them, which faced the causeway, could be seen a tiny white statue of sainte barbe. no more striking position could have been chosen for it. the image was impressive by reason of its very unexpectedness. hardly conscious of her action, yvonne turned to the saint now to invoke her help. she murmured an incoherent prayer, and as she gazed distraught at the madonna-like figure, so calm, so watchful in its aery, she heard the rhythmic clank of iron as the rings moved in their sockets. one fleeting glance over the left parapet revealed tollemache in the act of swinging himself to the pair of rings above the rock that gave foothold. again he peered down at her, twisting his head awkwardly for the purpose. "nothing much to it," he laughed, jerking out breathless words. "of course it was a bit of a twister when that ring came away; but----" he was safe. yvonne deigned him no further heed. she hurried to barbe's side. * * * * * "for goodness' sake help me to shake her and slap her hands!" she cried to madeleine. "monsieur tollemache has spoiled the day for us already, and mère pitou will be ill if she thinks barbe is hurt." barbe, vigorous little village girl, soon yielded to drastic treatment, and was eager as either of her friends to conceal from her mother the fact that she had fainted. tollemache, feeling rather sheepish in face of yvonne's quiet scorn, strolled to the top of the steps down which père jean had scuttled. the old man's voice reached him in despairing appeal. "m'sieu'! speak, if you are alive! speak, _pour l'amour de dieu_!" "hello there!" he cried. "what's the row about? here i am!" père jean gazed up with bulging eyes, and himself nearly fell over the precipice. "ah, _dieu merci_!" he quavered. "but, m'sieu', didn't you hear me telling you that the prefect----" "what's the matter?" broke in ingersoll's quiet tones. "you all look as if you had seen a daylight ghost." "i behaved like a vain idiot," explained tollemache, seeing that none of the girls was minded to answer. "i tried to climb round the tower by those rings, and scared yvonne and the others rather badly." "how far did you go?" "oh, i was on the last lap; but a ring gave way." ingersoll knew the place of old, and needed no elaborate essay on the danger tollemache had escaped. his grave manner betokened the depth of his annoyance. "what happened then?" he said. "i went back, of course." "where did the ring break?" "it didn't break. i pulled the staple out. that one--you see where the gap is." ingersoll leaned over the parapet. a glance sufficed. "you crossed the valley face of the tower twice?" he said. "couldn't help myself, old sport." "then you described yourself with marvelous accuracy,--a vain idiot, indeed!" "dash it all!" protested tollemache. "i've only done the same as scores of frenchmen." "many of whom lost their lives. you had a pretty close call. lorry, i'm ashamed of you!" mère pitou added to tollemache's discomfiture by the biting comment that her man had got round the tower, whereas _he_ had failed. * * * * * altogether it was a somewhat depressed party that was shown round the quaint old chapel of the patroness of armorers and artillerists by père jean, who had lost a good deal of his smiling bonhomie, and eyed tollemache fearfully, evidently suspecting him of harboring some fantastic design of dropping from the gallery to the floor, or leaping from the chapel roof to the cliff. their spirits revived, however, as they descended a steep path to sainte barbe's well. every chapel of saint barbara has, or ought to have, a well, and that at le faouet (three syllables, please, and sound the final t when you are in brittany) is specially famous for its prophetic properties in affairs of the heart. thus, a spring bubbles into a trough surmounted by a canopy and image of the saint. in the center of the trough, beneath two feet of limpid water, the spring rises through an irregular orifice, roughly four inches square, and all unmarried young people who visit the shrine try to drop pins into the hole. success at the first effort means that the fortunate aspirant for matrimony will either be married within a year or receive a favorable offer. so, after luncheon, which had been carried by a boy from the village on the hill opposite the pilgrims' way, the girls produced a supply of pins. barbe was the first to try her luck. three pins wriggled to the floor of the well; but a fourth disappeared, and mère pitou took the omen seriously. "you will be married when you are twenty-one, _ma petite_," she said, "and quite soon enough, too. then your troubles will begin." madeleine failed six times, and gave up in a huff. yvonne's second pin vanished. "_o, là, là!_" cried mère pitou, still deeply interested in this consultation of the fates. "mark my words, you'll refuse the first and take the second!" the old lady darted a quick look at ingersoll; but he was smiling. he had schooled himself for an ordeal, and his expression did not change. tollemache, too, created a diversion by seizing a pin, holding it high above the surface of the water, whereas each of the girls had sought apparently to lessen the distance as much as possible, and dropping it out of sight straight away. "look at that!" he crowed. "my girl will say _snap_ as soon as i say _snip_. here's her engagement ring!" plunging his left hand into a pocket, he brought to light the ring and staple torn from sainte barbe's tower. when hanging with one hand to the last hold-fast, on the wall overlooking sixty feet of sheer precipice, he had calmly pocketed the ring that proved treacherous. evidently laurence tollemache was a young man who might be trusted not to lose his head in an emergency. mère pitou was not to be persuaded to tempt fortune, and ingersoll, who was sketching the well rapidly and most effectively, was left alone, because barbe, who would have called him to come in his turn, was bidden sharply by her mother to mind her own business. * * * * * tollemache and yvonne climbed the rocky path together when they began the return journey to le faouet. in the rays of the afternoon sun the rough granite boulders sparkled as though they were studded with innumerable small diamonds. "haven't you forgiven me yet, yvonne?" he said, noticing her distrait air. she almost started, so far away were her thoughts. "oh, let us forget that stupidity," she replied. "i was thinking of something very different. tell me, lorry, has my father ever spoken to you of my mother?" "no," he said. "do you know where she is buried?" "no." she sighed. her light-hearted companion's sudden taciturnity was not lost on her. neither madame pitou, ingersoll's friend and landlady during eighteen years, nor tollemache, who worked with him daily, could read his eyes like yvonne, and she knew he was acting a part when he smiled because sainte barbe's well announced that she would be married at the second asking. and the odd thing was that she had endeavored to drop the first pin so that it would not fall into the fateful space. none but she herself had noted how it plunged slantwise through the water as though drawn by a lodestone. even tollemache nursed a grievance against the well's divination. "i say," he broke in, "that pin proposition is all nonsense, don't you think?" for some occult reason she refused to answer as he hoped she would. "you never can tell," she said. "mère pitou believes in it, and she has had a long experience of life's vagaries." from some distance came madeleine's plaint. "just imagine! six times! in six years i shall be twenty-five. i don't credit a word of it--so there! at the last _pardon_ peridot danced with me all the afternoon." even little barbe was not satisfied. "mama said the other day," she confided, "that i might be married before i was twenty." ingersoll and mère pitou, bringing up the rear, were silent; madame because this hill also was steep, and ingersoll because of thoughts that came unbidden. in fact, sainte barbe had perplexed some of her pilgrims. chapter ii the feast of sainte barbe on the morning of december in that same year a postman walked up the narrow path leading to the front door of mère pitou's house in the rue mathias, pont aven, and handed in a bundle of letters. the family was at breakfast, the _petit déjeuner_ of coffee and rolls that stays the appetite in every french household until a more substantial meal is prepared at noon. the weather was mild and bright, though a gusty sou'westerly wind was blowing; so door and windows were open. barbe saw the postman ere he unlatched the garden gate, and rose excitedly, nearly upsetting a cup in her haste. "why, what's the rush?" cried ingersoll. "and who in the world are all these letters for?" "father dear, have you forgotten the date? this is barbe's name day," said yvonne. "oh, that's the explanation of tonight's festivity," laughed ingersoll. "sorry. it quite slipped my mind. of course she has wagonloads of friends who make a point of remembering these things. lucky barbe! and, by the way, madame, what about those pictures which the lady of le faouet was to dispose of? it's high time she was getting busy. here are three months sped and--if anything rather a slump in ingersolls. actually, my best commission thus far is a series of picture postcards of le pouldu--with benefits deferred till next season." "perhaps the good saint knew that you kept your tongue in your cheek while you were seeking her help," retorted madame. "impossible. it was lolling out. you ungrateful one, didn't i climb the hill twice for your sake?" * * * * * barbe exchanged a friendly word with the postman, who was well aware of the cause of this sudden increase in the mail delivery at the cottage. then she ran in. "one for you, m'sieu'--all the rest for me," she announced gleefully. ingersoll took his letter. it bore the pouldu postmark and the printed name of a hotel. usually such missives came from brother artists; but the handwriting on the envelop was essentially of the type that french hotelkeepers cultivate for the utter bamboozling of their foreign patrons. yvonne glanced at it with some curiosity, and was still more surprised to see the look of humorous bewilderment on her father's face when he had mastered its contents. "i take back everything i said, or even thought, about sainte barbe," he cried. "learn how she has squelched me! the proprietor of the chief hotel at le pouldu offers four hundred francs for a picture of the _plage_ with his hotel in the center. certainly four hundred is a heap short of a thousand, which was the sum i named to her saintship; but then, a _hôtelier_ isn't a dealer, and he promises to pay cash if the sketch is delivered in a week, because he wants it for a summer poster. yvonne, have you finished breakfast? run and find peridot, there's a dear, and ask him if we can sail to le pouldu this morning. it'll save time to go by sea, and the tide will serve, i know. if peridot says the weather is all right, drop in at julia's, and invite tollemache. we'll lunch gloriously with my hotel man, rub in the best part of the drawing afterward, and be back here in good time for the feast." * * * * * yvonne hurried out. the hour was half-past eight, and the tide in the estuary of the aven was already on the ebb. but she had not far to go. the rue mathias (nowadays glorified by a much more ambitious name) was not a minute's walk from the bridge that gives the village its name. another minute brought her to the quay, where the brawling river escapes from its last millwheel, and tumbles joyously into tidal water. she was lucky. peridot was there, mending a blue sardine net,--a natty, square-shouldered sailor, unusually fair for a breton, though his blond hair was french enough in its bristliness, as a section of his scalp would have provided a first-rate clothes brush. he touched his cap with a smile when she appeared, and in answer to her query raised to the heavens those gray-green eyes which had earned him such a euphonious nickname. "yes, mademoiselle yvonne, we can make le pouldu by ten o'clock with this wind," he said. "we may get a wetting; but it won't be the first. is--er--is madeleine coming?" "not today. she promised to help mère pitou with tonight's supper. you will be there?" "wind and weather permitting, ma'mselle. we go in your own boat, i suppose?" "yes. can you allow fifteen minutes?" "there will be plenty of water for the next half-hour." yvonne raced off again, this time to the hotel julia, not the huge modern annex,--that dominates the tiny marketplace of pont aven,--but the oldtime hostelry itself, tucked in snugly behind its four sycamores, like some sedate matron ever peering up in wonderment at its overgrown child across the street. in winter the habitués--the coterie of artists and writers who cluster under the wing of the famous julia guillou--eat in the dining room of the smaller hotel. crossing the terrace, a graveled part of the square shielded by the trees, yvonne met mademoiselle julia herself, bustling forth to inspect eggs, poultry, and buckets of fish. this kindly, outspoken, resourceful-looking woman has tended and housed and helped at least two generations of painters. in her way she has done more for art than many academies. "is monsieur tollemache at breakfast, mademoiselle?" inquired yvonne. julia smiled broadly. evidently it was the most natural thing imaginable that the pretty american girl, known to everyone in the village, should be asking the whereabouts of the stalwart youngster who would never be an artist, but was one of the hotel's most valued guests. "_oui, ma chérie!_ i heard him shouting to marie for three boiled eggs not so long ago. out of three eggs one hatches a good meal. and how is your father? i haven't set eyes on him this week." "he is so busy, mademoiselle. there is so little daylight." "bring him to dinner on sunday. we're roasting two of the biggest geese you ever saw!" "he will be delighted, i'm sure." then julia marched to conquer the venders of eatables. there would be a terrific argument; but the founder of modern pont aven would prevail. yvonne looked in through an open window of a delightful room, paneled in oak--on every panel a picture bearing a signature more or less eminent in the world of color. tollemache was there, tapping his third egg. "lorry," she said, "father and i are sailing to le pouldu. will you come?" "will a duck swim?" was the prompt reply. "when do we start?" "soon. be at the quay in ten minutes." "by the clock. plenty of oilskins in the locker?" "yes." she sped away. a frenchman, an artist who knew the breton coast in all weathers, shook his head. "dangerous work, yachting off finistère in december," he said. "what sort of boat are you going in?" "ingersoll's own tub, a _vague_--a sardine boat, you know." "first-rate craft, of course. but mind you're not caught in a change of wind. the barometer is falling." "oh, as for that, we'll probably have peridot in charge, and he was born with a caul; so he'll never be drowned. even if he's not there, ingersoll and yvonne are good sailors, and i'm no fresh-water amateur." "well--good luck! i only ask you not to despise the atlantic. why is ingersoll going to le pouldu at this time of the year?" "don't know, and don't care. it's an unexpected holiday for me; so my salon study of the bois d'amour in winter must miss a day." the frenchman sighed; whether on account of the doubtful prospect before tollemache's salon picture or because of his own vanished youth, it would be hard to say. "what a charming peasant girl--and how on earth did she acquire english with that perfect accent?" said a woman, a newcomer. "she is the daughter of a celebrated american artist," explained the frenchman. "but why does she wear the breton costume?" "because she has good taste." "oh! is that a hit at current fashions?" the frenchman shrugged his shoulders. "madame asked for information," he said. "to wander off into an essay on clothes would be impolite." * * * * * before nine o'clock the hirondelle, registered no. at concarneau, was speeding down the seven kilometers of the aven estuary on a rapid-falling tide. owing to the force and direction of the wind it would have been a waste of time to hoist a sail, even in those reaches of the winding river where some use might have been made of it. tollemache and peridot (whose real name was jean jacques larraidou) rigged two long sweeps, and yvonne took the tiller, keeping the boat in mid-stream to gain the full benefit of the current. in forty minutes they were abreast of the fortlike hotel at port manech, the summer offshoot of the hotel julia, and a steel-blue line on the horizon, widening each instant, told of the nearness of the sea. it was an uneven line too, ever and anon broken by a white-capped hillock. peridot, pulling his oar inboard, poised himself erect for a few seconds with an arm thrown round the foremast, and gazed steadily seaward. "she'll jump a bit out there," he said; though the fierce whistling of the wind drowned his words. he was aware of that, because he converted both hands into a megaphone when he turned and shouted to yvonne. "we'll take the inside passage, ma'mselle." before attempting to hoist the foresail he rummaged in a locker and produced oilskin coats and sou'westers. there was no delay. the four donned them quickly. yvonne had changed her breton dress for a short skirt and coat of heather mixture cloth, because coif and collar of fine linen were ill adapted to seagoing in rough weather. peridot held up three fingers. the girl nodded. peridot and tollemache hauled at the sail, and yvonne kept the boat in the eye of the wind until three reefs were tied securely. then the hirondelle swung round to her task. she careened almost to the port gunwale under the first furious lash of the gale, and a sheet of spray beat noisily on oilskins and deck. but the stanch little craft steadied herself, and leaped into her best pace. ingersoll dived into the cabin, and reappeared with his pipe alight, the bowl held in a closed and gloved hand. tollemache made play with a cigarette. peridot clambered aft to relieve yvonne. "we'll make le pouldu in little more than the hour," he said. "it's blowing half a gale," said the girl. "yes. if the wind doesn't veer, we should have a record trip. but we shouldn't start back a minute after three o'clock." "oh, my father will see to that. moreover, we're due at mère pitou's at six." peridot showed all his white teeth in a smile. madeleine would be there. he meant to marry madeleine. there was no use in asking her to wed until after the festival of the gorse flowers next august, since her heart was set on being queen. once that excitement was ended, heaven willing, madeleine demoret would become madame larraidou! in taking the rudder the man was not showing any distrust of yvonne's nerve; but there was just a possibility that a crisis might call for instant decision, when the only warning would come from that sixth sense which coastal fishermen develop in counteracting the sea's fitful moods. perhaps once during the hour--perhaps not once in a year--some monstrous wave would roar in from the atlantic, seeking to devour every small craft in its path. no one can account for these phenomena. they may arise from lunar influence, or from some peculiar action of the tides; but that they occur, and with disastrous results if unheeded, every fisherman from stornoway to cadiz will testify. their size and fury are more marked in a southwesterly gale than at any other time, and the only safe maneuver for a boat sailing across the wind is to bring her sharply head on to the fast-moving ridge, and ride over it. yvonne knew of these occasional sea dragons, but had never seen one. she knew what to do too, and for an instant was vexed with peridot. he read her thought. "i'd trust my own life to you, ma'mselle," he said gallantly; "but i'd never forgive myself if anything happened to you." she smiled in spite of her pique. to make her voice heard without screaming, she put her lips close to his ear. "this time, if anybody goes, we all go," she cried. he shook his head. "no, no, ma'mselle. the sea will never get me," he said. "hold tight here. this is the bar." * * * * * certainly, even among experienced yachtsmen, there would not be lacking those who might have regarded the hirondelle's present voyage as a piece of folly. there is no wilder coast in europe than the barrier of shaggy rock that france opposes to the ocean from st. malo to biarritz. at finistère, in particular, each headland is not a breakwater, but a ruin. during heavy storms the seas dash in frenzy up a hundred feet of shattered cliff, the atlantic having smashed and overthrown every sheer wall of rock ages ago. of course the adventurers were not facing a no. gale. that, indeed, would have been rank lunacy. but the estuaries of the aven and the belon, joining at port manech, were sending down no inconsiderable volume of water to meet a strong wind, and the opposing forces were waging bitter war. a mile farther on a channel ran between the mainland and a group of rocks called les verrés. there the tide and wind would not be so greatly at variance, and the partly submerged reef would lessen the force of the sea; though the only signs of its existence were a patch of high-flung spray and a small tower, with a black buoy at its easterly extremity. this was what peridot had called the "inside passage." to the landsman it was a figure of speech. to the sailor it meant seas diminished to half their volume as compared with the "dirt" outside. the hirondelle raced through the turmoil at the bar as though she enjoyed it, and, once the islets were to windward, the journey became exhilarating. none of the four people on board displayed the least concern. indeed, they reveled in the excursion. when their craft swept into the sheltered cove at le pouldu, not without a tossing on another bar, and was brought up alongside the small quay, their flushed faces and shining eyes showed that they looked on the outing as a thoroughly enjoyable one. * * * * * they were ready for an early luncheon too, and did full justice to the menu. afterward, while ingersoll planned his picture, yvonne and tollemache strolled along the right bank of the laita to the hamlet of le pouldu. the girl told her companion of the singular coincidence that brought her father an unexpected commission by that morning's post; but tollemache pooh-poohed it. "you're becoming almost as superstitious as these bretons," he said. "it's high time your father took you to new york for a spell. spooks can't live there since the automobile came along. they don't like the fumes of petrol, i fancy. but these silly bretons appeal to a saint or dread a devil for every little thing. one stained-glass proposition can cure rheumatism in a man and another spavin in a horse. it's unlucky to gather and eat blackberries because the crown of thorns was made out of brambles. you can shoot a wretched tomtit; but you mustn't touch a magpie. if you want to marry a girl, you pray to saint this; if you're anxious to shunt her, you go on your marrow-bones to saint that. i'm fond of brittany and its folk; but i can't stomach their legends. look at that pin-dropping business at sainte barbe's well! poor madeleine couldn't get a pin home to save her life; whereas everybody knows that she and peridot will make a match of it before this time next year." yvonne did not like to hear her friends' amiable weaknesses exposed thus ruthlessly. "if homer nods, a poor girl who has watched ever so many love affairs since a.d. may surely be forgiven an occasional mistake," she said. "has she been at it so long? what is the yarn?" "please don't speak so disrespectfully of saint barbara. because she wanted to marry someone whom her father didn't approve of he imprisoned her in a tower, and when she was converted to christianity beheaded her." "the old rascal! did the other fellow--the one she liked--climb the tower? perhaps that accounts for the rings." "it is possible. i have no doubt men were just as foolish seventeen centuries ago as they are today." "thanks. that personal touch helps a lot. but, supposing i asked your father to sanction----" "if you will apply the moral, i must remind you that i am to refuse my first offer. but don't let us talk nonsense. it is time we made for the harbor." "crushed again!" murmured tollemache, assuming an air of blithe indifference. he was only partly successful. stealing a glance at yvonne, he noted her heightened color and a curiously defiant glint in her blue eyes. unconsciously she quickened her pace too, and tollemache interpreted these outward and visible tokens of displeasure as hostile to the notion that had sprung into thrilling life in his mind that day at le faouet, when he peered down into yvonne's agonized face when he was clinging like a fly to the wall of the tower. "she regards me as a silly ass," he communed bitterly, "and not without good cause. what place do i fill in the world, anyhow? god created me a live-wire american, and the devil egged me on to spoil clean canvas. i'm little better than a hobo, and she knows it. well, i'll swallow my medicine. "i say, kiddie," he cried aloud, "you needn't go off in a huff just because i was talking through my hat. wait till i light a cigarette." though he was not sure that the bantering protest had deceived her, she pretended that it had; so the object aimed at was achieved. but tollemache was of the tough fiber that regards no sacrifice as worth while unless it is complete. "if you knew the facts, yvonne, you'd never get mad with me when i talk about marrying anybody," he went on. "why do i live in pont aven all the year round? because it's cheap. last year i earned three hundred and twenty francs for three pictures. at that rate of progress any girl who married me would jolly soon starve." yvonne remembered the famous three. two were portraits of the oleograph order, in which tollemache had shamelessly flattered his sitters. for these he received the three hundred francs. the twenty were paid for a sketch of a new villa which the builder wished to send to his mother-in-law! still, she allowed herself to be surprised. "of course i knew you were only joking, lorry," she said. "and while we are on the subject, i may as well tell you that i shall never leave my father. what you say about your means is rather astonishing, for all that. how can you possibly hire autos and live as you do?" "oh, i don't," he explained, with a sudden grimness of tone that she had never heard before. "my father pays all my bills,--living expenses, tailors, and that sort of thing, you know. the moment i marry without his approval i revert to my pocket-money allowance." the girl knew they were trenching again on a dangerous topic. she was so exquisitely sensitive that she felt the imminence of some avowal that it would be better, perhaps, not to hear. "what does money matter if we are happy?" she cried cheerfully. "and our small community in pont aven is a very united and pleasant one, don't you think?" "top notch," said he. "there's ingersoll, coming down from the front. bet you fifty centimes he has washed in a little gem--something i couldn't touch if i tried every day for ten years!" "dad is really very clever," agreed yvonne, momentarily deaf to the irony of the words. "i often wonder why he has remained in our village eighteen years. people say he would soon find a place in paris or new york. sometimes i fancy that my mother's death must have distressed him beyond measure. he never speaks of her, even to me. perhaps he can't bear to revive sad memories." "i can understand that," said tollemache. "i believe i should go dotty if married to a woman i really loved, and i lost her." yvonne darted into a shop to buy caramels. she had to escape somehow. when she emerged one side of her face was bulging, and she held out a cardboard box. "take one," she gurgled. not yet twenty, she was sufficient of a woman to play a part when it suited her. by the time the two had joined ingersoll they were boy and girl again, and the curtain, lifted for an instant on a tragedy, had fallen. tollemache, searching for some commonplace remark to relieve the tension of his own feelings, noticed the drift of smoke curling from a cottage chimney. "what has happened to the wind?" he said. "it has veered to the southeast, monsieur," answered peridot. "i thought something of the sort had taken place, but was so busy that i did not pay any heed," said ingersoll. then his forehead wrinkled reflectively. "southeast from southwest," he muttered. "on a rising tide that change should kick up a nasty sea. is the return trip quite safe, peridot?" "the sea will be a trifle worse, monsieur; but we'll travel on an even keel." "and be swept by an occasional wave from stem to stern?" "i've heard of such things," grinned peridot. "and very uncomfortable things they are too. yvonne, you must decide. shall we take the rough passage, or hire the hotel auto?" yvonne rounded her eyes at her father, and stepped on board the hirondelle. he laughed. "that settles it!" he cried. "'of christian souls more have been wrecked on shore than ever were lost at sea.' but i warn you, my merry adventuress. before half an hour has passed you may be ready to cry with honest old gonzalo in 'the tempest,' 'now would i give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, anything,' obviously having the coast of finistère in his mind." * * * * * the behavior of the maritime folk of le pouldu showed that there was an element of risk in the voyage. knots of fishermen watched peridot's preparations with a professional eye, and spat approval when he cast loose a small jibsail. a few carried interest so far that they climbed the seaward cliff to watch the boat's progress across the basse persac and basse an hiss, the two nearest shallows on the homeward line across the anse du pouldu. the hirondelle passed the bar of the laita quickly and safely. a sea that would have smothered her in churning water broke within a boat's length. after that escape she made a drier passage than her occupants expected. she was abreast of douélan, and yvonne was listening to the thunder of the atlantic on the black reef that stretches from kerlogal mill to les cochons de beg morg, while her eyes were watching the changing bearings of the church spires of moëlan and clohars, when a shout from peridot recalled her wandering thoughts. "there's a steam yacht out there, making heavy weather," he said. ingersoll had evidently noted the other vessel already, because he had gone into the cabin--not the cubbyhole of a sardine boat, but the hold converted into a saloon fitted with a table screwed to the deck, and four comfortable bunks--and reappeared with a pair of binoculars. from that moment all eyes were fixed on the newcomer. at a guess she might be coming from brest to lorient, because it was safe to assume that her captain was not a fool, and he must have started the day's run before the change of wind. it must remembered that the very conditions that helped the five-ton hirondelle were the worst possible for the sixty- or seventy-ton stranger, hard driven into a head sea whipped by a fierce wind. she had shaped a course outside l'isle verte, and was well clear of the ar gazek shallow when first sighted by those on board the hirondelle. the tidal stream was running strongly there, and yvonne with difficulty repressed a cry of dismay when the yacht's bare masts and white funnel vanished completely in a cloud of spray. "if that fellow has any sense, he'll turn while he is able, and make for concarneau," said peridot, as the spume dissipated, and the stricken vessel's spars came into view again. "perhaps he doesn't know this coast. can we signal him?" inquired the girl. "he wouldn't take any notice of a fishing boat. the skipper of a ten-centime steam yacht thinks more of himself than the commander of an atlantic liner. of course he should make lorient tonight--if he understands the lights." the self-confident peridot seldom qualified his words: now he had twice spoken with an if. yvonne hauled herself forward, and joined her father and tollemache. * * * * * "peridot thinks that the vessel out there may get into difficulties," she said. "i suggested that we should signal her; but he says she would pay no heed." "what sort of signal?" "to turn back--concarneau for choice." "let's try, anyhow. lorry, you'll find a codebook in the chart locker, and flags in the one beneath. look for 'recommend change of course' or something of the sort, and the concarneau code letters. get the necessary flags, and we'll run 'em up." peridot, who missed nothing, understood tollemache's quick descent into the cabin. his shout reached father and daughter clearly. "they're signaling from the brigneau station already. it'll do no harm if we give him a tip too." during the next ten minutes the situation remained unchanged, save that yacht and fishing boat neared each other rapidly, the hirondelle traveling three kilometers to the yacht's one, while lines of flags, each identical--whereat tollemache winked at yvonne and preened himself--fluttered from signal station and mast. the yacht disregarded these warnings, and pressed on. ingersoll was watching her through the glasses; but yvonne's keen vision hardly needed such aid. "they must have seen both signals," she said. "there are two men on the bridge. what a big man one of them is! can you make out her name, dad?" "no. i've been trying to; but the seas pouring over the fore part render the letters indistinct. you have a look. mind you brace yourself tight against that stay." he handed her the binoculars, and yvonne lost a few seconds in adjusting the focus. "the first letter is an s," she announced. "there are six. the last one is an a. oh, what a blow that sea must have given her! it pitched on board just beneath the bridge. why, what's the matter? she is swinging round!" the girl was sufficiently versed in the ways of the sea to realize that no shipmaster would change course in that manner, nor attempt such a maneuver at the instant his craft was battling against hundreds of tons of water in motion. "_gars!_" yelled peridot excitedly. "she's broken down--shaft snapped, or propeller gone!" * * * * * at once the fierce and thrilling struggle had become a disaster. the yacht was drifting broadside on, utterly at the mercy of wind and tide. unless a miracle happened, she would be ground to matchwood on that rock-bound coast within a few minutes. unhappily she had gained considerable speed in the direction where destruction awaited her before her crew could let go the anchor. the agonized watchers from shore and boat knew when a fluke caught in some crevice of the rocks buried twelve fathoms deep, because the vessel's bows were brought up against the sea with a jerk. then she fell away again. the cable couldn't stand the strain. it had parted. "good god!" groaned ingersoll. "every soul on board will be drowned before our eyes!" yvonne could not speak. neither could she see. she was blinded with tears. the suddenness of the affair was appalling. at one instant she had been following a fascinating fight between man and the elements, a fight in which man was gaining ground yard by yard. now by some trick of fate man was delivered, bound and crippled, to become the sport of savage and relentless enemies. she heard her father shouting to peridot: "bear a couple of points to port. they may lower a boat." "no use," came the answer. "better crack on. they'll strike on les verrés. we may pick up one or two in the channel if they wear life belts." tollemache had leaped down into the cabin. he was out on deck again now, bareheaded, having discarded oilskin coat and sou'wester. a cork jacket was strapped round his tall, alert body. if any life could be snatched back from the abyss, tollemache might be trusted not to spare himself in the effort. in that moment of stress the cheery, devil-may-care american artist had become a calm, clear-headed man of action. he looked almost heroic, standing on the sloping deck forward, with one sinewy, brown-skinned hand clasping a mast-hoop, and the other thrust into a pocket of his norfolk jacket. by a queer trick of memory yvonne was reminded of her fright when she saw lorry clinging to the rings of sainte barbe's tower. he had come through that ordeal unscathed. would he conquer in this far more dreadful test? there he could depend on his own taut muscles and iron nerve. here he was at the mercy of circumstances. still, it was helpful to see lorry's fingers clenched on a ring. somehow it seemed to offer good augury. chapter iii the wreck there were brave hearts, too, on board the vessel now seemingly doomed to utter destruction. each of her two masts carried canvas, and when the cable parted a ready command had evidently sent the crew racing to cast loose both sails from their lashings. but the very trimness and tautness of everything on board proved the yacht's final undoing. knives were brought into play, and the foresail was hoisted within a few seconds. the yacht answered her helm promptly. there seemed to be a real chance that she might haul into the wind and clear the black fangs of les verrés, in which case she would either run into the small estuary at brigneau, or at the worst beach herself on the strip of sand there. at that moment the occupants of the hirondelle saw her name, the stella, and they were on the point of breaking into a frantic cheer of relief when the unlucky craft crashed into a submerged rock, swung broadside on, and was saved from turning turtle only by another rock which stove her in amidships. "ah, les verrés have caught her! i thought they would. god help those poor fellows!" it was peridot who spoke, and the mere fact that he had abandoned hope sounded the requiem of the stella and all her company. then indeed her plight was like to have passed beyond human aid. she was lodged on the outer fringe of an unapproachable reef, whence a rapidly rising tide would lift her at any minute. being built of steel, she would sink forthwith, because her bows were crushed and plates started below the load line. she carried four boats; but, with the ingenuity of malice that the sea often displays in its unbridled fury, the two to port were crushed to splinters when she heeled over, and those to starboard, swinging inward on their davits, filled instantly, since the waves poured in cascades over the hull, as though the mighty atlantic was concentrating all its venom on that one tiny adversary. the marvel was that no one was swept overboard. nothing could have saved the men on deck had the stella lurched on to her beam ends without warning; but the fleeting interval while she was being carried round on the pivot of her fore part enabled them to guard against the expected shock. nine figures were visible, two standing on the port rails of the bridge, and the others on the deck rails, every man having braced his shoulders against the deck itself. masts, funnel, and upper saloon were practically vertical with the plane of the sea, and the hull quivered and moved under the assault of each wave. yet the very injuries that would swamp the vessel instantly when she rolled into deep water now gave her a brief lease of life. the rocks that pierced the hull held her fast. her plight resembled that of some poor wretch stabbed mortally who breathes and groans in agony, only to die when the knife that causes his distress is withdrawn. * * * * * the horror of the sight brought a despairing cry to yvonne's lips. "peridot, peridot, can nothing be done?" she shrieked, turning to the breton sailor as though, at his prayer, the sky might open and providence send relief. the boat was now nearly abreast of the wreck, and running free before the wind. the girl's frantic appeal seemed to arouse the three men from a stupor of helplessness. "look out, everybody!" shouted peridot. "we're going head on." it was a dangerous maneuver in a heavy sea; but fortune favored the hirondelle in so far that no mountainous wave struck her quarter as she veered round. all were equally alive to the possibility of disaster. ingersoll, though he uttered no word till the boat had reversed her course, was almost moved to protest. "we are powerless," he said, coming aft to make his voice audible. "even if some of the yacht's people are swept clear of the reef, they will be smothered long before they drift in this direction. the thing was so unexpected that none of them has secured a cork jacket, or even a life belt." "there is one chance in a hundred, monsieur," said peridot, speaking so that ingersoll alone could hear. "the point is--will you take it? you and monsieur tollemache would agree, of course. will you risk mademoiselle's life as well?" "a chance? what sort of chance?" "i know every inch of les verrés. a little inlet, not much longer than the yacht, and perhaps forty feet wide, runs in from the south just where she lies. her hull and the reef itself form a breakwater. we can make it, and get a line aboard." "then for the love of heaven why wait?" "one moment, monsieur. we have yet a second or two for decision. you see how the wreck lifts each time a sea hits her. the tide is rising. if she shifts when we are in there, goodby to the hirondelle!" the eyes of the two met, and ingersoll wavered, but only as a brave man takes breath before essaying some supreme test of hardihood. "my daughter would never forgive me if she knew i chose the coward's path," he said. "go ahead, peridot! tell us what we have to do, and it shall be done." a cheerful chuckle was the breton's answer as he thrust the tiller over to port and sent the boat reeling on the starboard tack. once she was fairly balanced, he began to bellow instruction. "within a couple of minutes i'll put her head on again, and we'll drift alongside the ship yonder. monsieur ingersoll and monsieur tollemache will each take a sweep, and fend the after part off the rocks. mademoiselle will remain for'ard, and be ready to drop the anchor as a last resource if i find the tide running too strong for the sweeps to hold us back. leave the rest to me!" * * * * * it is a glorious heritage of the english-speaking race that the men of other nations regard sea valor as the birthright of its sons and daughters. peridot had stated the case for and against the attempted rescue to ingersoll as a father. when the die was cast, the decision made, he counted on _ces américains_ acting with the same cool heroism he would himself display. the hirondelle quickly reached the position from which the breton judged it possible to drop into a natural dock, the existence of which he had learned when catching lobsters and crabs. wind and tide carried the boat swiftly backward. at first it seemed that she was simply rushing to destruction, and every eye was bent on the swirling maelstrom toward which she was speeding rather than on the stricken yacht. even peridot's face paled beneath its bronze, and he had a hand uplifted as a warning to yvonne to be ready instantly with the anchor, while ingersoll and tollemache were standing, each with a long oar couched like a knight's lance, when the hirondelle swept past the bows of the wreck; only to be checked immediately by a backwash from the higher part of the reef. "_dieu merci!_" sighed peridot, jubilant because his faith was justified. "keep her steady now, _mes amis_, and with god's help we'll succeed!" a tremendous sea dashed over the stella, and for one appalling moment it appeared that she must roll bodily into deep water, and involve the hirondelle in her own ruin. but she settled again, with a rending of her framework and inner fittings that was sweetest music in peridot's ears, since it meant that she was becoming wedged more firmly on the teeth of the rock, and, owing to her construction, possessed no natural buoyancy to be affected by the rising tide. already he had a coil of rope in his right hand, and was yelling orders to the crew of the stella. the noise of the seas pounding on les verrés was deafening; but a hoarse cry from one of the men on the bridge penetrated the din: "no _comprenez_! heave away!" so they were english or americans--which, none could tell. even at a distance of fifteen feet or thereabouts it was hardly possible to distinguish nationality by facial traits owing to the torrents falling continuously over the rounded hull, the smoke pouring from the funnel, the flapping of the loosened sails, and the clouds of spray that lashed the hirondelle. at any rate, tollemache, deciding instantly, as was his way, sent back an answering shout: "haul in twenty feet of the rope when it reaches you, make fast, and throw back the loose end. you must get across as best you can. no time to rig a safer tackle." "ay, ay, sir!" was the reply. "heave away, peridot!" tollemache, though not neglecting his special duty, spared one glance over his shoulder; but the rope did not undertake its spiral flight at once. the resourceful breton awaited a momentary lull in the wind. then the heavy coil was flung, and fell into the hands of one of the men on the bridge. as he was securing it to a stanchion, his companion, he whose gigantic stature had first caught yvonne's attention, climbed into the tiny wheelhouse, and reappeared almost immediately, carrying a woman in his arms. the sight caused a fresh thrill on board the hirondelle. somehow it was totally unexpected. "fools!" said tollemache, meaning, no doubt, that men might, if they chose, venture their lives in fair fight against the storm gods, but they had no right to subject a woman to the ordeal. ingersoll overheard, and understood. he even smiled. lorry regarded yvonne as a chum to be trusted in fair weather or foul. it did not occur to him that her father might reasonably have urged the same plea against attempting a seemingly mad and impracticable rescue. evidently some fierce dispute was being waged on the stella. the other man on the bridge, who turned out to be the captain, had thrown back the rope to peridot, and summoned all hands to gather near. now he was urging the big man to intrust his inanimate burden to one of the sailors, but met with the most positive refusal. every second was vital, and peridot blazed into annoyance. "_gars!_" he roared. "if they waste time, i'll back out!" the commander of the yacht, however, was well aware of the greatest peril which threatened now; so without more ado he steadied the giant while the latter raised the woman's body to his left shoulder, grasped the double rope in both hands, and lowered himself into the water. the passage was not difficult. the ropes were fairly taut, and the distance between the two craft not more than sixteen feet. indeed, such a hercules in physique might well regard the task as a mere nothing, and he set out with quiet confidence, extending his left arm in each onward movement, and closing up with the right. yvonne, watching his progress, suddenly yielded to another memory of tollemache swinging from the shepherds' hooks of sainte barbe's tower. suppose the rope were to break--just as one of the rings had come away in lorry's grip? of course the notion was stupid. she knew that each strand of that particular rope was sound, that it might be trusted to hold the hirondelle herself against the straining of wind and tide, let alone bear the dead weight of two people; but a woman's intuition is stronger than reason. and in this instance her foreboding came true, though from a cause that she had not foreseen. * * * * * all at once peridot uttered a yell that degenerated into a semihysterical shriek; for temperament counts in such crises, and the breton nature was being strung to a high pitch. "hold tight, all hands! here's a tidal wave!" the monster whose coming the fisherman had feared all day was upon them before tollemache could translate the warning. it broke against the stella's hull, and literally dashed solid tons of water on the hirondelle and the hapless pair now midway between the two vessels. during some seconds the stanch sardine boat seemed veritably to have foundered. even in the convulsive and choking effort needed to cling with the strength of desperation to the nearest rope or stay, her occupants were aware that she sank appreciably beneath the sheer weight and fury of that tremendous sea. then their blinded eyes emerged into blessed daylight again, their lungs filled with air, the flood subsided, the hirondelle rose, trembling like a living creature, and the wave boomed away across the half-mile of channel to tear at the rocks of finistère in a last paroxysm. peridot, secure in the faith that one born with a caul could not drown, was perhaps the first to regain his senses. when he swept the water from his eyes he looked for the stella; but that unfortunate little vessel had only been driven still more tightly into the jaws of the reef, though a great gap showed to starboard amidships. she was breaking in two. "god be thanked for that, at any rate!" he muttered. the concession was due to the strong commonsense of a breton, which told him that signs and portents would prove of no avail against instant death if the stella had rolled over. then, having ascertained that his own people were safe, he looked for the colossus he had last seen clutching the ropes. the ropes were there; but man and woman had vanished. something bobbed up among the spume and foam close to the hirondelle's side. he leaned over and grabbed a huge arm. with one powerful tug he drew a body half out of the water. it was the man; but the woman had been reft from his close embrace at the moment when some chance of safety seemed to have come most surely within reach. his sou'wester cap had been wrenched off, and, even when hauling the limp body on board, peridot knew that his quickness of eye and hand would avail naught. he held a corpse in his grasp. the top of the unfortunate man's skull was visibly flattened, and the gray hair was already darkened by an ominous dye. in all likelihood the wave struck him when least prepared, tore his fingers from the ropes, and dashed him head foremost against the hirondelle's timbers. peridot was no sentimentalist. he did not waste a needless sigh over the fate of one when the lives of many were trembling in the balance. even when he was placing the body at yvonne's feet, where it would be out of the way for the time, he peered up at her with a grim smile. "two gone, ma'mselle," he said; "but with the help of the madonna we'll save the rest!" a shriek from the girl's lips, and an expression of terror in her eyes which assuredly was not there after the gallant hirondelle had thrown off her mightiest and most vindictive assailant, told him that some worse tragedy was imminent. he turned, and saw tollemache leaping into the frothing vortex that raged between the stern of the boat and the nearest rock. the breton guessed instantly that the young american had seen the drowning woman. leaving the stella momentarily in charge of ingersoll and yvonne, he raced aft, and seized the sweep that tollemache had dropped. simultaneously his friend's head rose above the maelstrom; for the cork jacket bore lorry bravely. he was clasping the woman's apparently lifeless form with one hand, and battling against the sea with the other when the long oar was thrust within reach, and he too was drawn to the side. meanwhile ingersoll, exercising splendid self control, had not deserted his post. after the heavy backwash caused by the tidal wave, a sea had curled in from the open to fill the inlet again, and the hirondelle was carried so near the reef that the stout oar bent under the strain of fending her off, and might conceivably have snapped had not some assistance been given by the ropes attached to the stella. another and more normal backwash came in the nick of time, and the boat retreated to her earlier position. now, if the fates were aught but merciless, there might be a breathing space. peridot's gray-green eyes sparkled as they met tollemache's brown eyes, gazing up steadily from the swirl of waters. "you all right?" he said, seizing the woman's arms. "why not?" said tollemache. "lift her aboard. don't bother about me." ere peridot had laid the dead or unconscious woman by the side of the man who had already given his life for her sake, tollemache was on deck again, and lending a hand to the first sailor to cross by the ropes. the survivors followed rapidly, and the last to leave the stella was her captain. ten men were rescued,--five sailors, including the master, two stokers, an engineer, a steward, and a passenger. the two last were in the saloon when the vessel struck, and had crawled on deck as best they could, the passenger having sustained a broken arm, and the steward a sprained ankle. it was obvious, from the measures taken to safeguard the injured pair, that they were in urgent need of attention; but peridot knew that the lives of all still trembled in the balance. so he bawled to tollemache: "get the lady below, and as many of the others as you can pack in. during the next few minutes i want none but sailors on deck. _gars!_ be quick about it too! no, don't trouble about that poor fellow. he's gone!" * * * * * already he had cast off the ropes that formed the precarious bridge. tollemache told the shipwrecked crew what the breton had said, and they obeyed with the readiness of men who were aware of the paramount necessity of prompt action. the stella's captain had already summed up the new problem facing the hirondelle, and issued his orders with decision. he and a sturdy deckhand helped tollemache and ingersoll with the sweeps, which were now to be used as oars, while the others carried the woman to the cabin, and helped their disabled shipmates to make the descent. yvonne, though unwilling to leave the deck until the next ordeal was ended, felt that she ought to sacrifice her own wishes to the need of a sister in distress; but peridot settled the matter by bidding her take the tiller. "we can't get back to the inside passage on this wind. if we tried it, les verrés would catch us," he said. "we'll forge out a bit with the sweeps. when clear of the yacht we'll be just clear of the reef too. when you see me begin to haul at the sail put the helm hard over for the seaward tack. we're going outside. you understand?" "perfectly," she said. * * * * * she ran between the four men laboring at the oars, well pleased to have a task that would absorb her mind to the exclusion of all else, and profoundly relieved because it took her away from the vicinity of the dead body. even as the stella's company were climbing on board she could not avoid an occasional glance at the huge and inert form at her feet. it was a dreadful thing to see the soul battered out of such a magnificent frame in such a way. never before had she set eyes on a man of similar proportions. he was inches over six feet in height, and stout withal, so that he completely dwarfed the tall and sinewy frame of laurence tollemache, who hitherto had loomed as a giant among undersized frenchmen. oilskins and heavy sea boots added to the dead man's apparent bulk. his face, which wore a singularly placid expression, was well modeled. in youth he must have been extremely good looking; in middle age--apparently he was over fifty--he still retained clear-cut features, and strands of a plentiful crop of iron-gray hair dropped over a broad and high forehead. the woman whom he had declined to intrust to the care of any but himself was probably his wife. was she dead too? yvonne wondered. it was almost equally certain that the yacht was theirs; though perhaps they might have hired it for a winter cruise in the mediterranean by way of the spanish coast. these thoughts flitted through the girl's brain as she followed the last phases of the rescue. now that her hand was on the tiller, and the open sea began to show beyond the yacht's bowsprit, her mind was occupied by the one remaining hazard to the exclusion of all else. she had every confidence in peridot's seamanship, having been out with him many a time in weather that, if not quite so threatening as this, offered sufficient test of skill and nerve. but she knew well that once the full force of the tide was felt the oars would be useless, chiefly owing to their unwieldy length, and the doubt remained whether the hirondelle would gain enough way to win out close hauled into deep water. still her heart leaped with high courage as her eyes took in the bold and striking picture presented by the deck of the fishing boat during that brief transit through broken seas. in the immediate foreground a small hatchway framed the weather-tanned faces of two men lodged in the companionway so as to avoid overcrowding the cabin. behind were her father and the yacht's captain at one oar, and tollemache and a sailor at the other, pulling with the short, jerky, but powerful stroke alone possible in the conditions. ingersoll's sallow, well marked, intellectual features were in sharp contrast with the fiery red skin, heavy cheeks and chin, bullet head, and short neck of the man by his side. for an instant the eyes of father and daughter met. he smiled encouragement, and the odd notion occurred to yvonne that strangest of all the occurrences in an hour packed with incident was the fact that the thin hands that could achieve such marvels by the delicate manipulation of a camel's hair brush should be able to toil manfully at a cumbrous oar. then she looked at lorry, and he grinned most cheerfully. skipper and sailor wore the stolid expression of men who didn't know, and didn't particularly care, what happened next. if anything, their watchful glances betrayed a total lack of belief in the wisdom of intrusting the helm to this slip of a girl. amidships, and slightly forward, peridot was standing, both hands laced in the rope that should hoist the sail. the small jib had not been lowered. it was now flapping in the wind with reports like irregular pistol shots; but yvonne knew it would fill and draw instantly when the tiller brought the boat's head around. and beyond peridot was the body of the man who had been snatched from life with such awful suddenness. the broad back and slightly outstretched legs kept it motionless no matter how the deck tilted; but the front skirts of the oilskin coat crackled noisily in the gale, and a lock of hair, though soaked and thick with salt, freed itself from the clammy forehead, and moved fitfully in every gust. the artist instinct in the girl's heart dominated every other emotion at that moment. she felt that she could transfer this somber scene to canvas if she was spared. and what a study of action it would make! what staring lights and shadows! what types of character! the four men in strenuous effort, the anxious faces peering from the semiobscurity of the hatch, peridot's sturdy figure braced for prompt and fierce endeavor, the still form with sightless eyes peering up at the sky, and all contained within the narrow compass of the deck, with the boat's prow now cutting the horizon, now threatening to take one last horrific dive into a wave overhanging it like a moving hillock! beyond were a slate-blue sea flecked with white and scurrying clouds tipped with russet and gold by the last beams of a wintry sun. all this, and more, yvonne caught in one wide-eyed glance. she saw every touch of color, every changeful flicker of light on the wet deck and glistening oilskins. tollemache alone supplied a different note. the light brown squares of the cork jacket, and the dust-colored canvas straps that clasped it to his body, stood out in marked relief. he, who had been overboard and submerged for a few seconds, looked bone dry. the others, wet as he no doubt, ingersoll alone excepted, seemed to have come straight from the depths. * * * * * but peridot, watching the sea with sidelong glance, suddenly bent in a very frenzy of exertion, and yvonne, thrusting her right foot against the low gunwale, put the tiller to port and leaned against it until her left knee touched the deck. the men at the oars imitated her as best they might, while striving to keep the boat moving. at the first mighty pull of the partly raised sail the hirondelle flinched and fell back a little. then she took hold, as sailors put it, and careened under the strain until the iron socket on the starboard sweep was wrenched off its pin, and tollemache and the sailor were hard pressed to keep it from swinging inboard and dealing yvonne a blow. something black and sinister showed for a second in the yeasting froth beneath the boat's quarter; whether rock or patch of seaweed none could tell, though five pairs of eyes saw it. peridot's call came shrilly, "keep her there, ma'mselle!" back swung the tiller, and yvonne "kept her there," though during a long minute the hirondelle tore at the rudder as a startled horse snatches at the bit, and it seemed as if she must capsize without fail. again the breton's cry rang out, "ease her now, ma'mselle!" the boat fell away before the wind. soon she was on an even keel, save for the unavoidable rolling and pitching that resulted from the furious seas. but, if stout canvas and trustworthy cordage held, they were safe as though tied to the quay in the land-locked harbor at pont aven. already les verrés were a furlong or more in the rear. it was impossible to see what had become of the stella, because the spray was leaping high over the reef, until its irregular crests were bitten off by the gale. but a fishing smack which had gallantly put out from brigneau was signaled back before it crossed the bar, and the signal station was hoisting a fresh set of flags which spelled in the _lingua franca_ of the ocean, "well done, concarneau !" which was as near the hirondelle's name as the watchers on shore could get on the spur of the moment. * * * * * peridot paid yvonne the greatest of all compliments by not coming aft to relieve her. but her father, who had betrayed no flurry even when death seemed unavoidable, drew near, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "you're another grace darling, my dear!" was all he said. but the look accompanying the words was enough, and the girl's eyes began to smart painfully, because the sudden moisture in them revealed how they had suffered from the spindrift. and again, by sending her below on an errand of mercy, he only added subtly to peridot's tribute. "we can spare you now, yvonne," he said. "tell those men to come on deck, and you give an eye to the lady. you have some dry clothes down there. if she has no bones broken, she will recover more quickly in a warm bunk than under any other conditions. get her undressed, and give her a little cognac. take some yourself,--don't spare it,--and pass the bottle up here." he took her place at the tiller, and she made off at once, only pausing to pat lorry's wet and shaggy head. six men came up the companion stairway; but two returned at her call to lift the injured men into a lower and an upper bunk on the same side. they had contrived already to bandage the broken arm with handkerchiefs. the sprained ankle they could not deal with. the man with a broken arm was making some outcry; but the other sufferer was patient and even smiling. "gawd bless yer, miss!" he said to yvonne when he discerned her identity in the dim light of the cabin. "if it 'adn't a been fer you an' yer shipmites, we on the stella 'ad as much chawnce as a lump o' ice in hell's flimes!" the cockney accent was new in yvonne's ear, and its quaintness helped to soften the speaker's forcible simile. "you'll soon be all right," she assured him. "we'll reach pont aven within the hour, and the good folk there will look after you splendidly. please lie still now, as i must pin a blanket across these two bunks." then she was left alone with the insensible woman, who was alive, the sailors said, but completely unconscious. she had fainted, they believed, when the shaft snapped and the yacht was like to be lost forthwith. the immersion in the sea seemed to have revived her for a few seconds; but she swooned off again in the cabin, and, while the boat was lurching so heavily, they thought it wiser to pillow her head on a coat and not attempt to restore her senses. * * * * * on deck the captain of the stella had picked out ingersoll as the probable owner of the hirondelle. he came and stood by the artist's side. "is this craft yours, sir?" he inquired. "yes." "and is that young lady your daughter, sir?" "yes." "well, i need hardly say that we owe our lives to her, and you, and your two friends. i've seen some rum things durin' thirty years at sea; but i've never seen anything to ekal your pluck in runnin' into that death trap. and that girl of yours--the way she behaved! well, there! i never could talk much. this time i'm clean stumped!" "we did what we could. the real credit for your rescue lies with that cool-headed breton fisherman yonder. is the poor fellow who was killed the owner of the stella?" "yes, sir." "and the lady is his wife?" "yes, sir. mr. and mrs. walter h. carmac. look out, sir! you must ha forgotten you were leaning against the tiller." the sailor acted promptly in bringing the hirondelle back on her course; but, owing to her quickness in answering the helm, she had swung round a couple of points when an involuntary movement, a sort of flinching on ingersoll's part, caused her to change direction. peridot came aft, smiling and debonair. "we're all a bit shaken, monsieur," he said, noting the increased pallor of ingersoll's ordinarily rather delicate-looking face. "a tot of cognac, eh? that's what we want. what do you say, monsieur?" the bluff english skipper had caught the key word of the sentence, and the breton's merry eye supplied a full translation. "good for you, my hearty!" said he. "gimme one fair pull at a bottle of decent stuff now, an' i'll load you to the bung with the same once we're ashore." chapter iv the home-coming peridot had stipulated that the hirondelle should start on her homeward run "not a minute later than three o'clock." he had cast off from the wharf at le pouldu slightly before that hour; but the wreck of the stella and its attendant circumstances--not least being the necessity enforced by the change of wind to take the deep-sea course after leaving the reef--cost a good deal of time. as a consequence daylight had almost failed before the bar of the aven was crossed. on pointe d'ar vechen, within thirty feet of the port manech hotel, stands a tiny lighthouse which sheds a mild beam over the entrance to the estuary. it is essentially a harbor light. a broad white band covers the safe channel extending from les verrés to l'isle verte, a red sector forbids the former, and a green one indicates the narrow inside passage between reef and mainland. in crossing the bar, of course, each color became visible in turn. ingersoll had seen the light scores of times. never a week passed in summer that he did not spend a day, or even three days, at sea with the fishermen. his studies of the sardine fleet, in particular, were greatly in request. yet on this night of nights, when the return to his beloved pont aven might well be reckoned the close of the most notable achievement of his whole life, he seemed to have collapsed physically and mentally. his eyes had a vacant look. their wonted expression of a somewhat sarcastic yet not intolerant outlook on life had fled for the hour, and he peered at the breton and the sailor as though he had never before seen either. his slight but usually alert and wiry frame appeared to have shrunk. he remained deaf to peridot's suggestion as to the brandy, and became curiously interested in the red gleam of the lighthouse which came in sight just before the bar was reached. the breton imagined that his employer's bodily resources had been unduly taxed. catching the eye of the yacht's skipper (whose name, by the way, was william popple), he nodded toward the tiller, pointed straight ahead, and held up a finger. "wan mineet," he said. captain popple was not to be outdone in linguistic amenities. "_comprenny_," he grinned, and took control. peridot thrust his head into the hatch. "ma'mselle," he said, "these poor devils' teeth are chattering with the cold. will you pass the cognac?" yvonne felt the urgency of the request. nearly every man was wet to the skin, and the wind bit keenly. she abandoned her nurse's work for the moment, opened a locker, and produced a bottle of generous size. "here you are," she said. "see that a little is left. i have given some to the men, and i hope my other invalid will soon be able to take a small quantity." * * * * * the fisherman removed a plug which had replaced the ordinary cork, and handed the bottle to captain popple. the brandy was a fine old liquor, brown, and mellow, and smooth to the palate, and popple took a draft worthy of a russian grand duke. "gosh!" he said, passing the bottle to ingersoll, "that's the stuff! it warms the cockles of yer heart." ingersoll swallowed a mouthful. it seemed to restore his wits. the eye of the lighthouse had changed from red to green. "it is singular," he said, "how a quality of evil can be associated with certain colors. red means danger and possible death, while green implies a jealous love perilously akin to hate." he had not the least notion of the incongruity of such a remark just then. he might have been making conversation for some boarding-school miss whom yvonne had brought on a summer cruise. the other man, puzzled, stared stolidly into the gathering gloom. "when you're plashin' at sea on a dark night you find them colored sectors mighty useful, sir," was all he could find to say. ingersoll roused himself, as though from sleep, and indeed he had been wholly unconscious of his surroundings during the last few minutes. "oh, doubtless," he said apologetically, "i was thinking aloud, a foolish habit. you were telling me about the owner of the stella. carmac is the name, i think? i knew a walter h. carmac many years ago. he was very tall, but slightly built. surely a man cannot change his physique so markedly in the course of, say, twenty years!" "well, as to that, sir, on'y the other day i was talkin' of mr. carmac's size to mr. raymond, the gentleman with the broken arm (mr. carmac's secretary, he is), an' he said the guv'nor used to be thin as a lath once. p'raps it was a case of laugh and grow fat. very pleasant gentleman, mr. carmac was; an' his lady too--one of the best. excuse me, sir, but i couldn't help starin' at your girl. she's that like mrs. carmac it's surprising. if anyone said they was mother an' daughter, i'd agree at once--if i didn't know different." there was a pause. peridot had intrusted the supply of brandy to tollemache for further distribution. he came aft now, as careful piloting would soon be needed. "once we're inside, monsieur," he said, "we'll set the men at work by turns with the sweeps. that will drive the chill away." ingersoll explained the scheme to the skipper, who gave it his hearty approval. "did the yacht belong to mr. carmac?" went on the artist. "yes, sir. he bought her a fortnight ago. she used to be lord aveling's nigger; but mr. carmac didn't like that name, and changed it to the stella, after his wife's christian name." "he didn't care to sail in a yacht called the nigger, eh?" a bitterness of aloes was in the words. apparently they suggested some unpleasing notion to popple, who branched off to another topic. "i've a sort of idea his heart was affected," he said. "i know that some bigwig of a london doctor recommended a long voyage, and mr. carmac bein' several times a millionaire he just up and grabbed the first suitable craft that offered. wouldn't wait for a survey. took everything for granted; though i warned him that white paint may cover a lot of black sins. he an' the missis had planned a regular tour in the mediterranean, goin' from gib to the balearics, and dodgin' in and out of ports all along the north coast until we brought up at constantinople sometime in april. i advised him to let me meet him at gib or marseilles; but he was one of the men who will have their own way, and nothin' would suit but that he should come straight aboard. we left southampton tuesday evenin', and made brest yesterday afternoon. today we were for callin' at belle isle and berthin' at lorient; but the foul weather met us, an' he was half inclined to put in at this very place we're headin' for,--pont aven is the name, isn't it?--on'y poor mrs. carmac wouldn't hear of it. she said belle isle was no distance, an' made out she was a good sailor--which was hardly correct, because she was ill as could be for the last two hours." "why didn't you turn back?" "there was no turnin' back about mr. carmac, sir. he wasn't built that way, bein' a sure enough american. though i've never known anybody more devoted to his wife than he was, he ought to have let a younger man take her across to your boat. not as i mean to argy that anyone could have held up against that sea. lord love a duck! it was a oner an' no mistake! but there, what has to be will be. poor mr. carmac was fated to hand in his checks on the coast of finistère, an' we others weren't, and that's all there is to it; though i'd be flyin' in the face of providence if i didn't say in the same breath that if four of the pluckiest and best hadn't been aboard this 'ere craft, none of our little lot would ever have seen daylight again." * * * * * tollemache joined them. he had just exchanged a word with yvonne, who had evidently placed her guest in a bunk, because the gleam of an oil lantern came through the open hatch, and, like the good yachtswoman she was, she had passed out the side lights trimmed and ready for use. "well, ingersoll," he said cheerily, "how are you feeling now?" "rather tired," was the unexpected answer. "i'm not surprised at that. you've had a pretty strenuous time." "of course you, lorry, have had the day of your life!" "y-yes. i wouldn't go through it again, though, for a small fortune; that is, with yvonne on board. it was nip and tuck when we were jammed up against the reef." "it didn't take you long, sir, for all that, to jump in after mrs. carmac," said popple. "oh, is that the lady's name? what a weird specimen one of your sailormen must be! i asked him the name of the yacht's owner, and he didn't know it." "if it's the beauty i saw you talkin' to, the swine didn't know his own name when he kem aboard at southampton," snorted popple indignantly. "sink me! i've never seen a man so loaded. took me for his long-lost uncle. me, mind you! if i hadn't been rather short-handed, i'd have run him ashore to find an uncle in a policeman." "he is sober enough now," laughed tollemache. "i had some difficulty in persuading him to take a sip of brandy. he said he was a teetotaler." "he what? which one?" "that fellow there, leaning against the mast." "of all the swabs! look here, sir, you come with me an' listen!" "but i don't want to get the poor chap into a row." "there'll be no row. just language! it'll be a treat." tollemache, an overgrown schoolboy in some respects, accompanied popple gleefully. broken scraps of the skipper's comments boomed back to ingersoll's unheeding ears. "guess you signed the pledge when the shaft snapped.... coughin' up stale beer all tuesday night, an' all nex' day made you feel you weren't fit to die on a thursday.... you can't run a bluff of that sort on saint peter. he'd smell your breath a mile off, an' say, 'to the devil with any jack who can't take his liquor decent-like when he's paid off without fillin' up when he's signed on!'...you struck a wrong job in goin' to sea. you ought to be a brewer's drayman." * * * * * "peridot," said ingersoll suddenly, "you saw something of the lady's state of collapse when you pulled her on board. she is not likely to recover her senses before we reach pont aven?" "no, monsieur, i think not. women are marvels at times; but this one may not even live. mademoiselle yvonne is doing what she can----" "i know, i know! now do me a great favor. when we berth at the quay mademoiselle and i will slip away quietly in the confusion and darkness. see to it that none of the strangers learns our name. i'll warn monsieur tollemache myself. get all these people to julia's. tell her that the lady, madame carmac, is very wealthy, and that the man with the broken arm is mr. carmac's secretary; so every sort of expenditure will be met, though julia's kind heart would leave nothing undone for a shipwrecked crew if they were paupers. there may be some inquiry about mademoiselle yvonne; but refer to her only by her christian name, and say she lives at madame pitou's." "_oui, m'sieu'._" peridot promised willingly enough. nevertheless he was obviously bewildered. "i ask this," explained ingersoll, "because my daughter and i will depart for paris by the first train tomorrow. you see, by extraordinary mischance, this mr. and mrs. carmac and i were not on good terms years ago, and i don't wish old scores to be reopened." "_gars!_" spat peridot. "you're not leaving pont aven because we pulled these fools off les verrés?" "no, no. i need a little holiday, and i'm taking it now. that is all. we shall come back to the old life--never fear." "you mean that, m'sieu'?" "i swear it." "of course, m'sieu', you understand that i cannot silence the tongues of the whole town?" "i don't care what anybody hears tomorrow. remember, if poor madame carmac dies, no other person will have the slightest interest in my whereabouts. if she lives, and is able to travel, she will certainly endeavor to get away from pont aven as speedily as possible. peridot, it is yvonne i am thinking of, not of myself." "monsieur, you can count on me absolutely." "and not a word of this to a soul?" "_cré nom!_ i'll lie like a gendarme, even to madeleine." "but you need not lie at all. simply forget what i have told you--as to my reason for tomorrow's journey, i mean." "monsieur, it is forgotten already." * * * * * tollemache came, chuckling. "sorry you missed the skipper's homily, ingersoll," he said. "i laughed like a hyena. i hope the people in the cabin couldn't overhear me. by jove! to tell you the truth, i didn't even remember that there was a dead man aboard." "the best tragedies indulge in a what is called 'comic relief'," said ingersoll dryly. "give yvonne a hail, will you? i want a word with her." tollemache stooped to the hatch. "yvonne!" he said. "yes," came the girl's voice. her father, intent on its slightest cadence, deemed it placid and self-possessed. "socrates wants you." socrates was a title conferred on ingersoll by his artist friends owing to his philosophic habit of mind. nothing disturbed him, they vowed. once, when the queer little steam tram that jingles into and out of pont aven four times daily was derailed, some alarm was created by the fact that ingersoll, though known to be a passenger, was missing. when found he was perched on the side of the overturned carriage in which he had been seated. on climbing out through a window he discovered that from this precise locality and elevation he obtained a capital view of a wayside chapel; so he sketched it without delay. the chance, no less than the point of view, might not offer again! yvonne appeared, her head and shoulders dimly visible in the frame of the hatch. "what is it, dad?" she inquired. "we're in the river now, dearest, and i thought you might join us on deck. you have done all that is possible, i'm sure." "i simply cannot desert that poor woman until she shows some signs of returning consciousness." "oh, is she still insensible?" "yes. if only i could get her to swallow a little brandy." "well, she will be in the doctor's hands soon. better leave matters to him." "but one must try." "of course. if you prefer remaining below----" "father dear, what else can i do?" she vanished again. * * * * * ingersoll, having ascertained exactly what he wished to know, sighed in sheer relief, and turned to tollemache. "lorry," he said, "have you a dry cigar in your pocket? how stupid of me! you're soaked through and through. i hope none of us picks up a stiff dose of pneumonia as the sequel to today's excitement. now a quiet word in your ear. yvonne and i are going away tomorrow for a week or so." "going away--from pont aven?" tollemache's voice executed a crescendo of dismay; but ingersoll only laughed, and, for the first time since that disastrous reef was left behind, his manner reverted to its normal air of good-humored cynicism. "why select two words from a sentence and invest them with a significance they don't possess? i put in a saving clause. a week, or even two, can hardly be twisted into a lifetime." "does yvonne know?" "no. i have decided on the journey only within the last ten minutes. we're taking a little trip to paris solely to avoid the gush and sentiment that will flow in pont aven during the next few days like a river in flood. moreover, lorry, if you're wise, you'll come with us." tollemache little realized how truly spontaneous was his friend's invitation. "d'ye mean that, ingersoll?" he said elatedly. "why not? don't let any question of expense stop you. this outing will be my christmas treat." "expense! dash it all! i've money to burn. er--that is--enough, at any rate, to afford a jaunt to paris. when do we start?" "soon after seven o'clock." "by jing! sharp work." "if we really intend to escape, why stand on the order of our going?" "i'm not saying a word. you rather took my breath away at first, you know." "you should allow for the kinks in the artistic temperament, lorry. enthusiasm is too often the herald of despair." "what sort of job do you really recommend me to take up, socrates?" ingersoll smiled. "i am not in the habit of dealing my friends such shrewd blows," he said. "i was talking of myself--and yvonne. make no mistake about her. she has a sane mind in a sound body; but the artist's nature will triumph some day, and she will surprise all of us. by the way--nothing of this project to her till i have explained it. we shall see you at mère pitou's, of course?" "i've promised to shake a leg with madame herself in a gavotte. you don't suppose that carmac's death will interfere with the feast?" "why should it?" said ingersoll coldly. "the man is an utter stranger." tollemache did not strive to interpret his friend's mood. in so far as it mystified him, and he gave it any thought, he assumed that the tremendous physical exertion and nervous strain of those few minutes when life or death was uncertain as the spin of a coin had affected an ordinarily even-minded disposition. * * * * * peridot interrupted their talk by asking tollemache to lower the sail. coming in with wind and tide, the hirondelle had scudded across the bar without effort. hardly a whiff of spray had touched her deck, and pursuing waves lagged defeated in her wake. the sweeps were manned by willing volunteers, and the wet and shivering sailors soon restored vitality by tackling the work in relays. usually sardine boats are content to drift up the estuary on a remarkably rapid tidal stream; so the hirondelle made a fast trip that evening. the change in the wind had blown away the clouds brought inland by the first phase of the gale. the sky was clear, and stars were twinkling through the violet haze that followed the sun's disappearance. pinpoints of light from the shores of the narrowing inlet scintillated from port manech, the château of poulguin, and the few tiny hamlets that border the aven. ever the opposing cliffs grew loftier, more abrupt, more wooded, until a cluster of lighted windows and street lamps on the water's edge at the end of one of the interminable bends showed that pont aven was drawing near. thereabouts the valley opened out again; though the little town itself has been compelled to lodge its "place" and half its houses on the first easy slopes of the steepest hill in the district. ingersoll, who had taken his turn at the oars with the others, contrived to choke his impatience until the pollard oaks on the chemin du hallage silhouetted their gnarled branches against the sky. that night the weird arms, swaying and creaking in a wind that was, if anything, increasing in force, had a sinister aspect in his troubled eyes. each oak looked like some dreadful octopus, whose innumerable suckers were searching vindictively for an unwary victim. with an effort he brushed aside the evil fantasy, and was about to summon yvonne when a weird, uncanny, elfin shriek came from the shadow of the largest and blackest tree. "_o, ma doue!_" [breton for "_o, mon dieu!_"] was the cry. "there he is! see him, then, my brave jean!" peridot's mother was greeting her son in a voice rendered eldritch by hysteria. "_eh, b'en maman!_" the breton shouted back. "what are thou doing there at this time of night?" a number of running black figures appeared on the quay, an unprecedented thing, except in the conditions that actually obtained. "_que diable!_" growled peridot, who had not bargained for a popular ovation. "they know all about us. someone must have telephoned from the signal station at brigneau." he had summed up the position of affairs to a nicety. brigneau had told the whole story to pont aven, and assuredly it had lost nothing in the telling. the signalers had seen every detail of the rescue through their telescopes, and were of course keenly alive to the peril into which the hirondelle had plunged so gallantly and effectively. the news had not long arrived; but sufficient time had elapsed that pont aven was stirred to its depths. even old madame larraidou, crippled with rheumatism and sixty years of unremitting toil, had hobbled down to the quay to welcome her own special hero. a dense crowd of bretons, with a sprinkling of the anglo-american community that remains faithful to pont aven in all seasons, had gathered on the broad, low, stone wharf, and surged down to the river itself on the sloping causeway provided for boats carrying passengers. nevertheless, if the signalmen had brought about this gathering, they had also reported the presence on board the hirondelle of three men and a woman who were badly injured; so the local gendarmes had procured stretchers, and three automobiles were in waiting. * * * * * ingersoll, whose nerves were already on a raw edge, nearly abandoned the struggle against fate when he saw the dense concourse of people. "lorry," he said in an agonized tone that the younger man had never before heard on his lips, "lorry, help me now, or i'll crack up! jump ashore and ask those good folk to clear a path. you know what it means if we get among them. i can't stand it. i can't! bid them let us pass, for the love of heaven. tell them we have to deal with death and broken limbs. you go first. they'll listen to you." tollemache obeyed without demur. he was completely at a loss to understand his friend's collapse; but its undoubted seriousness called for decisive action. his vibrant, ringing tones dominated the cheers that burst forth when the hirondelle bumped into the quay. "_mes amis_," he cried, "hear me one moment, i pray you. the people we have rescued are suffering. one is dead--others are in great danger. unless you make way, and permit us to bring the injured ones quietly and speedily to the hotel, some may die on the road." it sufficed. the cheers were hushed. the throng yielded place without demur. a low susurrus of talk and the sobbing of women were the only sounds that mingled now with the unceasing chant of the gale. ingersoll had literally forced himself to stoop into the companion hatch. "yvonne," he said in a curiously muffled voice. "yes, dad," came the girl's answer. he could not be sure, owing to his extremely agitated state, but fancied that another voice gasped a word faintly. "come now, dear! come at once!" he appealed. again yvonne's head and shoulders emerged. "oh, dad," she almost sobbed, "mrs.--mrs. carmac is conscious now. she beseeches me to remain with her until--until----." ingersoll literally pulled his daughter up the few remaining steps. "we are going straight home!" he cried, savagely impatient of the resistance his plans were encountering at every turn. "i am ill--nearly demented! you must come now!" still clasping her arm in a grip that left marks on her white skin for days thereafter, he forced her to the side of the boat. "father dear, of course i'll come; but you are hurting me," she said quietly. "please don't hold me so tight." he was deaf to her pleading. they raced together up the causeway. to avoid attracting attention, yvonne did not endeavor to hold back, and bystanders wondered why the two made off at such a furious pace. madame pitou, madeleine, and barbe, drawn to the quay like the rest of the inhabitants, were divided between concern for father and daughter and desire to witness the landing of the shipwrecked crew. but mère pitou could not contain her anxiety. "_tcha!_" she cried, bustling through the crowd. "what's gone wrong with monsieur ingersoll and yvonne? they might have seen the devil out yonder. i must hurry after them. i'll hear all the news later when peridot comes." the two girls went with her. for once feminine curiosity was less potent than sympathy. moreover, tollemache's announcement of a death among the rescued people had terrified them. they shuddered at the notion of the solemn procession of men carrying a limp and heavy body. the mere sight of such a thing would take the heart out of them for the evening's merrymaking. * * * * * ingersoll had passed the first mill--or the last--that bridles the river, and was striding through the narrow street leading to the bridge, when he became conscious of the force he was exerting on his uncomplaining companion. "i'm sorry, yvonne," he said, freeing her arm immediately. "i forgot myself. really i hardly know what i am doing. am i hurting you? why didn't you tell me?" he spoke in a queer, choking voice which at any other time would have aroused his daughter's affectionate solicitude. that night, however, probably because she too was in an overwrought condition, she contented herself by a seemingly nonchalant reply. "it doesn't matter, dad. a bruise more or less, after all that we have gone through, is not of much account." "i hurried you away----" he began; but, greatly to his surprise, yvonne interrupted the labored explanation he had in mind. "i think i understand, dad," she said. "wouldn't it be better for both of us if you left unsaid what you were going to say--at any rate, till the morning? we are--how shall i put it?--somewhat unhinged by today's events. you are weary and heartsick. i know i am. let me go and see that mrs. carmac is being cared for. i'll not remain long, and we can retire soon after supper. then, when we have slept perhaps, we shall wake into a new world with nerves not so exhausted, or strained, as at this moment." ingersoll, brooding on his own troubles, and feverishly eager to snatch his daughter from a soul-racking ordeal, was wholly unaware of the passionate tumult vibrating in every syllable of that appeal. he caught the sound, not the significance, of the words that irritated him. "now you are talking nonsense!" he cried. "you cannot possibly know what course i have decided on. it is this: i loathe the sensational element attached to such an event as the rescue we have taken part in. you hardly realize what it implies to you and me personally. not only the french but the english and american newspapers will send here a horde of special correspondents and photographers. if we remain in pont aven, we cannot escape them. they will take the cottage by storm, or, if we bolt our door against intruders, we shall have to withstand a siege. to avoid this, you and i are going to paris by the early train tomorrow. lorry is coming too. he agrees with me--or, if i shouldn't say that--he is delighted at the prospect of the outing." "poor lorry!" said yvonne. "why 'poor lorry'? he is only too pleased at being invited." "but, dad, he doesn't know what you and i know." a sudden terror fell on ingersoll. "what do you mean?" he murmured hoarsely, stopping short as though he had been struck by an invisible hand. during a few fateful seconds father and daughter stood in the center of the four ways that meet as soon as the road from paris crosses the aven. no one was near. the eternal plaint of the river was drowned by the fierce wind whistling under the eaves of the old houses with high-pitched roofs, and singing an anthem of its own around the pierced spire of the neighboring church. yvonne placed her hands on her father's shoulders, and her sweet lips quivered in an irresistible rush of agonized emotion. "dad," she said, striving vainly to keep her utterance under control, "if you--wish--to go to paris tomorrow--i--shall not try--to dissuade you. but i--cannot come with you. i dare not! you see--i have just found my mother--and--she may be dead tomorrow. oh, dad, dad! no matter how my mother may have erred--or what wrong she may have done you in the past--i cannot abandon her now!" chapter v the lifting of the veil it was well that mère pitou came upon them before another syllable was uttered, since not all ingersoll's philosophy could have withstood the earthquake that had destroyed in an instant the carefully constructed edifice of many years. his very soul was in revolt. heart suggested and brain lent bitter and cruel form to rebellious words; but, such is the power of convention, the unexpected arrival of the sharp-tongued breton woman silenced him. "_o, là là!_" she cried breathlessly. "if i had known you two were making off in such a jiffy merely to stand in the place au beurre and look at the stars, i wouldn't have waddled after you like the fat goose that i am. what, then, is the matter? i thought you were hurrying home because you were perished with cold, and i find the pair of you stuck in the middle of the road. monsieur ingersoll, you at least are old enough to have more sense. both must be soaked to the skin; yet you keep yvonne out in this biting wind, to say nothing of a thin scarecrow like yourself!" yvonne had dropped her hands when she heard the approaching footsteps. unconsciously she had raised her eyes to heaven in agonized suppliance, and her attitude was naturally inexplicable to her breton friends. she recovered some semblance of self control more quickly than her father. "madame," she said, "we were, in a sense, debating whether or not we could spare the time to change our clothes before attending to the wants of the poor people saved from les verrés. i think you are right. it would be foolish to take any additional risk. come, father dear, let me help you now." she took her father's arm, and drew him on. he walked unsteadily, and might have fallen if it had not been for yvonne's support. the first mad impulse that bade him pour forth a vehement protest against the injustice of fate had died down. he was as a man stricken dumb, and even physically maimed, by some serious accident. mère pitou, imagining that he was benumbed as the outcome of prolonged exposure to the elements, was minded to rate him soundly; but happily elected instead to pour the torrent of her wrath on things in general. "a nice fête we'll have, to be sure!" she began. "there was i, boiling beautiful white meat and roasting fat pullets when the news came that the hirondelle was acting the lifeboat off les verrés! i thought you'd all be drowned, at the very least, and i wouldn't have been a bit surprised, because anything might happen to that light-headed monsieur tollemache and that grinning, good-for-nothing peridot. _cré nom!_ i wouldn't have crossed the street if you two weren't aboard! and now the bottom will be burnt out of the pan, and my four lovely fowls frizzled to a cinder! barbe, you little minx, run ahead and see that the big kettle is put on to boil! monsieur ingersoll and yvonne must have hot baths, with mustard, and i'll stand over them till they swallow a good tumblerful each of scalding wine. i'll give them les verrés--see if i don't!" whereat madame gurgled in momentary appreciation of her own wit, because _verrée_ means "a tumblerful," and she had blundered on a first-rate pun. "_chère maman_, we are not ill, nor likely to feel any bad effects from a wetting," said yvonne. "my father is shaken because, although successful, we have brought one dead man to pont aven, and perhaps a dead woman too." "ah, that's sad--that's dreadful!" wheezed mère pitou. "poor things! who are they?" "an englishman gentleman--and his wife." "they may be americans. we hardly know yet." ingersoll was striving bravely to recover his poise. those few words told yvonne that he wished their secret to remain hidden from all others--for the present, at any rate. "_dieu merci!_ you can talk, then?" said mère pitou tartly. "were they coming to pont aven? are they known here?" "no. their name is carmac. they have never been here, i believe. they were making for lorient; but their yacht broke down and drove on the reef. had it not been for peridot we could not have saved a soul on board." "oh, he's a good sailor--i'll say that for him. his poor old mother was there on the quay, screeching like an owl. she lost her man at sea, you know. i hate the sea. i'll skin barbe if she ever so much as looks at a fisherman. do you hear that, madeleine?" "yes, madame. but you can't skin every fisherman who looks at barbe." "wait till i catch one at it! he'll find a shark in his nets that day. hurry now, you, and help barbe to get those baths ready! i filled the kettle before i came out, and lifted the wheat off, and as i shoved in the damper of the oven the fowls shouldn't have taken much harm." "peridot will surely come soon," madeleine ventured to say. mère pitou, having made sufficient concession to her guests' feelings by that revised estimate of the condition of the eatables, was moved to withering sarcasm. "why do you think that matters to me?" she cried. madeleine was silenced; so madame answered her own question. "no man with eyes like a tomcat could ever turn my head!" she snorted. for once her gift of biting repartee served a good purpose. it effectually distracted attention from ingersoll's half-demented state, while father and daughter were given a breathing space before plunging into an explanation that might affect the future in such wise that the stream of life would never again flow on the placid course it had followed during many happy and uneventful years. within the cottage, too, mère pitou's bustling ways interposed a further barrier. she drove the artist to his room, set madeleine to help yvonne undress, "and rub her till she's as red as a boiled lobster," prepared two steaming glasses of mulled wine, scolded each unwilling patient until the decoction was taken, and wanted to massage ingersoll; an attention that he avoided only by declaring positively that he would not indulge in a hot bath at all unless she cleared out. luckily a wetting from salt water is seldom harmful if accompanied by exercise, and ingersoll had never been really chilled; while yvonne had not only kept comparatively dry, but had been shielded from the wind during the homeward voyage. when the two met in the studio, a large room that ingersoll had built on the north side of the house, the frenzy and tumult of a tremendous discovery had died down, and each was ready to make due allowance for the other's suffering. yvonne wore her breton dress, and her father had discarded his artist's clothes for a suit of blue serge. seldom, perhaps not twice in a year, did he appear in evening dress. he shunned society, and disliked its livery. for that reason he had removed from the hotel julia soon after arriving at pont aven with yvonne, then an engaging mite hardly a year old. ostensibly he wanted a spacious studio; in reality he sought seclusion. as for yvonne, she did not even possess a dinner gown; though she and her father were often welcome guests at the houses of the small artistic coterie that makes the village its abiding place. but pictures, not fashion plates, ruled the roost therein, and no _grande dame_ whom chance brought to these friendly gatherings could plume herself that her "paris model" frock eclipsed the quaint charm of yvonne's peasant costume. the girl had grown quite accustomed to the demand invariably put forward by ingersoll before accepting an invitation that he should be told the names of any strangers who would be present. if she gave a passing thought to the matter, she fancied that her father had early in life quarreled with his relatives, and wished to avoid a haphazard meeting with certain members of his family. singularly enough, tollemache, her greatest friend among the men of pont aven, did not conceal the fact that he too was at loggerheads with his own people. only that day had he been on the verge of some explanation of this unfortunate state of affairs. how little did she dream then that the carefully hidden secret which led her own father to bury his talents in a brittany fishing village soon after she was born would be dragged into light before the sun went down! * * * * * when she entered the studio she found her father seated in a roomy wickerwork chair, and gazing disconsolately into the flames of a roaring log fire. he had aged within the hour; his already slight figure seemed to have shrunk; he did not even turn his head when the door opened. her heart went out to him in a wave of tenderness. she dropped on her knees by his side and put her arms round his neck. "dad dear," she murmured, "don't dwell on our troubles tonight, great as they are. let us rather be thankful that we were able to render some service to our fellow creatures, and that our own lives were preserved in a time of real danger. god works in his own wonderful way, doesn't he, dear? it was his will that we should have gone to le pouldu today. it was surely by providential contriving that we should happen to be near the reef when the stella struck. something more than idle chance brought us there." "yes," he said, gazing into her eyes with the sorrow-laden expression of a man who sees naught but misery before him, "it was not chance, yvonne, but the operation of a law as certain as death. the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations. i had almost forgotten that your mother lived. after eighteen years she was dead to me. so far as you are concerned she might as well have died in giving you birth. then her memory would have been a blessing rather than a curse." "hush, dear! she may be dying even now. no, no, darling, you shall not say it!" and her soft lips stifled the terrible wish that his anguish might have voiced. for a little while neither could speak. yvonne's head bent over her father's knees, and he knew that she was crying. with a supreme effort he strove to lessen the tension. "come, come, sweetheart!" he said, stroking the mass of brown hair beneath the lace coif. "you and i must face this difficulty together, or goodness only knows what may be the outcome! tell me now, if you are able, how you learned that mrs. carmac was your mother." "oh, dad, she recognized me at once!" sobbed the girl. "poor thing, the warmth of the blankets and a teaspoonful of brandy i forced between her lips brought her round slowly." "when?" "after we crossed the bar." "i feared as much," groaned ingersoll. even in her distress yvonne had the tact to avoid the thorny bypath opened up by her father's involuntary cry. "she sighed deeply a few times," she went on hurriedly, "and i could tell by her color that she was about to revive. at last she opened her eyes, and looked at me in a dazed way. "'yvonne!' she whispered. "i was so overjoyed to find that she was not actually at the point of death that i felt no surprise. 'yes, dear,' i said, 'you are with friends, and that horrid wreck is a thing of the past.' "but she continued to gaze at me as if i were a ghost. 'yvonne ingersoll!' she said again. "then it struck me as really remarkable that she should know my name. but i only asked her to drink a little more of the brandy, and rest until we reached pont aven. "'rest!' she said in quite a clear voice. 'why should i rest when heaven snatches me from a dreadful death and permits me to see my own daughter after eighteen years? or is this some other world? why am i here? where have you come from?' "for the moment i was sure her mind was unbalanced, and thought it best to calm her by answering truthfully. 'my mother is dead, dear,' i said; 'but you and i are living. you hardly realize now that your yacht was wrecked on a reef near the mainland. by the mercy of providence my father's boat was close at hand, and we rescued you.' "'me only?' she cried, trying to rise in the bunk, and giving me such a piercing look. "'no,' i said, 'we took off all hands.' "dad dear, i simply didn't dare say that her husband alone had been killed in trying to save her; so i put it that way, hoping she would not ask me any more. but she did then succeed in lifting herself on an elbow. "'child,' she said, 'they must not meet! god! they must not meet!' "'who must not meet?' said i, feeling rather frightened, as of something unseen that threatened me in the dark. "'your father and walter carmac,' she replied. "'if mr. carmac is your husband, he is still unconscious,' i assured her, catching at the first straw that offered in the whirl of things. "'is your father on board?' she demanded, grasping my wrist. "'yes,' i said. "then she sank back into the bunk again, as though i had struck her, and began to sob. 'oh, it is cruel, cruel!' she wept. 'after all these years my folly has found me out! yvonne, yvonne, don't you understand? i am your mother! i left your father eighteen years ago. i left you, my darling little baby! i sought freedom because your father was poor, and i longed to be rich. look at me! look at me, i tell you! can you deny that i am your mother?' "oh, dad, i knew in my heart that she was speaking truly; but even in that moment of torture i tried to be loyal to you, and begged her to close her eyes and let me cover her with the blankets. but she only laughed, in a ghastly way that was worse than tears. then she heard one of the men in the other bunks groaning, and started up again, asking wildly who was there. i told her that two men were badly injured, and had been brought below. unfortunately, i added that her husband was on deck. "'husband!' she cried. 'i am not worthy of such a husband! i bartered my very soul for luxury, and now i am being punished as i deserve. yvonne, one night in paris your mother kissed you when you were lying asleep in your cot, and hurried away to what i deemed liberty. i have lulled my conscience for eighteen years into the belief that i was justified, that i had acted for the best, since my extravagant tastes were even then embittering your father's life. yet the husband and child i abandoned have saved my miserable life, saved the man too who came into my life when i was free to marry again. oh, why didn't you let me die? perhaps i am dying now. yvonne, you have my face; but a kindly heaven must have spared you from having my nature. you, at least, will forgive. kiss me once before the end comes. if you are merciful, an eternal judge may not condemn me utterly; for i have striven to atone by doing some good in the world. unhappy myself, i have tried to make others happy.' "father dear, i could not refuse. i took her in my arms. i suppose she nearly fainted again, because she only spoke incoherently until she heard your voice in the hatch, when she whispered your name and buried her face in the clothes." * * * * * the girl's tremulous voice ceased, and there was no sound in the room save the crackling of elm logs and the pleasant babble of flames in the big open fireplace. at last, fearing lest he should break down completely, ingersoll gently untwined his daughter's clasp, rose, and fumbled with a pipe,--man's sole harbor of refuge in emotional storms. "don't cry, yvonne," he said brokenly. "it--it hurts. from what you tell me i gather that your--mother--is in a more critical condition than i imagined. do you want to go to her--now?" yvonne too stood up. she brushed away the mist of tears, and looked at him with shining eyes. "dad," she said, and a vibration rang in her voice that carried her father's memory back half a lifetime, back to the days when youth was golden and love was deemed everlasting, "when my mother was muttering in delirium, my own poor wits wandered. i asked myself what it all meant, and i could not escape the bitter understanding that came to me. then i remembered what you said one day when a wretched girl had been hounded out of the village because of her transgression." "what i said?" repeated ingersoll, baffled in the effort to follow her train of thought. "yes. you were speaking to some man who was angered by the merciless attitude of the peasant women to one of their own sex. you blamed the misleading teachings of narrow-minded theologians, and reminded him of christ's words to the pharisees who brought before him some poor creature who had fallen. they taunted him with the mosaic law, which ordered that she and her like should be pelted with stones; but he only said that the man who was without sin among them should cast the first stone. and the crowd melted, and christ was left alone with the sinner, whom he forgave. i did not know then just what you meant. i did not know until i heard my mother confessing her fault, and asking me, her daughter, for forgiveness." "unhappily our everyday world is not ruled by the maxims of christ. the girl you speak of went to brest, and her body was found in the harbor a fortnight later." "i remembered that too." "if you go to your mother now, you may set in motion influences that may darken your whole life." "if i did not go, i would never forgive myself--never!" "prudence, the merest sort of commonsense, warns me that we ought to get away from pont aven by the first possible train." "father dear, what did peridot say to you before he brought the hirondelle round into the wind off les verrés? i couldn't hear, of course. but do you think i could not read your face? had you not to decide whether or not you would risk my life as well as your own? you were sure of lorry--who wouldn't be? but it came hard to sacrifice me as well. did you obey commonsense then? did you even hesitate?" ingersoll threw up a hand in a gesture of sheer hopelessness, and pretended to search for a box of matches on the mantelpiece. "so be it!" he said wearily. "don't think i am afraid of any rival in your affection, yvonne. perhaps your woman's heart is wiser than my gray head. but, mark you, i make two stipulations! no matter what transpires, you must come home before eleven o'clock; and it is impossible, absolutely impossible, that your mother and i should ever meet!" he was choosing his words carelessly that night. how "impossible" it would have seemed that morning had some wizard foretold the events of the succeeding hours! but yvonne also was deaf to all but his yielding. she ran to him, and drew his face close to hers. "dad," she said, kissing him, "you are the best and dearest man in the world. how could your wife ever have left you? if i live a hundred years, i shall never understand that." she was going; but he stayed her. "yvonne, be governed by one vital consideration. those two men in the cabin must have caught some glimmer of the truth from your mother's ravings. but they are strangers, and their own troubles may have preoccupied their minds to the exclusion of the affairs of others. the only person in pont aven who knows something of my sad history is madame pitou. she has been aware all these years that my wife was alive, or at any rate that she was living after i came here. she is certainly to be trusted. take care that none other learns your mother's identity. i ask this for her own sake." the girl smiled wistfully. "yet you would have me believe you an ogre!" she said. * * * * * a few minutes later tollemache arrived. he found his friend sitting by the fire, with a pipe that had gone out between his lips. "hello, socrates!" he cried. "you're togged for the party, i see. where's yvonne?" "she was unhappy because of that poor woman who lost her husband; so i let her hurry off to julia's. they've been taken there, i suppose?" "yes. it was awfully distressing. peridot carried mrs. carmac off the boat, and by some mismanagement the light from a lantern fell on her husband's face. ill as she was, she realized that he was dead. she screamed something i couldn't attach any meaning to, and her cries as she was being put into the hotel auto were heartrending. by gad! a beastly experience!" "what did she say, lorry?" "i hardly know. it sounded like a cry for yvonne, and a protest against heaven that her husband should be taken and she left. 'i am the real offender!' she said. 'the punishment should be mine, not his!' somehow, not the sort of thing you'd expect from a distracted wife. i guess she's nearly out of her mind." "naturally. think what it meant to a delicate woman to be imprisoned in that deck saloon when the yacht keeled over. you see, lorry, we were buoyed up with the hope of being able to effect a rescue. she, on the other hand, must have gazed into the opening doors of eternity. pull up a chair. there's time for a cigarette. seven o'clock is the supper hour." tollemache obeyed. ingersoll relighted his pipe, and the two smoked in silence for a while. then the younger man glanced at his companion with a quizzical scrutiny that was altogether approving. "glad to see you've bucked up, old sport," he said. "you were thoroughly knocked out by the time we reached the quay. i know why, of course." ingersoll stooped to throw back into the fire a half-burnt log that had fallen out on to the hearth. "do you?" he said calmly. "great scott! i should think so, indeed! it was one thing that we three men should go into that death trap, but quite another that you should bring yvonne into it. bless your heart, yvonne was watching peridot and you, and told me what you were saying. 'dear old dad,' she said, 'he feels like jephthah when he had to sacrifice his daughter.' made me go cold all over. gee whizz! i was pleased it wasn't i who had to make the choice between turning back and running into safety--where my sister--or my wife--was concerned." tollemache stammered and reddened as his tongue tripped on the concluding words; but the older man paid no heed. he was too profoundly relieved by an explanation that differed so materially from the avowal he dreaded. "by the way, lorry, that journey to paris is postponed," he said after a pause. "good! it was hardly like you to bolt out of the place when you were most needed. those sailormen would be at sixes and sevens tomorrow if we didn't show up." "i must leave that part of the business to you," said ingersoll slowly. "i mean to efface myself entirely. indeed, i'm thinking of paying a long-deferred visit to forbes, at concarneau. yvonne and you can manage splendidly in my absence. now, don't argue, there's a good chap. i rather lost my head on being brought into contact with two people with whom i quarreled years ago; or, to be precise, my animus was not against the poor fellow who is dead. of course his wife is bound to recall the facts, and it would place her in a difficult position when she discovered that i was one of her rescuers. women are apt to form curious notions about such matters. it was an extraordinary misfortune, to say the least, that her husband should be the one man whom we failed to save. i think you follow me?" "oh, yes--the irony of fate, and that sort of thing," said tollemache with an air of wisdom. he was convinced that he understood the position exactly. ingersoll stood upright, drew in a deep breath that was curiously like a sigh, and tapped his pipe against the stone pillars of the fireplace. "i hear sounds of revelry by night," he said. "herri has arrived with the bagpipes." "dash it all!" growled tollemache. "i don't feel a scrap like dancing this evening. that unhappy woman's shrieks are still ringing in my ears." "we must adjust ourselves to the conditions," said ingersoll quietly. "life, like art, is a matter of light and shade. each of us sails a tiny craft through an unknown sea, and if we can give a brother or sister a cheery hail--why, let us do it, though our own vessel be sinking steadily. i'm in no mood for revel,--goodness knows!--but, with yvonne absent, you and i must help mère pitou to entertain her guests. some excellent folk are coming here from nizon and nevez. her sister is driving in from riec. you'll hear some real old breton ballads tonight. pity yvonne isn't here to translate them. my acquaintance with the language is limited; but madeleine or barbe will tell you the drift of the words." "won't yvonne be here later?" inquired tollemache, striving to cloak his disappointment. "i'm inclined to think she will remain with mrs. carmac till eleven or thereabouts." "but the doctor is there--and a nurse." "unless i am greatly mistaken, mrs. carmac will prefer yvonne to any nurse. there is a cousinship of nationality, you know. now, lorry, no grumbling. let's make the best of things." * * * * * a knock at the door heralded the entrance of a dozen or more smiling and self-possessed bretons. the studio was the only room in the house large enough to hold the company that would gather within the next few minutes. the living room was packed with tables and chairs; hence, on fête days, ingersoll's quarters were invaded. the artist was acquainted with everyone present, and tollemache was no stranger to the majority. nearly all were of the well-to-do yeoman class; for mère pitou belonged to an old family, and her husband, a farrier, had been well thought of in pont aven. men and women wore the national costume, and appeared that evening in grand state. the women's full-skirted dresses were of black cashmere, trimmed and slashed with deep bands of black velvet; but this somber setting was merely a foil to aprons and overbodices wrought in gold, silver, and bright-hued silk threads, the whole blended in pretty designs with an oriental lavishness of color and sheen. the coifs, though bearing a general similarity of design, varied for each district. the abundant and jet-black hair of these breton dames and demoiselles was waved over the forehead and coiled somewhat toward the back of the head. round the twisted tresses was placed, in the first instance, the _petite coiffe_, a stiff white linen band three inches deep, which, pinned securely, served as the basis of a dainty superstructure. a strip of silk ribbon, cream, pink, or light blue, hid the _petite coiffe_, and showed its tint through the meshes of the coronet of fine lace and cambric forming the _grande coiffe_, with its coquettish white streamers falling below the neck. round the throat, and deeply cut, was the broad linen collar, highly starched, and so wide that its wings projected over the shoulders, leaving a space across the top of the breast to reveal the lace edging of an underbodice. these collars would puzzle any laundress who was not a bretonne if she were asked to prepare them, because their graceful curves, molded to the slope of the shoulders and the straight line of the back, are obtained by a process of wrinkling, or furrowing, effected by the use of long straws when the linen has been lightly ironed when it is still damp and pliable. age does not affect the style of dress. the girl of eight is attired exactly like her grandmother, the only variation being seen in the shoes, the younger people mostly donning white doeskin, and the older ones black patent leather with silver buckles. the men too, without exception, wore tight-fitting gray trousers, short jackets of black cloth, with tabliers of black velvet and ornamental buttons. some dandies affected gold, silver, and colored silk embroidery down each side of the front of the jacket. their hats were low-crowned, black felt wideawakes, with heavy bands of black velvet, carrying showy buckles of silver on a rosette. a more light-hearted, jovial, and picturesque company it would be difficult to find, or, considering its nature, one more expensively dressed. (strangers, especially of the fair sex, who decide to purchase "a brittany costume" for the next fancy dress ball, are likely to be unpleasantly surprised when they inquire the price. the materials are invariably the best of their kind, and the lace and embroidery are handworked. naturally one such outfit lasts several years.) * * * * * ingersoll moved among these free-mannered, laughter-loving folk as though he had not a care in the world. some notion of the disaster to the stella had spread, and he was called on for particulars, which he gave in sufficient detail. the men appreciated the peril from which the hirondelle had extricated herself, the women were prodigal of their sympathy with the american woman who had lost her husband. tollemache, listening to his friend's easy flow of talk, wondered more than ever what sort of nervous attack it was that induced that amazing display of terror at the moment of landing. supper was ended when peridot put in an appearance. his face was flushed, and his gray-green eyes had acquired a rather suspicious luster. in a word. captain popple had discovered the excellence of liqueur brandy, and peridot, ordinarily an abstemious fellow, had proved himself a less seasoned vessel than his host. madeleine was the first to notice his condition, and it troubled her. she rather avoided him, and as a consequence he affected a loud-voiced and boisterous good-humor. "_gars!_" he cried, seizing the opportunity when the girl refused to dance the gavotte with him. "where is yvonne? she can foot it better than any of you." now he had never before alluded to yvonne by her christian name. while the bretons are not toadies, they are polite, and the artist's daughter ranked as an aristocrat in the village. an awkward silence fell. even ingersoll shot an inquiring glance at the fisherman. "mademoiselle yvonne is at the hotel julia," said mère pitou. "pity she didn't see you as she was going." "why?" grinned peridot. "because you might have known then how to address her. by this time you seem to have forgotten." "_que diable!_ i meant no offense, madame. i suppose she's looking after the lady who claimed her as a daughter." "what sayest thou, imbecile?" "fact," said peridot, with drunken gravity. "i asked a man who speaks english what the lady was screaming as i tucked her into the auto, and he told me----" "larraidou," broke in ingersoll, pallid with sudden anger, "you had better go home." then peridot too flared into wrath. "what have i done wrong?" he cried. "_cré nom!_ they're as like as two peas in a pod! come, now, monsieur--is there any harm in saying that?" ingersoll turned to tollemache. "lorry," he said, "oblige me by taking our talkative friend to his house. he will be glad of it in the morning." so, protesting loudly that some people made a lot of fuss about nothing, peridot vanished with a shattered halo. but the mischief had been done. next day all pont aven would be discussing mrs. carmac's strange delusion. in the view of the one man who knew the whole truth, it was the beginning of the end. chapter vi a lull peridot lived on the toulifot, a steep and rocky road that once upon a time was pont aven's main avenue to the interior of france. on the way he was consumed with maudlin sorrow that his beloved patron, monsieur ingersoll, should have forbidden him to take further part in the feast. "tell me, then, what was my fault," he protested to tollemache. "name of a pipe! can't a fellow take a thimbleful of cognac to keep the cold out?" "thimbleful!" laughed tollemache. "the sort of thimble you used would make a hat for any ordinary head." "the skipper of the stella is a _bon garçon_, and showed his gratitude," said peridot. "i could have carried the liquor like a drum major if i hadn't fasted at le pouldu so as to keep a good appetite for supper." "ah! that's it, is it? well, i'll make matters straight with monsieur ingersoll in the morning." tollemache had every reason to believe that the fisherman was speaking the truth. he had not seen peridot intoxicated during five years of fairly close acquaintance. "the worst thing is that madeleine will be holding her nose in the air every time she meets me for a month," came the dejected whine. "i'll tell her too how the accident happened. you'll be joking about it yourself tomorrow, old fellow." "_tiens!_ i've got it," and peridot stood stock still in an attitude of oracular gravity. "monsieur ingersoll was angry, not because i was a trifle elevated, but on account of what i said about ma'mselle yvonne. queer thing if that lady should really be her mother!" "now i know for certain that you're drunk as an owl." "not me! _gars!_ funny things occur. i could say lots if i chose. why does monsieur ingersoll encourage ma'mselle to dress _en bretonne_? why won't he allow her to be photographed? who has ever heard what became of madame ingersoll? and aren't those two the image of each other?" "peridot," said tollemache, "it would be a sad finish to a glorious day if i were to knock you down." "it would, monsieur." "but that is just what i'll do, as sure as fate, if you utter another word concerning mademoiselle yvonne or her father." "mad!" declared the other. "all you americans are mad! a man never knows how to take you." "would you stand by and hear anyone running down madeleine demoret or her people?" "monsieur, i'd chew his ear!" "exactly. i'll spread your nose flat if you utter any more stupidities with regard to mademoiselle yvonne." the breton whistled softly, and staggered on up the hill. each few yards thereafter he halted, and whistled, evidently expressing unbounded and inarticulate surprise. all this was intensely annoying to the young american; but it had to be endured. even more trying was the leave-taking at the door of the larraidou cottage. the breton caught tollemache's hand, and was moved to tears. "monsieur," he gurgled, "you have my regrets--a thousand regrets! i understand perfectly. a frenchman comprehends these things quicker than any other man in the world, even when he has filled the lamp. _gars!_ if i chew ears and you flatten noses, between us we'll spoil the beauty of any rascal who dares open his mouth against either mademoiselle yvonne or madeleine." * * * * * with difficulty tollemache got rid of him, and strode back down the hill. he had blundered into that foolish comparison of the two girls without giving a thought to its possible significance. the one consolation was that peridot would be tongue-tied with shame next day, and would probably remember only that he had made a fool of himself. passing the hotel julia, he ran into yvonne hurrying down the steps of the annex. then, of course, he flung care to the winds. "well met!" he cried. "socrates told me you were not coming home till much later." "but where have you been?" she asked. "i imagined you were at madame pitou's ages ago." "as though you couldn't tell by my swollen appearance that i had supped on white wheat and fatted fowl," he rejoined. "of course i was there. i've been escorting peridot home. he took an extra appetizer on an empty stomach, and it upset him. how are the patients?" "dr. garnier has set the broken arm and bandaged the sprain. he gave mrs. carmac a stiff dose of bromide, and she is asleep. she will recover if her nervous system withstands the shock." "it was an extraordinary misfortune that the owner of the yacht should be the one to have his head battered in. his wife realizes now that he is dead, i suppose?" "yes, she knows." they crossed the square together. to reach the rue mathias they had to go round by the bridge and return by the right bank of the aven. the hour was not late, and many of the inhabitants were astir; but none gave heed to the unusual spectacle of a breton girl and a young man walking in company, because both were recognized instantly, and in such matters the american and english residents were a law unto themselves. had they been bred and born in the place, such a thing simply could not have happened. somehow tollemache felt a restraint that night that was both novel and unpleasing. a barrier of some sort had been erected between yvonne and himself. he cudgeled his wits to find words that would break down the obstacle, whatsoever it might be. "we've had a lively evening at madame's thus far," he said. "riec and nevez shared the honors in the gavotte; but everybody agreed that pont aven would have scored if you had been there." "i couldn't have danced tonight, lorry, on any account." "i don't see why. your father took a very sensible view. 'why shouldn't twenty hop because one has hooked it?' he said." "did he really say that?" "well, something to that effect." "poor old dad! he has had to sacrifice himself all his life." "don't you think you're making too much of the death of one man? suppose we hadn't taken peridot with us? we couldn't possibly have approached the reef, and twelve people would have gone under." "ten were strangers, and one cannot grieve for all the people who die around us. but father knew mr. and mrs. carmac years ago. didn't he tell you that?" "yes." "then you may be sure he is greatly upset. now, lorry, if there is any talk of dancing when i appear, help my excuses by saying that i ought to rest. in one sense i'm not really tired; in another i could fling myself down in a dark corner and weep my eyes out." "your eyes are too pretty to spoil in that way," said tollemache. "i'll give mère pitou the tip, and she'll fix things, i have no doubt." * * * * * but yvonne was not pressed to dance. she was so pale, the eyes that tollemache deemed too attractive that they should be marred by weeping were so dilated and luminous with unshed tears, that these big-hearted bretons sympathized with her, and she was soon permitted to escape to her own room. father and daughter exchanged few words. she supplied a brief account of the doctor's view of the injured, and he only said: "thus far things are progressing well. tomorrow morning i'm going to forbes's place, at concarneau, for a few days. tollemache and you can help mr. raymond in his negotiations with the authorities. mr. carmac was an american, by birth, if not by domicile; so it is probable that his relatives will wish the body to be embalmed and taken to the united states. i would advise mr. raymond to consult a notary, because french procedure differs essentially from american methods. i've told lorry about our altered plans. perhaps we three can take a combined trip to paris after christmas. goodnight, sweetheart. sleep well, and don't meet tomorrow's cares halfway." tollemache heard all that passed. why, he knew not, but he found himself regretting that they were not leaving pont aven by the first train in accord with ingersoll's original intent. he was more than ever conscious of that invisible wall which was now casting its shadow on their cheery intimacy. yvonne would never again be a demure breton maid or straight-legged, long-haired american schoolgirl. she had become a woman in an hour. life had flung wide its portals, and the prospect thus unfolded had saddened her inexpressibly. what sinister influence had brought about this change? could there be any actual foundation for peridot's vaporings? as he walked back to the hotel through darkened streets he recalled certain vague rumors that had reached his ears in early days. ingersoll had always posed as a widower; but someone had said that his married life was rather mysterious, since there was no record of his wife's death or place of interment. it would indeed be passing strange if the wreck of the stella had brought to pont aven the woman who was at once yvonne's mother and the wife of a complete stranger. tollemache buttoned the deep collar of an overcoat round his ears as he crossed the river, because the wind was still bitingly cold. he caught a glimpse of mère pitou's cottage on the opposite bank of the aven. there was a light in yvonne's bedroom. frankly in love, he threw her a kiss with his fingers. the action did him, in his own phrase, "a heap of good." after all, such displays of emotion come naturally in france. "i don't give a red cent who her mother was, or is, or what she has been, or turns out to be," he communed. "it's yvonne i want. if yvonne marries me some day, i'll be the happiest man who ever lived, and the most miserable if she doesn't. so there you are, lorry, my boy! you must make the best of it, whichever way the flag falls." * * * * * memories of peaceful and contented years flitted through ingersoll's mind while the steam tram lumbered next morning through tiny fields and across rambling lanes to the quay of concarneau. other memories, vivid and piercing, came of the period of love and dreams in paris. lithe and graceful and divinely beautiful as her daughter was now, stella fordyce had been then. an artist to her fingertips, she came to the studio where ingersoll was working, turning readily to the palette after some slight defect in the vocal cords had put difficulties in the way of an operatic career. it seemed to be a genuine instance of love at first sight, and they were married within three months of what was practically their first meeting; though ingersoll had seen her as a girl of fourteen several years earlier. this step was not so foolish as it might have been in the case of two young people without means. ingersoll had an income of three thousand dollars a year, and complete devotion to art in his student days had enabled him to save a small capital, which he spent on an establishment, and particularly on adorning an exceptionally handsome and attractive wife. it had been far better were they poverty-stricken. mutual privations and combined effort to improve their lot would have bound them by insoluble ties. as it was the taste for pleasure and excitement crept into stella ingersoll's blood. the first tiff between the two was the outcome of some mild protest on ingersoll's part when his wife wished to increase rather than diminish her personal expenditure after yvonne's birth. there were tears, and of course the man yielded: only to raise the point again more determinedly when an absurdly expensive dress was ordered for a ball at the opera. thenceforth the road to the precipice became ever smoother and steeper; though ingersoll did not begin to suspect the crash that lay ahead until his wife left him and fled to her relatives in america. her callous abandonment of the baby girl not yet a year old crushed to the dust the man who loved her. she told him plainly why she had gone. she was "sick to death" of petty economies. indeed, her letter of farewell was brutally frank. "i think i have qualities that equip me for a society that you and i together could never enter," she wrote. "why, then, should i deny myself while i am young, so that i may console vain regrets with copybook maxims when i am old? i see clearly that i would only embitter your life and spoil your career. be wise, and take time to reflect, and you will come to believe that i am really serving you well by seeking my own liberty. meanwhile i shall do nothing to bring discredit on your name. i promise that, on my honor!" her honor! all his life john ingersoll had hated cant, either in dogma or phrase, and this ill-judged appeal stung him to the quick. he threw the letter into the fire, left paris next day, and his wife's strenuous efforts to discover his whereabouts during the subsequent year failed completely. then he heard by chance that she had divorced him, and married walter h. carmac in her maiden name, and the tragic romance of his life closed with a sigh of relief, because, as he fancied, the curtain had fallen on its last act. he little dreamed that an epilogue would be staged nearly nineteen years later. he was in such a state of mental distress that at concarneau he sat a whole hour in a café opposite the station, meaning to return to pont aven by the next train. but the man's natural clarity of reasoning came to his aid. he forced himself to think dispassionately. two vital principles served as rallying points in that time of silent battle,--yvonne must not be reft with crude violence from the grief-stricken and physically broken woman who claimed a daughter's sympathy, and he himself must avoid meeting this wife risen from the tomb. he had acted right, after all, in seeking refuge with his friend. * * * * * yvonne that same morning found her mother sitting up in bed, sipping a cup of chocolate. the nurse, a woman from the village, hailed the girl's presence gleefully. "will you be remaining a few minutes, mademoiselle she inquired, seeing that invalid and visitor were on terms of intimacy. "yes, as long as you like, or will permit, madame bertrand," said yvonne. "that is well, then. i can go to my house for a little half-hour. there only two instructions. madame must remain quiet. if she shows any signs of faintness, send at once for dr. garnier." "i shall be strict and watchful," smiled the girl, and the two were left alone. her mother's first question threatened to disobey at least one of the doctor's instructions. "does your father know you have come here?" she asked, and her voice trembled with foreboding. "yes, dear. now if you excite yourself in that way, i shall be expelled by the doctor," for the graceful head collapsed to the pillow in sheer gratitude, and the chocolate was nearly spilled. "but you must tell me, yvonne! will he permit us to meet?" "do you think my father would forbid it? how you must have misunderstood his real nature! he has even gone away from pont aven for a few days, so that his presence in the village may not be irksome to you. shall we try and pretend to forget what has passed, dear? it is useless to grieve now over the mistakes of other years. and you will see, i am sure, that no one in pont aven should be able even to guess at our true relationship. i ask that for my father's sake. i love him dearly, and would not have him suffer." with a splendid effort the older woman raised herself in the bed and summoned a wan smile. "indeed, indeed," she cried, "i will do nothing more to injure him! is that a hand mirror on the dressing table? please give it me." yvonne hesitated, and her mother smiled again. "i shall not grieve because of white and drawn cheeks," she said. when she held, the mirror in a thin hand, and compared its reflection with yvonne herself with critical eyes, the girl grasped her true intent. her abundant hair, only a shade darker than yvonne's own brown tresses, framed the well poised head and slender neck. distress and lack of solid food had lent a pallor to cheeks and forehead which had the curious effect of rendering the clear-cut features strikingly youthful. mouth and chin had a certain quality of hardness and obstinacy not discernible in the girl's face. otherwise they resembled sisters rather than mother and daughter. "yvonne," she said wistfully, "if we say we are strangers, no one will believe. i shall invent a twin sister. you are my niece. i quarreled with my sister because she married an impoverished painter. thin ice; but it must carry us. your father has done the wisest possible thing in leaving pont aven today. he refuses to forgive my shabby treatment of a sister; but christian charity impels him not to forbid you from visiting me. don't volunteer this information. let it be dragged from you unwillingly. it is a cruel thing that my first advice to you should be a lesson in duplicity; but i have earned that sort of scourge, and must endure. now you understand. we are aunt and niece. don't be surprised if i act a little when the nurse returns. by the way, write to your father and tell him what i have said. i'm sure he will approve, and the fact that i am eager to make this small atonement for the wrong i did him will show that i still retain some sense of fair dealing." "yes, dear, i'll write today. i don't think it is very wicked to adopt a pretense that enables me to visit you without--without setting idle tongues wagging." "without causing a village scandal, you might well have said," came the bitter retort. "very well, yvonne, i will not say such things," for the girl winced at the unerring judgment that supplied the words that had nearly escaped her. "now let us talk of other matters. tell me something of yourself. where and how do you live? why are you wearing that costume? do you dress like that habitually? and how wonderfully it becomes you! talk, dear, and i'll listen, and if i fall asleep when you are talking don't imagine that i am heedless and inattentive; for i have been brought nearer happiness in this hour than i would have believed possible yesterday. do you realize that the wreck was directly due to my folly? the captain wished to put into the aven estuary when the storm became very bad; but i refused to permit it. wallie--that is mr. carmac--always yielded to my whims, and he imagined i preferred lorient to pont aven. i didn't. i knew that your father lived here. his art proved more enduring than a woman's faith. it has made him famous; though i had the cruelty, the impertinence, to tell him once that he would never emerge from the ruck. i never heard of you. for some reason i thought you had died in infancy. yvonne, heaven forgive me, i may even have wished it! but you see now why i wanted to avoid pont aven. as though any of god's creatures can resist when he points the way!" so it was the mother who did most of the talking, and the daughter who listened, with never a word of reproach, and not even a hint that had a wilful and conscience-tortured woman not imposed her imperious will on the stella's course the yacht would have ridden the gale in safety in a roadstead five miles removed from the village of pont aven itself! when madame bertrand bustled in her patient was asleep, and yvonne's cheeks were tear-stained. "poor lady!" murmured the breton woman. "she's nothing but a bundle of nerves. all night long, after the effect of the bromide had passed, she kept crying out for her daughter--meaning you, mademoiselle. what a notion! yet you are so alike!" "with good reason, madame," said the girl. "she is my mother's sister. there was a family quarrel years ago. please keep this to yourself; though madame carmac will probably tell you of it later." yvonne was glad, when her father's letter arrived, to find that he agreed with the little deception, which hurt none, and explained away the seemingly inexplicable. * * * * * on the second day after the wreck mrs. carmac, outwardly at least, was restored to good health, and assumed direction of her husband's affairs. sending for captain popple, she asked if any effort had been made to salve the large sum of money and store of jewelry on board the yacht. the red-faced mariner had evidently been giving thought to the same problem. "no, ma'am," he said. "when the vessel struck those on deck had no mind to go below, and those below were hard put to it to get on deck. we all lost everything except what we stood up in. it has been blowin' great guns ever since, and a french gentleman who knows every inch of the coast tells me that the reef may be ungetatable for a fortnight, or even a month, unless there's a change in the weather." "when you say you lost everything do you mean that you and some members of the crew lost money as well as clothing?" "no, ma'am. if any swab has the howdacity to pretend that a sovereign or two has slipped out of his pockets, i won't believe 'im; but it'll be hard to prove the contrary." "are you in any special hurry to return home? have you another yacht in view?" some men might have hesitated, but popple was bluntly honest, both in nature and speech. "bless your heart, ma'am!" he said huskily, "i'll get no more yachts unless i'm a luckier man after turnin' fifty than ever i was afore. the stella was my last seagoin' job, an' no mistake." "then you will not suffer professionally by remaining here?" "i'll stop as long as you like, ma'am." "very well. i have telegraphed to my london bankers for a supply of money, which should reach me tomorrow. i want you to arrange for salvage operations. employ a diver, and hire such other assistance as may be necessary. it is important that a jewelcase in one of my trunks should be recovered, if possible, also five thousand pounds in french and english bank-notes which is in a leather wallet locked in a steamer trunk beneath my husband's bed. that trunk also contains a number of important papers. i shall be glad if it is brought to me unopened, no matter what the expense. meanwhile make out a list of all that is reasonably owing to the men, and tell them i shall arrange at once for their return to southampton." "i've done that already, ma'am. mr. raymond tole me to get busy." "ah! that was thoughtful of him. in future, however, take orders from no one but me." captain popple was evidently about to offer a comment, but checked himself in time. "right you are, ma'am," he said. mrs. carmac smiled quietly. this outspoken sailor's face was easy to read. yvonne was present, and he hardly knew what to say. "you had something else on the tip of your tongue, captain," she prompted. "out with it! i have no secrets from this young lady." "i don't like contradict'ry sailin' orders, ma'am, an' that's a fact," admitted the skipper. "mr. raymond axed me not to do a thing, no matter who gev the word, without consultin' him." "his arm is broken, i believe?" "yes, ma'am; but he's able to get about today." "that simplifies matters. kindly send him here." the sailor raised his hand in a clumsy salute, and went out. * * * * * "i am not an admirer of mr. raymond," said mrs. carmac to yvonne. "he was a useful sort of person to my husband; but he has a uriah heep manner which i dislike intensely. now i shall get rid of him." for an instant the breton shrewdness of judgment came uppermost in the girl. "don't make an unnecessary enemy," she ventured to suggest. "i simply purpose dismissing him on very generous terms." "but--have you--forgotten--perhaps you never knew--how wildly you spoke that night in the cabin of the hirondelle? mr. raymond was there too. he may have overheard a good deal." mrs. carmac was momentarily staggered. "do you think so?" she cried rather breathlessly. "there was every opportunity. i saw the man, and he retained his senses, though in great pain." "thanks for the warning, dear. i'll handle him gently." "shall i go?" "i prefer that you should remain." "but it might be better if you were to see him alone. he has not met me since we came ashore." "well--you may be right. i'll take your advice. don't leave me too long alone. i mope when you are away." yvonne slipped out. she passed raymond on the stairs; but he gave her no heed, regarding her as belonging to the establishment. * * * * * the secretary was a small, slightly built man, and, contrary to the rule that renders undersized mortals rather aggressive in manner, carried himself with a shrinking air, as though he wished to avoid observation. he had an intelligent face; though its general expression was somewhat marred by a heavy chin and eyes set too closely together. he looked pale and ill; which was only natural, because his broken arm, the right one, had not been attended to by a doctor until nearly three hours after the accident. he was about thirty-five, but looked much older that morning, and yvonne wondered if he had any forewarning of trouble, so compressed were his thin lips and so frowning his brows. he found his late employer's wife standing at the window, gazing down into the little triangular place, as pont aven calls its public square. yvonne was passing in front of the four sycamores. she had, in fact, secured a mourning order for her friend, le sellin the tailor, and was going to his shop on some errand connected therewith. her mother noted the girl's free and graceful walk, and approved the proud carriage of her head, on which the white coif sat like a coronet. she sighed, and did not turn until yvonne had vanished. then she faced the waiting secretary. "ah, that you?" she said carelessly. "pardon me if i seemed rude, mr. raymond. my thoughts were wandering. my niece has just left me, and, as i have not seen her for many years until she and her father saved our lives the other evening, i was minded to watch her crossing the square." "your niece, did you say, mrs. carmac?" raymond's voice was pitched in the right key of hesitancy and interested surprise; but this worldly wise woman was far too skilled a student of human nature to miss the underlying note of skepticism. "usually i speak clearly," she said, with a touch of hauteur. "yes, of course. i caught the word quite accurately. but may i remind you that you addressed her as your daughter in the cabin of the hirondelle?" "does it matter to you, mr. raymond, how i addressed her?" "no, no. i was only anxious to correct my own false impression." mrs. carmac suddenly bethought herself. "my wits are still wool gathering," she cried. "won't you sit down? i have a good many things to discuss with you. is your arm very painful? happily i have never suffered from a broken limb; but it sounds quite dreadful." raymond sank into a comfortable chair, steadying himself with his left hand. "it's not so bad now," he said. "by comparison with the torture of thursday afternoon it is more than bearable. the chief misfortune lies in the fact that my right arm is out of action. i had no idea how little use i made of my left hand until i tried to write with it." "the doctor seems to be a very clever man; but if you think it advisable to have your injury seen to by an expert----" "oh, it's only a simple fracture. i have every reason to believe that it is properly set. indeed, all it needs now is efficient dressing--and time." "how did you come to break it?" "i was flung down the companionway when the yacht turned on her beam ends." "but the last thing i remember, and very vividly too, is that you and i were holding to a rail and looking out through the forward window of the deck saloon. we felt a curious trembling of the hull, and the vessel swung round from the wind. there was a strange lull, and captain popple shouted something. i asked you what it was, and you said that the shaft had broken, and we should be dashed against the rocks in ten minutes or less. then, i suppose, i fainted." "i had not seen the reef. even captain popple thought we should clear it. as a matter of fact, we struck within a minute." "and you were thrown over then? i must have fallen earlier." "yes. my recollection is hazy as to what actually occurred." "the marvel is that either of us is living," she said lightly. "i gather from captain popple that you have taken charge of affairs since we were brought ashore. will you kindly tell me what you have done?" "in the first instance i telegraphed to mr. carmac's nephew mr. rupert fosdyke, his lawyer mr. bennett, his office, and his bankers. the text of each message was practically identical. it ran, 'yacht wrecked and total loss off finistère. mr. carmac unfortunately killed, but all others rescued. mrs. carmac seriously ill, but may recover.' i'm sorry i took an exaggerated view of your state; but the circumstances seemed to warrant it. then i sent to paris for an embalmer. did i do right?" at that instant her daughter's parting words rang in her ears. "don't make an unnecessary enemy." good advice! she must tread warily, or her sky might fall and crush her. "yes. as i shall receive mr. fosdyke and mr. bennett when they arrive, i think i shall rest now," she said faintly. "i am greatly beholden to you, mr. raymond. you are so intimately acquainted with my husband's affairs that i should be lost without your help." she had meant to dismiss him forthwith, with a year's salary, and raymond himself was prepared for some such action on her part; otherwise he would never have hinted at his possession of a secret so fraught with possibilities as the existence of a grown-up daughter, a daughter too whose father was living, and actually resident in pont aven. he was taken aback now, and bowed as courteously as his bandaged arm would permit. "i shall be only too happy and proud to give you my best services, mrs. carmac," he said. chapter vii mischief raymond felt that he had taken the step that counts, and resolved to make certain inquiries without delay. already a cautious experiment with tollemache had failed. lorry had said that he knew nothing of ingersoll's history before the last five years, and had shown some surprise at the question. captain popple, however, had mentioned peridot; so raymond climbed the steep toulifot, and within five minutes of his departure from mrs. carmac's quarters was at the breton's house. as it happened, peridot was at home, it being the hour of _déjeuner_, and a grateful incense of grilled haddock and fried potatoes greeted the visitor. he was recognized instantly of course, and invited to enter, and peridot broke into a voluble expression of his pleasure at finding monsieur so far recovered that he was able to take a little promenade. raymond gathered the drift of this speech, as he understood french better than he spoke it. "i have taken the liberty to call and thank you personally for the aid you rendered on thursday evening," he said laboriously. "you and the others did a wonderful thing. the captain of the yacht has explained it to me. i was injured when the vessel struck, and knew little of what took place afterward." "it was lucky for you, monsieur, that we happened to be out that day. if we hadn't been passing at that very moment, nothing could have saved you. the people at brigneau tell me that the yacht broke in two and fell into deep water before we were well clear of the reef." neither peridot nor raymond had any inkling of mrs. carmac's projected salvage work by a diver, or the breton would have added his conviction that the fierce tides racing along the finistère coast would render the success of any such undertaking doubtful in the extreme. "the gentleman who owns the hirondelle is an artist, i believe?" went on raymond. "one of the most renowned," said peridot. "his daughter was with him?" "the prettiest girl in pont aven, monsieur." "is there a madame ingersoll?" now, peridot was sober as a judge that day, and his breton wits worked quickly. he did not fail to recall his friend's distress on hearing the name of the stella's owner, nor his avowed desire to escape recognition. true, monsieur ingersoll had not gone to paris; but barbe had told him of the journey to concarneau, and everyone in pont aven knew of yvonne's close attendance on madame carmac. moreover, did not monsieur ingersoll show terrible anger because of an unhappy reference to the likeness between his daughter and the american lady, and had not peridot himself promised to lie like a gendarme if any questions were asked? now was his chance to serve a generous patron. this little fox of a man, with beady eyes and cruel mouth, had come there to pry! very well--he should go away stuffed with information! all this required but a fraction of a second to flash across a lively french brain. "monsieur ingersoll is a widower, monsieur." peridot was merely stepping back in order to jump farther. "ah, yes. i have heard that. his wife died before he came to pont aven, i suppose?" "oh, no, monsieur. poor lady! i knew her well! her last words to me were, 'peridot, you were born with a caul, and will never be drowned; so promise me that when my husband and little yvonne go to sea you will always be with them.' you see, she went off in a consumption, and----" "pardon!" interrupted raymond, sorely chagrined by the immense significance of the fisherman's words, supposing he had followed their meaning correctly. "will you be good enough to speak more slowly? what were you born with?" "_une coiffe d'enfant, monsieur._" raymond knew neither the word nor the curious superstition attached to it; but he caught the one thing of vital interest. "so madame ingersoll lived in pont aven?" he went on, and his rancorous tone betrayed venom and disappointment. peridot, convinced now that he was doing the artist a good turn, gave full play to his imagination. "certainly, monsieur," he said. "never was there a more devoted couple. quite a romance, their courting! she was a fine lady, as anyone can see with half an eye by squinting at her daughter, and he a poor artist. her people used to come in the summer to a château nearby, and one day when they met he gave her a beautiful pink rose. her mother was angry, and made her throw the flower away; but an artist was not to be bested by any nose-tilted mama. he knew that they went to the church at nizon; so he made a paper rose, and borrowed a ladder, and stuck the token between the topmost stones of an arch in the church right above their heads, so that pretty mademoiselle adrienne must see it when she lifted her eyes to heaven. there was a lot of talk about that rose, and no one except the girl guessed who put it there. if you care to walk out to nizon, monsieur, you'll see the faded leaves stuck in the arch to this day. of course i can't vouch for the tale; but the fact that it is told of those two shows what devoted lovers they were." "is madame ingersoll buried at nizon?" that was raymond's last despairing effort. the fisherman's story tallied accurately with mrs. carmac's version of a sister's marriage and a family quarrel. peridot thought he had gone far enough: his next effort showed less exuberance. "no, monsieur," he said, with a solemn wagging of his head, "when she died she was taken back to her own people, somewhere near paris." "was she a frenchwoman, then?" "french and american, i believe, monsieur. spoke both languages like a native." utterly disheartened, raymond made off. the fortune he had seen within his grasp had melted into thin air. * * * * * peridot gazed after him, and pursed his lips. "now i wonder what mischief that fellow is up to?" he mused. "jean," said his mother, "come and eat; but first ask the good lord to save you from choking." "why, mother?" "because of the lies you told that gentleman. and that yarn about the rose at nizon!" "what business is it of his who mademoiselle yvonne's mother was, or where she lived, or when she died?" "but everyone in pont aven knows that monsieur ingersoll came here from paris with the little one. and we women have often said to one another it was strange that never a word was uttered about his wife, whether she was alive or dead." "then it is high time someone spoke of the lady, and i gave her an excellent character today. all i hope is that it suffices." it did nearly suffice. but for the tongue of a garrulous woman, harvey raymond would have given his close attention to matters that he might rightly deem of more pressing and immediate interest; the salving of the stella's belongings, for instance, which came to his knowledge almost accidentally. the more he reflected on peridot's scraps of history the more he was convinced that he had found a mare's nest, despite mrs. carmac's extraordinary outburst in the hirondelle's cabin. exhausted and pain-tortured though he had been, he could still distinguish between the raving of dementia and the ungoverned cry of a soul just snatched from death and startled beyond measure by the apparition of a long-forgotten daughter. nevertheless he must have been mistaken. mrs. carmac had given way to a delusion. he knew that the absence of children had provided the only sorrow in the lives of a most devoted couple, and the thought had evidently taken a subconscious form in the mind of a woman whose faculties were bemused by cold and fear. reviewing matters in the new light vouchsafed by the garrulous breton, he saw that nearly every circumstance bore out the theory that mrs. carmac and the late mrs. ingersoll were sisters. ingersoll's thoughtfulness in sending tollemache with a message concerning the peculiarities of french law (the legal procedure with regard to the dead man had been intrusted to a local notary), the fact that the niece visited her aunt, and now the crushing discovery that the girl's mother was actually remembered in the village, seemed to put completely out of court any wild theory of an invalid marriage following an american divorce. of course if such a thing could be proved, if carmac's english will could be upset in favor of rupert fosdyke, above all if harvey raymond alone knew the whole truth, and could wring stiff terms from fosdyke before the latter so much as guessed at the grounds for a successful claim, then indeed a new era would open up before the eyes of one who hungered for wealth without having a spark of the genius that might create it honestly. he was of that large and increasing class which is in many respects the worst product of modern social conditions. he had little to do, was well paid, and traveled far and wide, because mr. and mrs. carmac were restless beings, and seldom lived more than three months of each year on the delightful estate they owned in surrey. nevertheless a canker of discontent had eaten into his moral fiber. he was a disappointed man, unscrupulous, greedy, a potential blackmailer. mrs. carmac disliked him, he knew; yet she was retaining his services. that was a puzzle. he must be wary and alert. if not a prior marriage, there was _something_. he must probe and delve into the past. somehow, somewhere, he would unearth a guarded secret. * * * * * luck would have it that he met captain popple, standing on the "terrace," with his hands in his pockets and a pipe clenched between his teeth, gazing up at the sky. "good day, sir," said the sailor. "glad to see yer movin' around. now if i could on'y figure out the lingo they talk in pont aven, i'd swap idees on the weather with any old charac-ter i saw at anchor." "what is it you want to know, captain?" said raymond, hailing the other's presence as a relief from somber thoughts. "well, to my thinkin', the weather's goin' to clear. the wind's a trifle steadier, and gone round a point to east'ard. at this time o' year that means a risin' glass an' frost." "a frost would be more cheerful, certainly, than a gale howling about the chimneys." "the sea will fall too. a couple of tides should iron it out, an' i'll have a peep at that reef." "but why?" "mrs. carmac's orders, sir. i'm to spare no expense in searchin' for some boxes an' other oddments." raymond turned abruptly, and walked to a garden seat beneath the window of the hotel dining room. he moved with a curious swing of the legs, as though his knees were unequal to the task of supporting his body. popple followed hastily. "w'at's up?" he cried. "are ye feelin' bad? been doin' too much, i s'pose." "no. it's nothing. could you--call a maid? if i have a sip of brandy--and rest awhile--the weakness will pass." the skipper bustled into the hotel and found a waitress. "cognac--queek!" he said. the girl smiled. she understood fully. "_oui, monsieur_," she said. but popple deemed the matter urgent. "gentleman eel--vare seek," he insisted. "yes, sir," said the maid, to her hearer's profound surprise. "i've got you. i'll be along before you can say 'knife.'" "sink me!" roared popple. "here have i been spittin' french all this time, an' you can sling the right stuff at me in that style!" he received another broad smile, and the linguist vanished. thenceforth the two held long conversations when they met; but some days elapsed before popple realized that the chat was rather one-sided. the girl had been taught a few slang phrases by an american artist, which, together with a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the average tourist's requirements, completed her vocabulary. * * * * * "lord love a duck, but it's a treat to hear honest english once more!" he said, returning to raymond, whose pinched face was a ghastly yellow. "how are ye now, sir? gettin' over it?" "yes. i'm not what you would regard as robust, captain, and thursday afternoon's experiences placed a severe strain on my powers of resistance. did you say you expected a frost? the weather is quite mild today, don't you think? sit down, and join me in a drink when the brandy comes." "don't mind if i do, sir. but are you sure you oughtn't to be in bed?" "quite sure. i walked a little too far, and i find these hills trying--that is all. ah, here comes marie with the medicine." "is that your name--marie?" inquired popple, eying the girl admiringly. "yes, sir," and a pair of fine breton brown eyes sparkled. "an' very nice too!" said he. "mighty fetchin' rig the gals have in this part," he went on, pouring out some brandy for raymond, which the latter drank neat. "they look like so many dandy housemaids got up for a fancy ball. now, if my old woman could see me makin' googoo eyes at a tasty bit like marie--well, there'd be a double entry in the family log." "what's this nonsense that mrs. carmac has got into her head about salving certain articles from the stella?" said raymond, whose voice had regained its normal harshness of tone. small men usually have strong voices. your giant of a fellow will pipe in a childish treble. "why do you say it's nonsense, sir?" demanded popple sharply. "what else can it be? salvage, in relation to a yacht pounded to pieces on an exposed reef two days ago! i don't think 'nonsense' too strong a term." "it wouldn't be if every mortal thing had been bangin' on those rocks ever since. but the stella was partin' amidships afore we were clear of her. she'd slip over into deep water within a few minutes, an' lie there quiet enough. anyhow, them's my orders." raymond might be cantankerous because of his disablement; but popple had suddenly remembered that mrs. carmac had resented the secretary's earlier interference. raymond, however, helped to smooth over the difficulty. "of course i am only expressing an opinion," he said. "i admit it is not worth much. a little while ago i was speaking to larraidou, the fisherman whom people here call peridot, you know, and had i known then of your project i should have asked him what he thought of it." "the sea is one big mystery, an' that's a fact," said popple, refilling his pipe, and nodding his head to emphasize a bit of sententious philosophy born of experience. "it'll gobble up a ship, an' you'll never find a scrap of timber or a life belt to tell you what's become of her, an' in the next breath it'll show a thing as plain as though it was writ in a book. a friend of mine, skipper of a hull trawler, missed a deckhand one day, and no one knew what had become of him. that night they shot the trawl in sixty fathom o' water, an' brought up the man's body. that's w'at the sea can do, sir. talk of women bein' fickle--they ain't in it with the most changeable thing on this earth." raymond poured out a second glass of brandy. "at any rate, you'll not recover a dead body from the stella's wreckage," he said, with a ghastly grin. "you never can tell," said popple. "but surely, captain, you don't pretend that the finding of a drowned sailor in a trawl net was other than an accident?" "that's as may be. s'pose some poor wastrel had been charged with knockin' a matey on the head an' chuckin' him overboard. the doctor's evidence would clear him. then it 'ud ha been providential." "i shall refuse to believe that you will retrieve any of the stella's contents until i see them. of course i know why mrs. carmac is so anxious that the effort should be made. there were thousands of pounds' worth of pearls and diamonds in her jewelcase. one pearl necklace alone cost ten thousand pounds many years ago, and would fetch far more today." "queer you should mention that, sir," commented popple. "why?" the question came with strange eagerness. the prospect of salvage was either fascinating or highly distasteful to raymond. "because that's the one thing i shouldn't expect to come across." "you are speaking in riddles, man. what have you in your mind?" popple turned a mildly inquiring eye on this testy companion. he thought, "that drop o' spirit has gone the wrong way, my friend." but what he said was, "i was thinkin' of the sea's whims. it'll hide a six-decked liner an' give up a corpse. if mrs. carmac was keen set on pickin' up a pair o' scissors, i'd back them to turn up as ag'in' your ten-thousand-pound necklace. mebbe that's a silly thing to say in this case. her jew'ls are in a locked box, an' a strong one at that, because i twigged her baggage when it kem aboard, an' the lot was built for hard wear. but there you are! i'll take care she has a look at the stuff we find, an' that ends my job." "you can count on me, captain, for all the assistance i can render," said raymond, and the subject dropped. * * * * * "by the way," he went on, adopting the most nonchalant tone he could command, "have you met mrs. carmac's niece since we came ashore?" "me, sir? no. didn't know there was any such young woman." "you have not been told, then, that mrs. carmac found a long-lost niece in miss yvonne ingersoll?" popple slapped a stout thigh, and his eyes rounded in surprise. "sink me! but that explains it!" he cried. "explains what?" "i wondered where i had seen the girl in bib an' tucker afore." "what do you mean?" "well, these here caps an' streamers an' tickle-me aprons do make a heap of difference! now what in the world will she think of me? i've passed her a dozen times without ever a 'thank you, miss,' or a touch of me hat. dash my buttons! i thought my eyes were sharper'n that! of course she was wrapped in a sou'wester an' oilskin the other day, an' so was mrs. carmac; so i piped the likeness then, an' even spoke of it to mr. ingersoll. but i must ha been rattled when i was in mrs. carmac's room a bit since. of course i remember now. that was her, right enough." "would you mind telling me what you are rambling about, captain popple?" popple grinned. "there's a pair of us, mr. raymond," he cried. "you don't seem to know much about the lady, either. you met her on the stairs when you went to see mrs. carmac, because i happened to notice that she kem down as you went up." "a girl in breton costume?" "that's it. she's lived here since she was a baby, an' i s'pose she took to the village ways." raymond was so astounded by a fact that, after all, was not of vital importance, that he put the next question literally to gain time for the readjustment of his ideas. "you have heard something of her history, then?" "oh, ay. she an' her father are well thought of in pont aven. a lady who's stayin' in there," and he jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the hotel, "tole me all about the pair of 'em. mr. ingersoll is by way of bein' a great hand at paintin'; but he settled down in this little spot nearly nineteen years ago, and has never left it. miss yvonne would be a baby then; but she's grown into a damn fine young woman since--an' she ain't the on'y one in the parish, if i'm any judge." "mr. ingersoll lost his wife here. that probably accounts for his wish to remain." popple's face creased in a frown of perplexity. "that isn't w'at the lady said," he explained. "her story was that mrs. ingersoll died in paris, probably when the baby was born. anyhow, no one in pont aven had ever seen her, as she axed particular. not that it could ha been any business of hers, but a woman likes to ferret out every atom of gossip, an' there's bound to be a lot of talk about any girl as good lookin' as miss ingersoll." popple little guessed--he never knew--what a tornado he let loose by those words. "dear me! dear me! how very curious!" gasped raymond. * * * * * and at that moment yvonne herself came across the place from le sellin's, having undergone a process of "fitting" to which her mother was unequal. the two were alike even in height and figure. if anything, mrs. carmac was rather more slender than her daughter, because the girl's muscles were well developed by long walks and plenty of exercise in an outrigger, whereas the older woman had been self-indulgent and frail all her life. both men stood up. she noticed their action, and protested smilingly. "please don't rise, mr. raymond," she said. "i hope you don't think i have neglected you, but i have inquired from dr. garnier several times as to your well-being, and i knew you were in good hands here, while my own time has been occupied in looking after mrs. carmac, who was really very ill until this morning. as for you, captain popple, i didn't need to glance twice at you to see that a small thing like a shipwreck hadn't disturbed you in the least." "miss," said popple, "you'll believe me, i know, when i say i didn't reckernize you upstairs. sink me! i couldn't imagine that any young lady could look so pretty in two different ways." she laughed delightedly, for the first time since the doleful twin sisters, sorrow and suffering, had discovered her. "now i understand why a sailor has a lass in every port," she said. "you cannot fail to be a success with the girls if you talk to them in that fashion." popple had never before been accused of being a ladykiller. he grinned, and his red face grew purple. "me, miss?" he cried. "bless your little heart! i was on'y tellin' the solemn truth. you looked like a seafarin' angel when i saw you through the scud an' spray dashin' over that reef. an' now--well, if the folk hereabout want to advertise pont aven, they ought to put you on a poster." "captain, i must not have my head turned by such compliments. wait till tuesday, our market day, and you will meet dozens of girls who put me in the shade. is your arm fairly comfortable, mr. raymond?" the secretary, whose eyes had glowered on every unstudied poise and trick of expression that stamped yvonne as mrs. carmac's daughter, even to a markedly clear enunciation, and an almost coquettish sidelong glance when specially amused, had been given time to collect his faculties by popple's tribute of admiration. "yes, thank you, miss ingersoll," he said, striving to tune his harsh voice to a note of reverential courtesy. "if i possessed captain popple's gift of speech, i should try to vie with him in imagery. may i say that i have always considered mrs. carmac as one of the most strikingly handsome women i have ever seen, so i can well appreciate the fact that you are her niece?" "lorry," cried the smiling girl, "come out here and tell these flatterers how horrid i can be at times!" raymond turned so quickly that he wrenched his arm slightly, and was hard put to it to suppress a groan. tollemache was standing at the open window directly behind the seat that popple and himself had occupied. how long had he been there? what had he heard? certainly the path of the evildoer was not being made smooth, and the scheming secretary had experienced various thrills in the course of one short hour. "mr. raymond is a shrewd judge of womankind, i am sure," said tollemache quietly, "and he would never accept my estimate of you, yvonne. will you be home for tea? and may i come? i have some news for you." yvonne simply announced that he would find her at the cottage about four o'clock. then, with a hand-wave to her friend and a graceful bow to the others, she hurried to the annex, running into peridot as she went. * * * * * "_ah, bon jour, ma'mselle!_" he cried, smiling broadly and flourishing his cap. "did monsieur tollemache tell you what a fool i made of myself the other night?" "no," she said. "nothing monsieur tollemache could say would shake my high opinion of you. how is madeleine? i haven't seen her since the supper party." "neither have i, ma'mselle," and the merry breton face suddenly became woebegone. "what, then? have you quarreled?" "she too was vexed with me." "i'll put that right, peridot. _kenavo._" [breton for "au revoir."] "_kenavo, ma'mselle_," and peridot strolled toward the quay, but not without a sharp glance at the man whom he had gulled so thoroughly. "lord love a duck!" sighed popple. "i wish my eddication hadn't been neglected when i was a nipper. i wasn't brought up. i was fetched up. just listen to them two! well, i'll bear in the direction of the telegraph office. i'm expectin' a wire from brest about a diver. so long, mr. raymond!" "goodby, captain. if you want me during the next two hours, i shall be in my room." popple lumbered away, and raymond would have gone to the annex had he not been stayed by tollemache. "a word with you, mr. raymond. i want to explain that mr. ingersoll and his daughter are my closest friends." the secretary wheeled round slowly. he had no fear of this stalwart young american, whom he classed with the well dressed, athletic, feather-brained "nuts" of british society. "i think you are to be envied," he said smilingly. tollemache did not smile. his frank features were thought-laden and stern. yvonne would have read his expression unerringly. lorry was troubled but determined. "i am not parading the friendship for any other reason than as a warning that i shall not tolerate any prying into their affairs," he said, evidently choosing the words with care. raymond affected vast astonishment. "if you overheard the conversation between captain popple and me, you must be aware that i knew little or nothing about mr. ingersoll and mademoiselle yvonne," he retorted. "that wasn't your fault, i imagine." "i don't understand what you are driving at. suppose i have shown some interest in them, isn't it reasonable--people to whom i owe my life?" "a most excellent sentiment, mr. raymond. don't forget it, and wander into bypaths, where you will most certainly meet me. and i'm a big, hulking fellow, you know, who is likely to block the way." "again i say that i have done nothing to deserve the implied threat." "and again i say that i'll lick the stuffing out of anyone who so much as tries to annoy my friends." "i have no wish to feel otherwise than exceedingly grateful to them, and i cannot allow you or any other person to dictate to me in the matter. your remarks are--incomprehensible." tollemache gave him no further reply than a steady stare, which discomfited raymond far more than any words. with an angry sniff he abandoned the contest, and walked unsteadily across the irregular cobble-stones that paved the roadway. chapter viii the tightening of the net in the ordinary course of events the mortal remains of walter carmac would have been inclosed in a leaden shell and transhipped to the united states for burial. but a woman's whim intervened. mrs. carmac suddenly decreed that the interment should take place at nizon. pont aven possesses no cemetery of its own. nizon, perched on the plateau of a neighboring hill, provides a final resting place for dwellers in the valley. thither was borne in state a huge casket containing the body of the dead millionaire. such a funeral had not been seen at pont aven in many a year. the village turned out en masse. by that time everyone knew of the extraordinary coincidence that brought yvonne to the rescue of a wrecked vessel that had her aunt on board. when the news spread that the woman was immensely rich local interest rose to boiling point. many and various, therefore, were the conjectures of the crowd as soon as it was seen that the widow, who insisted on attending the ceremony, was not accompanied by her niece. she was escorted to a carriage by her husband's nephew, a tall, slim, dark-featured young man of aristocratic appearance. in a second carriage were seated bennett, the lawyer, head of the firm of bennett, son & hoyle, an elderly man who had conveyancing and mortgage stamped on his shrewd yet kindly face; captain popple, hectic in a suit of black; and raymond, looking smaller and more dejected than ever in his mourning attire. that was all, in so far as relatives and friends were concerned. the third and last carriage contained a local notary, the mayor of pont aven, and dr. garnier. mrs. carmac's unexpected decision that her husband should be buried in brittany was made known only when it was impossible for others to come from a distance. with one exception, the steward whose ankle was sprained, the crew of the stella had been sent to england; so the millionaire was followed to the grave by few who were acquainted with him in life. but the village saw to it that the cortège lost nothing in dignity or size. gendarmes, custom house officials, and various town functionaries marched behind the carriages. half a dozen sailors of the french marine yielded to the national love of a spectacle, and fell into line. then came the townsfolk in serried ranks, the breton garb of men and women adding a semibarbaric touch of color. a paris correspondent of a new york daily expressed the opinion to a colleague that the bereaved wife had acted right in burying her husband within sight of the sea that had claimed him as a victim. "at first," he said, "i thought it a somewhat peculiar proceeding. now i begin to understand. if i had any choice in the matter, i should certainly prefer to find my last home in this peaceful little spot rather than fill lot number so-and-so in a crowded cemetery." "tastes differ," said the other. "personally i'd like to have my ashes bottled and put in a window overlooking broadway. who comes in for all the money?" "the widow, i'm told." "doesn't young fosdyke get a slice?" "don't know. no good trying to worm anything out of bennett." "fosdyke looks like a southern frenchman. he's english, i suppose?" "yes, by birth and residence. but his father was an american,--came over with a racing crowd in the ' 's,--and married a pretty creole." "oh, is that it?" "well, there's a drop of negro blood in the family; away back, perhaps, but unmistakable. did you ever meet carmac?" "no." "a tremendous fellow; but years ago he was as thin as fosdyke." "how did they make their money?" "cotton, and backing the north during the civil war. that's why they left the states. the pure-blooded southerners didn't like 'em, anyway, and the men who fought under lee and stonewall jackson would have tarred and feathered the whole tribe afterward." "what's this i hear about a niece discovered in pont aven by the lady?" "haven't you seen her?" "no." "then take my advice, and quit by the next train. you're too impressionable. one glimpse of her, and your life's a wreck. she's the prettiest ever." "why isn't she here today?" "ask me another. but if i were fosdyke, i'd be in no hurry to rush back to smoky london. by hook or by crook i'd keep uncle's money in the family." * * * * * this well informed cynic had not gone an inch beyond the known facts concerning the carmacs. at twenty-five the man now dead was endowed with that peculiar quality of looks which is often the heritage of men and women of mixed descent, when all other traces of a negroid strain are eliminated save the black and plentiful hair, the brilliant eyes, the strong white teeth, a supple frame, and a definite thickness of skin which makes for perfect complexion and coloring. as walter carmac had been in youth so was his nephew now. rupert fosdyke had often been described as "the best-looking man in london society." the tribute came from the opposite sex. men, for the most part, disliked him because of his egregious vanity. but he was no carpet knight. he played polo regularly at ranelagh, was a keen fox hunter, and had ridden his own horses in steeplechases at warwick, leamington, and other county fixtures. he was a prominent "first nighter" in theatrical circles, and knew a great many musical comedy celebrities by abbreviated versions of their assumed christian names. this latter weakness had brought him into court as a principal in a somewhat notorious breach of promise case, and his uncle and he had quarreled irrevocably on that occasion. rupert regarded the older man as a philanthropic "muff," and dared to tell him so, though such candor was likely to prove expensive. his own income was ten thousand dollars a year, provided by trustees of his mother's estate. he contrived only to exist on this sum, and would not have been guilty of the folly of alienating a millionaire uncle, who had no heir, but for the onerous conditions laid down for his future career. he was to abandon the "fast set," take raymond's place as carmac's secretary, and marry. rupert laughed derisively. "goodby!" he said. "try again when i'm forty." after that the two remained at arm's length. and now the nephew was following his uncle's body to the grave, and gazing with curiously introspective eyes at the tiny panorama unfolded by the quaint old village as the leading carriage moved slowly onward. singularly enough, he was a prominent figure in pont aven that day. not only was he discussed by the multitude, but he was not wholly ignored by a gray-haired man and a girl dressed in quiet tweed, who had walked to the summit of the lofty spur that separates nizon from the bois d'amour, and were watching the long procession climbing the concarneau road. * * * * * ingersoll had returned from concarneau early that morning. yvonne, troubled in spirit because of certain hints dropped by mrs. carmac, had written to her father an urgent request to come home. "yvonne," said ingersoll, breaking a long silence, "why is mrs. carmac burying her husband here?" "she has not told me, dad, but i am beginning to fear that she means to remain in pont aven." the girl's voice was low and unemotional; but her father was not deceived by its studious monotone. he looked down at the village in which they had passed so many peaceful years, at the cluster of sardine boats,--among them the hirondelle, laid up near the quay,--at the tortuous river, thrusting its silvery bends ever toward the open sea, at the favorite paths over the gorse-clad shores, leading on the one hand to the château du hénan and on the other to the menhirs and the hamlet of rosbras. those riverside walks abounded in beauty spots. he had painted them all, in many lights and in most seasons. they held a perennial charm. he could have sketched each secluded dell from memory with almost photographic accuracy, and hardly made an error in the type of the surrounding foliage, whether of lordly and treacherous elms, or close-knit firs, or blossom-covered apple trees. "it is hard!" he said at last, almost unconsciously. yvonne heard, and her eyes grew dim. "it is more than hard," she murmured. "it is thoughtless." a fierce joy surged into her father's heart, yet he only said softly, "we must find another hermitage, my dear one." "why should we be driven out of the place we have made our home?" she cried, yielding suddenly to the overwhelming demand for a confidant. "my mother has the wide world to choose from. why should she settle in pont aven? i am sorry for her, and she is very lovable and gracious; but no power on earth can part you and me, dad. oh, i have been so miserable during these wretched days! i have had the wildest, maddest thoughts. if only she had not made a new life so impossible! she, my mother, another man's wife!" the sheer necessity of calming the girl's hysterical outburst imposed a restraint on ingersoll he was far from feeling. "we need not contemplate heroic measures today, at any rate," he soothed her. "mrs. carmac's present mood supplies no warranty of her actions next week or next month. though she may seem to have recovered from the strain of the wreck, probably she is still very shaken and low-spirited. that phase will pass. she has many interests elsewhere--and few here. moreover, you know me too well to believe that i would forbid you ever to hear from or see her again. that would be foolish, criminal. you are a grown woman now, yvonne. life has revealed some of its riddles, bared some of its brutal crudities. i can never forget, strive as i might, that you have met your mother. let us bide a wee, sweetheart. let us wait till you and your mother have discussed an awkward situation openly. i gathered from your letters that she is saddened and disillusioned, and i shall be slow to believe that she really contemplates a permanent residence in pont aven. she and i cannot dwell in the same small village. if she stays, i go. why, then, should she wish to bury herself alive here?" yvonne dried her eyes. "i'm so glad i brought you back, dad," she said more cheerfully. "it is such a relief to hear you tackling a problem that has nearly driven me crazy. you see, i had no one to talk to. i couldn't confide in lorry; though i imagine he guesses the truth----" "why do you think that?" broke in ingersoll quickly. "it seems that some days ago he overheard a conversation between captain popple and mr. raymond, mr. carmac's secretary, the man whose arm was injured. he was writing in the old dining room at julia's, and heard voices outside. at first he paid no heed; but some reference to an attempt at salvage on the wreck appeared to upset mr. raymond very considerably. then, when mr. raymond became calmer, he led the talk round to us--to our history, i mean. some lady had given captain popple certain details picked up from village gossips. the captain--quite innocently, lorry thought--corrected a silly story which mr. raymond had got from peridot, and mr. raymond grew quite excited. lorry has seen peridot, and finds that mr. raymond actually went to his cottage and questioned him--about us. peridot told him some outrageous fibs----" "he would," said ingersoll, with a grim smile. "well, lorry is such a loyal soul that he didn't hesitate to warn mr. raymond very plainly that he must mind his own business." "exactly what one might expect from lorry too." "i don't attach much weight to mr. raymond's prying, nor does mrs. carmac. i told her. was that right?" "quite right." "but i couldn't help seeing that lorry must have formed some theory of his own, or he would never have interfered." "if lorry were our only bugbear, our troubles would be light. have you met this raymond?" "oh, yes. often. he comes to mrs. carmac daily for orders; though she or i have to write letters and telegrams, as he can only print laboriously with his left hand." "have you seen a good deal of rupert fosdyke?" * * * * * now yvonne had not mentioned fosdyke's name in her letters. she did not like him. indeed, she mistrusted him from the moment of their first meeting, when the gallant rupert favored her with a glance of surprised admiration; which, however, faded into a covert scrutiny on hearing that she was mrs. carmac's niece. her sentiments toward this new-found "cousin" had developed speedily from passive indifference into active resentment of his ways. of course there was nothing in pont aven to interest an ultra "man about town"; so fosdyke took to escorting yvonne from the hotel to mère pitou's cottage. at first she yielded out of politeness. when the short promenade became an established custom, and fosdyke even called for her at the hours she might be expected to visit her mother, she was at a loss to know how to get rid of him. she thought first of tollemache; but instinct told her that he and fosdyke would mingle as amicably as fire and oil, and with similar results. then she sought the assistance of madeleine demoret, and thereby added a new burden to an already heavy load; for the village girl became straightway infatuated about the handsome stranger, and fosdyke, who spoke french fluently, took malicious pleasure in annoying the pretty prude, as he classed yvonne, by flirting with madeleine. no wonder, therefore, that the girl should have longed for her father's company and protection; though she looked at him now with an air of bewilderment. "you know something of him, then?" she said, searching the worn face with anxious eyes. "i know his name. i attended his mother's wedding. indeed, why trouble to conceal the fact that it was then i first saw your mother? she was a brides-maid, a girl of fourteen, and already notable as a musical prodigy. i did not meet her again for six years, when her voice had given way, and she began to dabble in art. mr. and mrs. fosdyke brought their little son to our wedding. he was an extraordinarily pretty child, and almost attracted more attention than the bride." ingersoll spoke in the tone of one who was recalling the past without pain; but his glance followed the last stragglers of the procession to nizon,--nizon, with its finely carved calvary, and its high-perched stone cross bearing the tortured body of the christ. "father dear," cried yvonne impulsively, "i have made up my mind. you are powerless; but i can act. i will not have you harrowed and wounded at every turn. you and i, together with lorry and peridot, saved my mother's life. she must repay us by the only means she possesses,--by conferring the freedom of our own small paradise." "yvonne," he sighed, "some day soon you will be marrying." * * * * * whereat the girl almost laughed. "no matter what happens, that is the last thing i should dream of doing," she said. "but why? it is the one thing that a girl of your age should have mainly in mind. even in this small community, you might find a most excellent and chivalric husband----" "meaning lorry," said yvonne, without hesitation. "well--yes." "but--i don't care for lorry--in that way." "has he ever asked you?" "no. once or twice, perhaps, he has hinted that barkis was willing. the last time was no later than the day of the wreck." "and what did you say?" "i was nearly angry with him." "you would prefer him, i suppose, to a man of the rupert fosdyke type?" "i loathe the sight of rupert fosdyke!" "how has he offended you?" "in no way that i can put into words. he is very courteous, and quite a clever talker, and he tries to make every woman he meets believe that she is the one creature on earth he adores." "then poor lorry, with his chummy slang and abounding good conceit with himself and all the world,--excepting this mr. raymond, i take it,--compares but indifferently with the smooth-spoken rupert?" "lorry! he's a man! he's worth a million fosdykes!" ingersoll, well pleased, adopted the sound policy of leaving well enough alone. "still, you have given me no specific reason for your dislike of fosdyke," he persisted. "you read my mind too plainly, dad," she protested, smiling vexedly. "i didn't mean to tell you, hoping matters would adjust themselves; as, indeed, they may do now, if these invaders withdraw. but madeleine has quite lost her head over him." "madeleine demoret!" ingersoll was evidently amazed, as well he might be, seeing that breton maids are less approachable by strangers than the girls of almost any other nationality. "yes, and the worst thing is that i am to blame." "but how can that be possible?" "mr. fosdyke arrived here last saturday, and of course i was introduced to him as mrs. carmac's niece. the necessity for any such pretense is rather hateful, and he did not render it more acceptable by claiming me as a cousin. really, dad, with the slightest encouragement on my part, he would have kissed me!" "shocking!" said ingersoll. "father dear, don't make fun of me. his cousinly kiss would have burnt my cheek." "i can't profess fierce indignation because a young man tried to seize a good opportunity to kiss a pretty young woman." "well, he didn't dare make the attempt," declared yvonne spiritedly. "he realized at once that i would have slapped his face soundly for his pains." "but are you serious about madeleine? i mean, rather, do you think she is really enamored of him, or merely showing off for peridot's benefit?" "so serious that i am profoundly thankful the settled weather has kept peridot at sea." "do they meet frequently?" "i hate suspecting people, dad; so i can only say that i don't know. let us get away from all this worry for a day. send barbe for lorry, and ask him to _déjeuner_. then the three of us will walk by the belon road to moëlan, and have tea at the inn. it will do us a heap of good." * * * * * mrs. carmac, after a burst of hysterical sobbing which her nephew tried to stop by a few conventional words of sympathy, subsided into even more exasperating silence as the carriage rolled back from nizon. fosdyke, being an egotist, did not exert himself to console her; he was, indeed, profoundly relieved when the wretched journey came to an end. he helped his aunt to alight, but did not attempt to escort her into the annex. instead he waited until the second carriage drove up, and bennett appeared. "am i wanted for any formalities?" he inquired offhandedly. "not at present, mr. fosdyke," was the quiet answer. "isn't it customary that the will should be read after the funeral?" "yes, if it is available." "surely my uncle did not die intestate?" the question was shot out with a fiery eagerness that showed how joyfully any indication of the absence of a will would have been received. "no," said bennett, after a pause. "mr. carmac's will, in duplicate, is lodged in my office and at his bank. i did not bring my copy, as i had no reason to believe that events would shape themselves as they have done. but a confidential clerk is on the way with the document. he telegraphed from st. malo this morning that he had caught a train that should reach pont aven about half past four this afternoon. at five o'clock, if convenient to you, i suggest that we meet in mrs. carmac's rooms." then fosdyke knew that the gray-haired lawyer had been playing with him; but he only said airily, "such distractions as seem to flourish in pont aven will probably leave me at liberty about the time you name, mr. bennett." the lawyer nodded, kept a stiff upper lip, and followed mrs. carmac. "the old fox!" growled fosdyke savagely, careless who heard him. "i'll bet good money he has feathered his own nest all right!" the mayor, the doctor, and the notary, who had descended close at hand, wondered what had put this elegant young gentleman into a temper. raymond and popple understood well enough, but said nothing. "i suppose you ought to invite these local gentlemen to take a glass of wine?" suggested the secretary. "i'll see them boiled first!" was the amiable answer. then raymond, in his slow french, gave the invitation on his own behalf; but the pont aven men were not slow-witted, and courteously excused their further attendance. "i've a notion that a gargle of some sort wouldn't come amiss," observed popple thoughtfully. "i can't drink now," fumed fosdyke. "raymond, a word with you!" raymond, however, had been furtively engaged in taking stock of rupert fosdyke during the last few days. "sorry," he said, "but our chat must be postponed. mrs. carmac would be exceedingly annoyed if she heard that we were inhospitable. you ought not to have spoken the way you did before those french gentlemen. it was distinctly bad form." if a timid hare coursed by a greyhound were suddenly to turn and admonish its pursuer, the dog would hardly be more surprised than fosdyke when this queer-looking little secretary dared to chide him. he was so completely taken aback that he laughed. "i guess you're right," he said. "order a bottle of champagne. i'll ask those fellows to dinner, and do them well. then they'll forgive me. lead on, macduff! and cursed be he who first cries 'hold! enough!'" fosdyke's changed mood was distinctly more agreeable. popple, for one, deemed him a rather peppery young gentleman, but none the worse because he spoke out freely. * * * * * "life's a rum thing, anyhow," said the skipper, when the three were seated in the dining room of the hotel, which was otherwise empty. "about this very hour this day week the stella was makin' bad weather of it off some little islands north of the aven. i wanted to put in here; but mrs. carmac wouldn't hear of it. i must push on for lorient, she said--an' the pore gentleman we've just planted on top of the hill there was chaffin' her about bein' afraid o' spooks. sink me! who's the spook now?" "i don't see what ghosts had to do with pont aven," said fosdyke sharply. "neither do i, sir," said popple. "it was a funny remark, look at it any way you like." "both of you seem to forget mrs. carmac's niece," put in raymond suavely. the conversation had suddenly taken a dangerous turn, and it must be headed deftly into a safer channel. "what of her?" demanded fosdyke. "well, she represents the family disagreement which estranged mrs. carmac and the late mrs. ingersoll. you see, mr. fosdyke, your aunt was aware that her sister lived here, but evidently did not know she was dead. that fact would account for her disinclination to visit pont aven. in a word, fate drove us on to that wretched reef, which you, captain, will see more of if this fine weather lasts. how goes the salvage scheme?" "i've got a diver, an' the right sort of craft to stand by. has its own steam, an' a derrick, an' it'll be alongside les verrés at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. i'm sorry i can't find that chap peridot. they tell me he's away with the fishin' fleet; but some of the boats may come in by tonight's tide." "what is there to salve?" said fosdyke. "banknotes, an' jew'lry, an' dockyments," said popple. "rather a wild-goose chase, isn't it?" "that is a point on which our worthy friend and i differ," put in the secretary. "i bow to his superior judgment, of course; but i shall be vastly surprised if he brings ashore anything worth having." "it's a bit of a handicap not havin' peridot," grumbled the sailor. "who is peridot?" demanded fosdyke. "a breton, whom mr. ingersoll employs occasionally on his cutter," explained raymond. "he, and an american named tollemache, together with mr. ingersoll and his daughter, were concerned in the rescue." "mighty lucky thing for the rest of you that they were at sea that day," commented fosdyke, with a certain viciousness born of a thought that had darted through his mind. "it was a close call, i'm told. two minutes after the last man was taken off the stella smashed up." raymond smiled. he knew exactly what this dutiful nephew was thinking. had the stella been lost with all on board, there would have been some chance of the carmac estate passing to nephew and nieces, notwithstanding the will. mrs. carmac might have been legally presumed to have died first, or, failing that, her relatives might have remained unknown. "mrs. carmac means to present peridot with a sardine boat of his own," he said, waiting until fosdyke was surfeited with the gall of his own evil notion. "then," he went on, gazing contemplatively at a cart laden with casks of cider lumbering across the square, "then, i am given to understand, peridot will marry a girl named madeleine demoret, and settle down in prosperity and content." there was a pause. captain popple, who really had no reason to complain of any deficiency of vision, either literal or figurative, poured out another glass of champagne, and watched the wine creaming. "this fortunate person, peridot, owns a queer name," said fosdyke, surveying the secretary with a steady scrutiny. "isn't a _peridot_ a precious stone of sorts?" "yes; but his real name is larraidou. the other is only a nickname, arising from the curious color of his eyes. he's by way of being a humorist too; though i fancy he could reveal a very ugly disposition if roused." "humor of any variety is surely out of place in pont aven," said fosdyke. "here's to peridot remaining several more days with the fishing fleet--and damn his eyes!" he rose and went out. "affable kind o' young gent, that," commented popple. "a trifle quick on the trigger, though. i was glad to hear you touchin' him up a bit, sir. you did it neatly--twice, an' all." "twice?" raymond affected astonishment. but popple was a wary bird too. "no business of mine, anyhow," he said shortly, and, finishing his wine with a gulp, betook himself upstairs, where the injured steward was still confined to his bedroom. * * * * * the sprained ankle had proved awkward; practically it amounted to a dislocation, and dr. garnier would not yet allow the patient to put the injured foot on the ground. a cheerful little cockney, the steward had interested yvonne at once by his happy-go-lucky demeanor when brought on board the hirondelle. each day she had visited him for a few minutes. tollemache seldom passed without exchanging a few lively words with him, and he was a positive godsend to popple. "well, harry my boy, how goes it?" was the skipper's greeting. the invalid was sitting up in an easy chair, placed in front of a low window. thus he could gaze into the square beneath, and see its whole extent. in summer the dense foliage of the sycamores would have blocked the view; but in mid-december their bare branches hid nothing. "fine, cap'n," he answered. "mr. tollemache tole me the doctor said i might hop downstairs tomorrow. this d'y week i'll be leggin' it back to england, 'ome, an' work." "mebbe, an' mebbe not," said popple, settling his bulk into another chair, and beginning to fill a pipe. "'strewth, cap'n, you're the larst man i'd tike for a job's comforter," said the steward. "w'at's the rush?" "no rush; but i'm goin' along all right, an' 'er lydyship won't want to keep a chap like me 'angin' abart." "s'pose you get a job here?" "now, i arsk you, cap'n, w'at can i do in a plice where they tork neither french nor english? i'd be a byby among 'em--a silly byby." "this salvage business may last a bit. if you like, i'll ax mrs. carmac to put your name on the books." "cap'n, d'y mean it? well, you are a brick! it'll help a lot if i earn a quid or two while i'm crocked. i've been thinkin' abart this salvage idee. w'at's behind it?" "just pickin' up any odds an' ends we come across. but that's a funny question. got something in your noddle?" "nothink, cap'n. on'y it struck me that w'at between sea an' rock the stella must be pretty well dished by this time." "everybody says that," growled popple. "an' that's just why i've a fixed notion we'll find more'n anyone bargains for." he was busy with his pipe, which refused to draw freely, so failed to perceive that the steward was gazing out into the square with a curiously brooding stare. harry jackson had been taught by a hard world not to blurt out everything he knew. "harry," said popple suddenly, "would ye like a tonic?" "would a duck swim, cap'n?" said harry instantly. "there was a glass or two left in a bottle of the boy downstairs. 'arf a mo! i'll ax marie if it's still on tap." harry stared again out of the window. this time his glance followed harvey raymond, who was strolling toward the bridge. he watched the secretary's thin figure, its ungainliness being somewhat enhanced by the stiffly bandaged arm, until popple returned in triumph with nearly a pint of champagne and a wine-glass. "there you are, son!" he cried joyously. "put that where the cat can't get it. you're drinkin' mr. raymond's health." "am i?" said harry. "then, 'ere's to him, the swab!" "hullo! don't you like him?" "no." "why not?" "'e ain't my sort, cap'n. monkey-fice, we chaps forrard used to call 'im." "sink me! you didn't see much of him." "didn't need to. 'e's the kind o' jumped-up snotty who torks to men beneath 'im as if they was dawgs. when a real toff calls me 'jackson' i s'y 'yes, sir'; but when that blighter did the sime thing i wanted to bung 'im one in the jawr." "well, i'm dashed!" breathed popple, surveying his friend with manifest approval. "now, who'd ha thought he'd stirred you up in that way? between you an' me, harry, i'm not too fond of him meself. i suspicioned that mrs. carmac meant to fire him last week; but i was mistaken. anyhow, 'live an' let live' is my policy. so long as he doesn't interfere with me, i'll leave him alone." "sime 'ere," agreed jackson. * * * * * mrs. carmac passed a restless afternoon. twice she summoned her maid, celeste, who had come from paris on receipt of a telegram, meaning to send that discreet tirewoman for yvonne, yet twice changed her mind. as the hour fixed by bennett drew near, she felt more reconciled to yvonne's prolonged absence. she was beginning to realize the perplexities and embarrassments to which her daughter was being subjected daily. the lawyer was first to arrive. "i am glad of the opportunity of having a word with you in private," he said. "of course you are acquainted with the disposition your husband made of his estate; but rupert fosdyke may be disagreeably surprised. if he protests, do not be drawn into argument. please leave matters in my hands." "am i to say nothing at all?" she demanded. "nothing controversial. if he blusters, and asks questions, refer him to me." "he knows already that walter viewed his--what shall i call them?--social entanglements with disfavor." "yes. for all that, he may be hoping for more than he will get." "wouldn't it be wise to soften the blow by an act of voluntary generosity?" bennett shook his head. "it would be construed rather as weakness than as strength," he said. "fosdyke is not poor. on ten thousand dollars a year a man can live very comfortably, even in society. an extra couple of thousand will keep his hunters or run a car. no, mrs. carmac. your husband's intentions are set forth very clearly, and i advise you not to depart from them in the slightest particular." five o'clock came and passed; but fosdyke did not put in an appearance. they waited ten minutes, and the lawyer was about to suggest that the will should be read without more delay when a hasty step on the stairs and an imperative knock on the door announced the errant one's advent. * * * * * he apologized gracefully enough. "i went for a stroll," he said, "and missed my way in the dark. i hope i have not kept you waiting?" "it did not matter, rupert," said mrs. carmac. "well, now that we have come together, suppose we get to business," said the lawyer, unfastening a brief bag and extracting from its depths a bulky parchment. he began reading at once. mrs. carmac sat very still, a listener whose thoughts hardly kept pace with the loud-sounding legal jargon. fosdyke, however, followed every word attentively. first in order was a long list of bequests to various institutions, and legacies or annuities to servants. annuities of five thousand dollars a year to each of carmac's two nieces succeeded. then came a personal reference: "to my nephew, rupert fosdyke, i give and bequeath the sum of two thousand five hundred dollars per annum during his life. this sum is to be increased to ten thousand dollars per annum on his marriage, provided that such marriage takes place within two years after my death, unless a postponement is rendered necessary by unavoidable circumstances which the trustees of this my will shall deem sufficient cause for an extension of the said period of two years, and provided also that the said trustees shall approve of the person he marries. such approval should not be withheld unreasonably; but nothing in this testament shall be regarded as interfering with or controlling the absolute discretion of the said trustees." there was no hint of tremor or emphasis in bennett's tone as he recited that onerous clause. he treated fosdyke's legacy with the same sangfroid he had displayed in detailing a bequest of fifty-two pounds per annum to an aged gardener attached to the surrey mansion. but the despoiled heir bubbled into instant frenzy. he could hardly believe his ears when the amount was disclosed. the generous treatment of his sisters prepared him for at least five times the sum they would receive, and his sallow face grew livid when he knew that the dead man's hand still retained its grip. he gasped something; but the lawyer promptly raised his voice, with the air of a man who was not to be stayed in an important undertaking because of an incensed legatee. thereafter fosdyke paid little heed. he understood, it is true, that the whole of the residue of the real and personal estate was left unconditionally to "my dear wife, stella carmac," and that the said stella carmac, john carruthers bennett, and the public trustee were named as trustees, with the ordinary provisions as to the appointment of successors. but these things reached his senses through a haze of fury and disappointed greed. he was almost beside himself with rage. two thousand five hundred dollars a year! this slight woman in black, sitting there downcast and melancholy, would have at command an income of quarter of a million! bitter as were his thoughts toward his uncle's widow, he was even more enraged with the smug lawyer. if murder would have served his purpose, fosdyke was in a mood to choke the life out of the gray-haired man whose voice had droned out that sentence of almost complete excommunication. "can i have a copy of that precious screed?" he said, and if each word had been a poison-tipped arrow bennett would have died a sudden and painful death. "a copy of any will of which probate is granted in england can be obtained by application at somerset house," said the lawyer calmly; "but in this instance, as you are interested, i see no reason why, with mrs. carmac's consent, an uncertified copy should not be supplied from my office." "i am not thinking of contesting it," went on fosdyke bitterly. "i have no doubt that the robbery has been carried out in accordance with the law." "you have been aware of your uncle's views during the last four years, mr. fosdyke--why do you now resent their clear and final enunciation?" came the cold, unemotional comment. fosdyke rose. he would have gone had not mrs. carmac stayed him. she too stood up, and came nearer. she was deathly pale, her lips trembled, and she spoke at first with difficulty. "whatever the consequences, i cannot let you leave me with anger in your heart," she said. "still less can i endure that your uncle's memory should be made hateful by what you regard as unjust treatment. it was not his intention, it can never be mine, that you should be punished for past errors.... mr. bennett, i beg you not to interfere. there are moments in life when a higher law operates than is writ in the text-books.... if i were to let you go now, rupert, harboring evil thoughts against me and the man who is dead, i should hold myself responsible in some degree through all the future years. your uncle only asks that you shall marry some woman worthy in herself and fitted to carry on the traditions of your family. do that, and you will never regret it, either in its influence on your own career or in the material benefits it will bring without stint or delay. i can say no more. but i do ask you to believe that i am speaking from my very heart." she ceased. for a few seconds there was profound silence in the plainly furnished room, which, by its very simplicity, gave a curious indefiniteness to a conversation in which money, money in millions, minted wealth that would have overflowed through windows and door if piled on the floor, figured as a vital element. but fosdyke closed his ears to the woman's plea; though his alert wits warned him that a declaration of war would be nothing short of rank lunacy at the moment. so he bowed with the easy grace that was natural to him. "i appreciate what you have said, aunt," he murmured, choking back the humiliated wrath that stormed for utterance. "i don't imagine you expect me to discuss matters now. with your permission, i shall leave pont aven as soon as possible. on your return to london i shall ask permission to visit you." mrs. carmac would have answered, but he quitted the room abruptly. "rupert fosdyke is a thorough bad lot," said bennett, fastening the lock of a brief bag with an angry click. "if that young man pulls himself straight, i'll--well, i'll grow potatoes instead of preparing deeds!" mrs. carmac smiled wistfully. she knew, none better, that the pendulum of life can swing from one extreme to the other. yet even she might have lost faith had she been with yvonne when the girl hurried from home after supper. * * * * * at that hour, about half-past eight, though the night was pitch dark, one so accustomed to unhindered movement in any part of the village did not hesitate to take the short cut that led across the aven by a footbridge and debouched by an alley on the main street not far from the place. she was on the bridge, and a faint luminosity from the swirling waters beneath showed posts and rails with sufficient clarity. at that point she ran into two people, a man and a veiled woman, who emerged from the black shadow of a mill. the man was rupert fosdyke; but the woman was a stranger. who could it be? suddenly some trick of carriage and bearing suggested madeleine demoret. madeleine masquerading in modern attire! madeleine without coif or collar! and yvonne knew how a breton maid shrinks from revealing herself to masculine gaze without her coif, which is the symbol of all that is pure. in her dismay she nearly cried aloud to her friend. but the two had hurried on, vanishing in the direction of the bois d'amour. sick at heart, she hastened to madeleine's cottage, where the girl lived with an aunt. "_tiens!_" cried the woman who looked up from the hearth when yvonne entered. "why isn't madeleine with you? she went to mère pitou's half an hour ago." "we've been to moëlan," faltered yvonne. "i must have missed her. _au revoir_, madame brissac." "oh, i cannot bear it!" cried yvonne in an agony of shame when she was alone again in the darkness. "my mother! and now my friend! what shall i do? is there none to help? how can i tell my father--or lorry? dear, lion-hearted lorry! surely i can trust him, and he will take that man in his strong hands and crush him!" chapter ix showing how harvey raymond began the attack raymond had too many irons in the fire that day to permit of the relaxation of mental and bodily energies that his condition demanded. it was essential to the success of a scheme now taking definite shape in his mind that he should seem to avoid rupert fosdyke's prying while maintaining a close surveillance on his movements. thus, owing to the chance that he occupied a bedroom overlooking the place, he knew when fosdyke went out after changing the garments of ceremony worn that morning, and guessed quite accurately that an afternoon stroll would lead the younger man past madeleine's cottage. he watched for the arrival of the solicitor's clerk from london, and witnessed fosdyke's return soon after five o'clock. then, realizing that the first of many formalities with regard to carmac's will was in progress, he quitted his post, meaning to sit on the terrace until fosdyke reappeared. the weather, however, had turned cold, and he found an overcoat necessary. with the help of a servant he buttoned the coat in such wise that the empty right sleeve dangled as though he had lost a limb. as a consequence he was not instantly recognizable. harry jackson, seated patiently at the window behind the sycamores, failed to make out the identity of that small, ungainly figure until it had paced to and fro several times across the top of the small square. a remarkable feature of a day rich in events fated to exercise a malefic influence on the lives of four people was provided by the fact that two men so opposite in characteristics as harvey raymond and harry jackson should have spent some hours in staring out from their respective apartments at the normal if picturesque panorama presented by the main thoroughfare of the village. each was unaware of the other's vigil, each wholly unconscious of the part he was destined to play in a drama of love and death. the secretary, of course, was nursing a project that could hardly fail to raise his fortunes to a height hitherto undreamed of; whereas the cheery-hearted steward, though his puzzled thoughts at times would have bothered raymond far more than an occasional twinge of a broken arm did he but know their nature, was actually concerned about little else than his own future and the welfare of a mother dependent on his earnings. still, it was odd that the sight of raymond seldom failed to bring a perplexed frown to jackson's face. the two had never met until the stella sailed from southampton water. they had not exchanged a word beyond the commonplaces of existence on board a yacht. yet jackson disliked raymond, and, if minds were mirrors, the quasi-gentleman would have seen in the civil-spoken steward a mortal enemy; though none would be more surprised by the fact than the sturdy little cockney himself. jackson felt rather lonely just then. popple was occupied with an english-speaking representative of the brest marine salvors, from whom he had hired a diver and a tug. tollemache had vanished, being miles away at moëlan with yvonne and her father, and the changeful show beneath had lost some of its novelty in the eyes of the lively londoner. he resented enforced inactivity. he wanted to be up and doing, bustling about like popple; but that wretched ankle of his anchored him securely in bed or easy chair. thus there was nothing to distract his attention from raymond's slow promenade beneath; and he speculated idly as to whom the secretary was awaiting--evidently someone from the annex, judging by the frequent glances cast that way. * * * * * at last jackson's harmless curiosity was gratified. rupert fosdyke, walking rapidly, hove in sight. the main door of the annex was not visible from the onlooker's window; but raymond's unflagging patrol told him where the expected one would come from, and a close family likeness between uncle and nephew--notably in the dark, lustrous eyes, raven black hair, and pink and white skin--served as an effectual label. no cumbrous brittany cart happened to be creaking noisily over the rough cobbles of the square. the gale had subsided. the window was open. jackson could hear every word that passed. these were brief, and much to the point. "ah, mr. fosdyke!" said raymond, affecting a pleased interest because of their chance meeting. "i'm glad i've run across you. what did you wish to say when we came back from nizon?" fosdyke, staring with uncomprehending eyes at first, seemed to awake suddenly to the fact that his late uncle's secretary barred the way. "i've forgotten," he said slowly. "at present i want only to tell you to go to the devil!" "indeed!" raymond jerked his head backward, as if he had been flicked with a whip on the cheek. "yes, truly." "but what grounds for quarrel exist between us?" "quarrel? i'm not quarreling. i simply curse you." "but why?" "i feel like that, and you are a suitable object." "yet no man breathing could be better disposed toward you personally than myself." "to blazes with you and your disposition!" was the amiable comment, and fosdyke strode off into the gloom. raymond remained stock still until the tall, alert figure vanished round the bend where the houses surrounding the place converge near the bridge. then, with chin sunk into the collar of his coat, he went in the same direction. jackson was distinctly amused, even edified. "well, i'm jiggered!" he chuckled. "if that ain't a nice, friendly w'y o' pawsing the time o' d'y--not 'arf! real pire o' blighters, both of 'em!" * * * * * it was of course much later in the evening when yvonne, a prey to deep tribulation of spirit, entered her mother's suite. mother and daughter invariably kissed now at meeting and parting. on this occasion each was nervous and distrait; yvonne because of foreboding on madeleine's account, and mrs. carmac by force of that vague and obscure subconsciousness which lurks ever behind the operations of the everyday mind,--that dim ghost as inseparable from the acknowledged senses as the shadow from the material body, yet impalpable as a shadow, and not to be defined in terms of human speech. all day long had this specter peered over her shoulder. its influence was affrighting and oppressive. the woman who had regarded her conscience as dumb and deaf and blind during nearly twenty years had suddenly discovered that the gagged and bound prisoner had become a most imperious master. was it conscience, she wondered, that caused this disease? but conscience is a monitor that recalls past transgressions and threatens punishment, while her inward vision was aware rather of gloomy portents akin to that state of being fay, which is the unenviable attribute of the celt. a breton would understand, and dread; but, as tollemache put it, the fumes of petrol seem to have banished such wraiths from that outer world in which mrs. carmac moved and had her being. even yvonne's presence did not banish the phantom. singularly enough, she and her mother, each weighed down by premonition of evil, looked more alike than ever, and each interpreted the other's distress by the light of her own disturbed thoughts. yvonne, accustomed all her life to unfettered frankness, took it that her mother was saddened by her prolonged absence. "i'm sorry, dear, i could not reach you earlier," she explained. "my father came back from concarneau this morning, and he looked so overtaxed and worried that i resolved to take him for a long walk. he and i and lorry--mr. tollemache, you know--went miles and miles. that is our cure for the blues,--an infallible recipe. we arrived home rather late, but feeling ever so much better." "your face shows it, yvonne," was the answer; though the quiet cynicism was softened by a wistful smile. "honestly we were lively as crickets during the second half of our tramp. but, where i am concerned, something that occurred during the last few minutes undid all the good. tell me, dear, what sort of man is mr. fosdyke?" * * * * * in the conditions few questions could have been more surprising. her nephew's name was the last mrs. carmac expected to hear on yvonne's lips, since the girl seldom alluded to him, and had shown by her manner that the handsome rupert made slight appeal, if any. "why do you ask?" she said. "you have heard me speak of madeleine demoret, a village girl, one of my greatest friends?" "yes." "well, mr. fosdyke has made her acquaintance,--through me, as it happens,--and now he is meeting her constantly. they are together at this moment." "isn't that what one rather expects in village girls?" mrs. carmac, borne down by her own ills, could spare scant sympathy for any flighty maiden who had fallen victim to the fascinations of her good-looking relative. "it may be so elsewhere, but not in brittany," persisted yvonne, who was keen-witted enough to understand how differently she and a woman of her mother's world might view madeleine's folly. "here such behavior is unforgivable. a girl may not walk out with the man to whom she is engaged, far less with a stranger. i--i hardly know how to act. you cannot imagine how completely her friends and neighbors will condemn poor madeleine if it is spread abroad that she was seen in mr. fosdyke's company. as for peridot, if he knew, he would kill him!" "kill rupert?" "yes." "peridot may find consolation elsewhere." yvonne winced; but she had a purpose in mind, and persevered bravely. "oh, please don't say such things!" she said. "i want you, dear, to try and look at this affair through my eyes. i know my bretons, and madeleine must be saved, in spite of herself. can you persuade mr. fosdyke to leave pont aven tomorrow?" "he is going: not tomorrow, perhaps, but soon." "are you sure--quite sure?" "he told me so himself today." "if i could be certain he would go, i shouldn't speak to lorry." "how does it affect mr. tollemache? is he too an admirer of madeleine's?" then, despite her perplexities, yvonne laughed. "no, of course not," she cried. "didn't i imply that peridot means to marry her?" "in that event why appeal to mr. tollemache?" "oh, i see your difficulty now. when aroused lorry is a very convincing person indeed. he would tell mr. fosdyke to 'quit,'--that is exactly what he would say,--and if mr. fosdyke didn't quit he'd jolly well make him--which is also what lorry would say." mrs. carmac seemed to consider the point for a few seconds. "my difficulties, as you put it, cover a larger area," she said, with a bitterness that had its pathetic side. "don't forget, yvonne, that i am debarred from sharing your confidence. dare i ask, for instance, if at some future date you will probably become mrs. laurence tollemache?" the girl flushed under this wholly unexpected thrust. first her father, now her mother, had voiced such a far-fetched notion! "i don't know," she said simply. "the events of the last week have taught me the un-wisdom of thinking that we can forecast the future; but i can say now, with the utmost candor, that i will never leave my father." * * * * * at the moment she had no other thought than a disavowal of her prospective marriage with tollemache, or any other man; but her mother cowered as though flinching from a blow, and yvonne was instantly aware that the words had conveyed a meaning far beyond their intent. "oh, dear!" she sighed. "how easily one can be misunderstood! now it is stupid that you and i should be at cross purposes in a matter of this sort. will it help if i tell you what my father said this morning? he asked me why you had decided that mr. carmac should be buried here, and i gave it as my opinion that you meant to remain in pont aven a considerable time. was i mistaken?" the older woman's face became a shade whiter; but she replied steadily enough, "something of the sort had certainly occurred to me." "but you must abandon it, dear," said the girl earnestly, dropping at her mother's feet, and taking one thin hand in both hers. "if you do that, everything will go wrong. dad and you cannot possibly live in a small place like this, where everybody knows everybody else, where the history of each family or individual is common property, and where gossip would soon find flaws in the pretense that you and i are aunt and niece. if you continue to reside here, it means that dad and i must go. no, you sha'n't weep, or be allowed to fret yourself into some misleading notion as to what i really mean. once and for all, the possibility of that kind of lamentable thing happening must disappear. "dad is a fair-minded man,--i don't think his enemies, if he had any, would deny that,--and he admits that it would be cruel to keep you and me apart, now that we have been brought together in such an extraordinary way. he will let me come and visit you often, i am sure. but, dearest, if you drive him away from a spot he had made his own, if he is shut out of the one tiny bit of earth he has learned to love, i shall go with him, and i'll feel so deeply that you have treated him harshly that i will never see you again. "now isn't it better that we should examine the present position of affairs clearly and honestly? a great many years ago you left my father of your own accord. he suffered terribly,--how much i have learned only during the last week,--but he gave himself up to art, to a few friends, and to me. he has taught himself to be happy in a quiet way. you, taking part in that social whirl i have read about in books, and dimly imagined from paragraphs in newspapers, can have no idea of the pleasant monotony of life in pont aven. why, an excursion to le faouet is an event to be talked of a whole month before and after the great day itself, and a sold picture supplies a week's excitement! existence on those lines cannot possibly appeal to you. "mother dear, you cannot undo the past; but you can and will leave my father undisturbed in his work and his few joys. you must go away from pont aven, and never come here again. write to me as often as you like, and i for my part will try to recite our small histories so as to interest and amuse you. arrange that i may stay with you sometimes, and i'll come. i promise you that dad will never prove unreasonable if you feel lonely and want me. but it would be unjust both to you and to him if i did not say now that i shall always put him first. i am not reproaching you. why should i? you have never caused me any unhappiness, because it would be monstrous to charge you with responsibility for the series of misfortunes that began with the wreck. i mean to look on you as a mother, and indeed, indeed, my love and respect will never waver unless they are brought into conflict with the greater love and duty i owe my father!" yvonne's voice broke on those concluding words. during the long walk by the shore of the belon she had planned the arguments she would use in urging her mother to adopt the only course that would restore serenity to her father's declining years. she had plenty of opportunity for leisured thought. the belon rivulet gives its name to an estuary far wider than that of the aven, and the violet light of a december evening had led ingersoll into a discussion with tollemache on the nature and limits of realism in art. but all her carefully conned phrases had fled when she looked into her mother's sorrow-laden eyes, and that pathetic appeal had welled forth tumultuously from her heart. * * * * * mrs. carmac was visibly shaken. yvonne's straightforward plea had swept into ruin the structure built of vain longings and fantastic dreams. yet what else could she expect? she had known her own mind on that never-to-be-forgotten night in paris when she deserted her husband and child, and fled to secure "freedom." her action was deliberate; she had not felt a tremor of remorse when she wrote that cruel letter to her husband. what reason had she now to hope that the closed door might reopen? she bent her graceful head over yvonne's, and made the first real sacrifice that life had demanded from an essentially strong if inordinately vain temperament. "dear," she murmured, "why should we torture each other more? i agree to your terms. tell your father that when i go from pont aven it shall be forever." for a little while neither could speak. mrs. carmac was the first to recover some semblance of composure. "don't let us endeavor tonight to peer any more deeply into the coming years," she said, smiling wanly. "when i reach london my affairs will demand a great deal of attention. i shall write to you every week, dear. sometime in the spring, when england is at its best, you shall come to me, and i'll strive to render your visit enjoyable, because you have so much to see, and there is so much worth seeing. your presence will make me young again. "now i must explain why it is absolutely necessary that i should remain here until it is ascertained whether or not anything can be recovered from the wreck. i care little about the jewels and money that went down with the yacht. of course, if they are found, so much the better. but the really important thing is a despatch box full of documents that was in one of mr. carmac's cabin trunks. it contains papers that i would not wish others to see. will you, then, tell your father that i shall leave here the day after that case is put into my hands, or, if the sea refuses to disgorge, when i am assured that further effort at salvage is useless? the local notary, as well as the people at brest, agrees with captain popple that if the remains of the stella are lodged on the reef a close search is possible, and may yield results; but if the two parts of the hull have been washed into the tideway, we may as well abandon the project altogether. in a word, if the weather remains fine, the matter will be settled within a week, or even less. to show my gratitude to your father for the concession he has made with reference to you, i am willing that he and you should go away tomorrow, should he think it advisable. you can give me your address, and i shall let you know the date of my departure. of course i shall be sorry----" "no, dearest, you are not to cry any more," and the strong young arms were flung impulsively round the grieving mother's neck. "you will only make yourself ill again. i am sure everything will work out all right in the end. scheme and contrive as we will, it is god who decides. all that we can do is but strive to act right, to atone for mistakes, to help one another. for the rest, the future is in god's hands." "ah, my dear one," came the tremulous words, "a kindly providence has given you wisdom beyond your years! it was well for you that you were reared by a man like john ingersoll. some day, when present bitterness is dead, and he realizes that at least i am repentant, you must tell him that in restoring to me a daughter such as you he has only shown me the depth of my folly. i little dreamed that i should ever be taught such a lesson. yvonne, when you marry, marry for love. may heaven pardon me, i did not! i married your father because i thought i should have what we thoughtlessly call 'a good time.' i left him, not for love of another man, but in the hope that i might secure a wealthier husband. i have never known what it means to love anyone but myself. perhaps i shall learn now--too late!" * * * * * when yvonne went out she found raymond awaiting her at the doorway beneath. "miss ingersoll," he said deferentially, "if you are going home, may i walk with you as far as the bridge? i would not inflict my company on you if i had not something of importance to say." "your company will be no infliction, at any rate, mr. raymond," she answered readily; though she would have vastly preferred to be alone, if only during the few minutes' interval that separated a very trying interview with her mother from the calm and smoke-laden atmosphere of the studio, where her father and tollemache would surely be expecting her appearance at any moment. "but it must be rather a bore that you should have to accommodate your lively pace to my slow march," said raymond. "you see, i dare not step out quickly over these rough stones. i----" "please walk as slowly as you like," she cried, with a quick sympathy which the man had counted on as establishing a species of comradeship between them. he too, like yvonne herself a few hours earlier, had rehearsed every syllable of a conversation to which he attached the utmost importance; but, unlike her, he was following his "lines" with the glib perfection of a skilled actor. "i hope you will pardon me also if i reach the heart of my subject without preamble, as the lawyers say," he went on. "you have met mr. rupert fosdyke several times of late, and i think i am not mistaken if i assume that you are neither greatly impressed by him nor inclined to view with indifference the ridiculous flirtation he has been carrying on with madeleine demoret. am i right?" yvonne was momentarily tongue-tied with surprise. the last thing she expected was any interference by this plausible-spoken little man in the affairs of the two people he had named. she knew that her mother disliked him,--that fear was now added to her dislike,--but she could not guess that raymond was actually counting on her knowledge as a successful factor in the campaign he opened that night during the short stroll between the hotel julia and the bridge. "pray believe that i have intervened in this matter with the best of motives," he added hurriedly. "it is often the fate of meddlers to be misunderstood--i have been an innocent victim in that respect once already in this very place. but i felt it was due to you that i should explain the action i have taken today. you may be angry with me. i cannot help that. my own sense of right and wrong tells me that i am justified; so i may only put the circumstances before you, and leave you to decide whether you approve or condemn. in a sentence, then, i have ventured to remonstrate most openly and emphatically with mr. fosdyke. you may not be aware of it, but he is tempting your friend madeleine to meet him secretly. of course she is your friend because of the simple conditions of life which obtain in pont aven. in america or england you and she would fall naturally into widely different social strata. but here--in arcady, if i may so express myself--close intimacy between you and a peasant girl is permissible, even advantageous. the case of rupert fosdyke is wholly outside this small local circle. his association with madeleine must inevitably lead to a grave scandal. i have tried to put a stop to it: not without success. he assures me that he has seen her tonight for the last time. now, miss ingersoll, i want you to tell me candidly, first if i have done right, and in the second place if you commend my action." "mr. raymond," cried yvonne impulsively, "i thank you from my heart. i cannot find words to express my relief at your news. you have accomplished something wonderful. really, i am more than grateful." "that is good to know," he said, stopping in the roadway, and bowing as humbly as his tightly strapped arm would permit. "you have said all i wished to hear, and more." "but won't you come with me to our cottage?" she said, aware only of deep joy because of madeleine's salvation, since it was nothing less that this queer-mannered stranger had brought about. "i have not dared to speak of this matter to my father and mr. tollemache. i can tell them now, and make light of it, while giving you some of the credit that is your due. do come!" "not tonight, if you will excuse me. i am yet far from strong, and today's experiences have been somewhat exhausting. if you will ask me to meet mr. ingersoll tomorrow, or next day, i shall feel honored." for a rascal--which he undoubtedly was--harvey raymond exhibited a restraint that marked a rare capacity for intrigue. he had not anticipated such a long stride in advance as an invitation by yvonne to make her father's acquaintance then and there. but a lightning flash of clear judgment had shown that he would gain immensely by a display of modest reticence. the story would not suffer in its telling because he was not present to receive congratulations from the artist and what would be tantamount to an apology from tollemache. so he bowed again, with a murmured "goodnight!" and, involuntarily as it were, stretched out his left hand, which yvonne seized and wrung warmly. then, apparently shocked by his own boldness, he turned abruptly, and hurried back to the annex. * * * * * during a few seconds yvonne stared after him. "well," she breathed, "i have never before been so deceived in anyone--never!" which shows that even the brightest and most intelligent girl of nineteen may have a lot to learn of human nature before she can form reliable estimates of its true inwardness, because the time was not far distant when she would as soon have thought of crediting one of the horde of vipers then hibernating among the rocks of brittany with any lofty conception of duty or service to mankind as harvey raymond with similarly benevolent intentions toward his fellow creatures. chapter x madeleine's flight rupert fosdyke departed by the earliest train next day. he did not see mrs. carmac again, and it was assumed by those who gave any thought to the matter that he would make for london. bennett's clerk, however, traveling to england by the same train, did not set eyes on him again after the local tramway had delivered its passengers at quimperlé. fosdyke might or might not have gone home _via_ paris. what was quite certain was that he did not cross the channel between st. malo and southampton that night, because the clerk ascertained from the purser that no one of the name was on board the steamer, and telegraphed to that effect to his employer, who wished to be kept posted as to fosdyke's movements. meanwhile raymond was so concerned about mrs. carmac's health that he suggested the hiring of a hotel automobile, and a run to lorient for luncheon. yvonne and bennett agreed readily to accompany her, and the secretary was commissioned to order a car to be in readiness at ten-thirty a.m. now, there were three automobiles in the garage,--a small runabout, a limousine to hold three and a chauffeur, and a huge touring car, which would accommodate six easily. he chose this last. "as the day is bright, and there is no wind, i have selected an open car," he said on returning. "i hope you approve. plenty of fresh air should be the best of tonics." yes, his mistress was pleased, if only because yvonne must be decked out in some of the magnificent furs that the thoughtful celeste had brought from paris. very charming the girl looked in a long sealskin coat with sable collar and cuffs, and a sable toque. her mother's appraising glance spoke volumes as to plans for the future, when yvonne came to england, and would need dressing in accordance with the new scheme of things. but mrs. carmac was genuinely surprised when she saw the size of the car. "couldn't the hotel provide a smaller one?" she asked. "only a closed car," explained raymond. "well, since there is so much room to spare, hadn't you better come with us--that is, if your arm permits?" "i am more than inclined to risk it," and raymond smiled ruefully, as though tempted by this unexpected invitation. "yes, please, i'll come. i'll only delay you a minute while i get a coat and an extra rug." tollemache happened to stroll out of the hotel the moment the secretary's back was turned. he shook hands with mrs. carmac and the lawyer, and nodded to yvonne, on whom he permitted his eyes to dwell in an admiring if somewhat critical survey. "where are you off to?" he inquired. "lorient," said yvonne. "why lorient?" and his eyebrows rounded. "i really don't know." she turned to mrs. carmac. "you tell," she said. "mr. raymond has arranged everything," said mrs. carmac. "but why not lorient?" "because it's an uninteresting place, notable only as containing the most inartistic statue in france." "very well. come with us, and be our guide. we don't care where we go." "is mr. raymond joining you?" "yes." "then be a good samaritan, and take that poor fellow, jackson. he hasn't been out of his room since he was brought ashore, and his game leg will keep mr. raymond's crocked arm company." "bring him, by all means." "'take him,' i said, mrs. carmac." "no, he must be your guest. even then we have a spare seat." "done!" cried tollemache. thus, when raymond appeared, the party was larger than he had bargained for. he was all smiles, however, even when he found himself placed by the side of the lame steward, and behind the chauffeur. tollemache sat in front; while mrs. carmac, yvonne, and bennett occupied the spacious back seat. tollemache promptly varied the program by striking into the broad route nationale leading to quimperlé. they reached the quaint old town about eleven o'clock, and luncheon was ordered at that famous posting house, the hôtel du lion d'or. while the meal was being prepared they went on to the beautiful chapelle saint fiacre, with its remarkable rood screen of carved and painted wood and rare sixteenth century stained glass. tollemache insisted, too, that they should return before sunset, or the evening chill might prove dangerous. the excursion was voted delightful. the only person who felt that his projects had been completely frustrated--for that day, at any rate--was harvey raymond. he had hardly exchanged a word with yvonne throughout the journey, and was hard put to it to maintain an agreeable conversation with jackson during a five hours' run. * * * * * the steward, however, was not neglected. his manner of speech was an unfailing source of amusement to yvonne, whose acquaintance with the cockney dialect had hitherto been derived solely from books. he was by way of being a humorist too. when he hobbled into the chapelle saint fiacre, and gazed at the history of adam and eve as depicted on the screen, he raised a laugh by a caustic comment. "that ain't exactly my idee of the gawden o' paradise, miss," he said, when yvonne told him what the carvings symbolized. "you wouldn't expect eve to be chewin' a crabapple--now, would yer, miss?" "but what makes you think eve is eating a crabapple?" she cried. "why, miss, look at 'er fice!" he said. "tork abart lemons! one bite has given 'er a pine!" in the hotel at quimperlé, too, he created a good deal of merriment on discovering the english name of a dish which looked and tasted like chicken but figured in the menu as _grenouilles à la financière_. "w'at!" he cried, some natural embarrassment because of his surroundings yielding to horrified surprise. "me eat a frog? well, live an' learn! but i tell you strite, i'd as soon 'ave eaten a snike!" "what is a 'snike'?" inquired raymond. "it's a squirmin' reptyle w'at eats frogs," said jackson instantly, and, as the secretary had partaken freely of that particular course, the retort did not lack point. but raymond laughed with the others. he would have guffawed cheerfully if someone had bumped into his injured arm by way of a joke. bennett, being a lawyer, was not dull of perception. he claimed the front seat for the return journey; so tollemache sat between yvonne and her mother. * * * * * in some respects, therefore, raymond regarded the day as spoiled. but it was far from being a failure in a general sense. he had established a precedent. during the remainder of her stay in pont aven, mrs. carmac, weather permitting, would surely hire the car every day, and, as she was hardly likely to revert to a smaller and much inferior vehicle, he in all probability would be invited to join her; while yvonne's presence was assured. as for other additions to the party, he must take such fortune as the gods gave. the chief and vital consideration was that he would almost infallibly be thrown into yvonne's company during many hours daily. if he contrived also to establish himself on a friendly footing with her father, he had taken the first long stride toward the goal now clearly visible to his mind's eye. with rupert fosdyke disinherited and discredited, why should not harvey raymond consolidate all warring interests by marrying yvonne? truly a brilliant notion! it followed the lines of high finance. better than running counter to your enemy, absorb him! though he believed he held mrs. carmac's millions in the hollow of his hand, were it not for yvonne, he could act only through fosdyke, who had flouted him openly, and would assuredly be disdainful, no matter how greatly beholden he might be to an informant. but the fact that yvonne existed changed all that. money talks, indeed! money would shriek in ecstasy if the despised secretary married mrs. carmac's daughter. there were obstacles in the way, of course; first, tollemache? raymond had weighed this possible rival's claims carefully, and did not find them overwhelming. yvonne was the young artist's close friend of five years; but that did not necessarily mean that they were lovers. if anything, such intimacy was favorable to the newcomer. the girl herself? well, raymond knew he was no adonis; but keen-eyed students of human nature had established the axiom that exceedingly pretty women often mated with the plainest of men. here again the difficulty was not insuperable. there remained mrs. carmac. willy nilly, she must range herself determinedly on his side! very gently, very unwillingly, letting the facts be dragged out of him with the utmost reluctance, as it were, he must make her understand that he held the power to crush her financially. during the last few days he had left no stone unturned to secure proof of an astounding romance which depended for credence otherwise on the unsupported testimony of a woman's raving. he had neither blundered nor spared expense. that very morning, and not before, he _knew_. the knowledge had sustained him throughout a trying day. each time he thought of the irresistible weapon now safe in his possession he chortled. no wonder he laughed, even when that impudent steward likened him to a snake! there was truth in the jibe. one person, at least, seated at that luncheon table would feel his fangs. mrs. carmac, if left in undisputed possession of her wealth, would be _his_ puppet! she must choose between comparative pauperism and harvey raymond as a son-in-law! so, where she was concerned, the money that fate had showered on her would prove a most potent factor in his behalf. once again, then, would money talk. if necessary, it might even sing the song of the sirens in yvonne's ears. why, her experiences that day, the very wearing of those costly furs, and the swift whirling over the breton roads in a luxurious car, were not negligible quantities in the arithmetical calculations that bemused the man's subtle intellect. there was no discernible flaw in them. british law would pronounce the american divorce invalid. it followed that an estate held almost exclusively in britain would go to the next of kin. and he alone held the key that would unlock this treasury! * * * * * snatches of talk came to him from the three in the back seat. he could make little of it, because all three were speaking french; but when he listened occasionally he gleaned that yvonne and tollemache were telling mrs. carmac the legends of wayside chapels,--how this saint protected the crops, and that the horses and cattle, how sainte barbe arranged love affairs and saint urlou cured the gout. each ill, each blessing, had its patron, who exorcised demons or dispensed favors at will. nearing pont aven, yvonne startled him by leaning forward and touching his shoulder. "why in such a brown study, mr. raymond?" she inquired pleasantly, thinking that perhaps the queer little man might feel he had been somewhat ignored. in her thoughts he figured invariably as a "queer little man." her woman's intuition had suspected that queerness as something underhanded and evil; but his action with reference to madeleine demoret had obliterated an unfavorable first impression. now she regarded him as an eccentric who did good by stealth. the slight pressure of the girl's fingers thrilled him. "i was hoping there might be a healer of broken limbs in brittany. now i know that there _is_ one," he answered readily enough. "dr. gamier is really quite skilful," she said, and raymond had the wit to remain silent. * * * * * it was dusk when they reached the hotel. popple was standing there with two strangers. "any news?" inquired mrs. carmac as she alighted. "yes, ma'am, an' not the best," said popple. "the wreck is all broken up. the diver has been over the south side of the reef, and saw nothin' but scrap iron." neither raymond nor jackson had quitted his seat as yet, and the steward heard his companion laugh softly. "then we must abandon the search?" came mrs. carmac's clear, well-bred accents. "there's just one more chanst, ma'am," said popple. "we can try a trawl." "but isn't that a thing meant to catch fish?" "it's surprisin' w'at you can ketch in a trawl sometimes, ma'am." "captain popple was telling me the other day that he has known it catch a man," put in raymond, evidently regarding the sailor's suggestion as an excellent joke. "i've seen a shawk in one meself," said the irrepressible jackson. popple waved aside these flippant interruptions. "mossoo guého here, from brest," with an indicatory thumb toward one of his companions, "tells me there's a big trawler in concarneau today, an' peridot's boat will be there too. if you like, ma'am, he'll go to concarneau this evenin', an' bring both of 'em here tomorrow." "peridot? why peridot?" inquired mrs. carmac. "he knows the set o' the tides so well, ma'am. he'd help a lot." "well, i want to see him soon; so secure his services by all means. as for the trawler, or any appliance you think necessary, i wish monsieur guého to understand that every effort should be made to recover the boxes i spoke of." monsieur guého, who spoke english, assured madame that his firm's resources were entirely at her command. then yvonne hurried to her mother's suite to divest herself of furs and toque. for the time she had abandoned the breton dress, and wore her tweed costume. she met mrs. carmac, bennett, and raymond on the steps. tollemache was assisting jackson to his room. "i really must run home," she explained. "dad will be wondering what has become of me; though i sent a message by one of julia's maids to tell him that lorry and i were being whisked off to lorient in an automobile." "yet you have been nowhere near lorient," said her mother. "a pleasure deferred, mrs. carmac," said raymond. "you ought to take a spin in that car every day while in pont aven. it will do you a world of good. don't you agree, mr. bennett?" "most certainly," said the lawyer; "that is, if mrs. carmac doesn't return to england with me tomorrow." bennett spoke as though he were giving indirect advice; but yvonne gathered that her mother explained her decision to remain a few days longer because of anxiety with regard to the salvage work. lorry reappeared on the terrace, and the girl hailed him. "come to supper," she cried. "call in at madeleine's on the way, and tell her to come too." "right-o!" he said. * * * * * but madeleine failed to join the supper party at madame pitou's that night. she excused herself to tollemache on account of a headache. "she looked rather ill," said lorry pityingly. "her aunt was boiling some decoction of herbs. madeleine is to be dosed." "if i was her aunt, i'd set her to scrub the stairs," commented mère pitou emphatically. "work is the only tonic madeleine needs. when the hands are busy the wits don't stray." "is she up in the air about peridot?" inquired tollemache. "before he went away he told me she wouldn't speak to him; but he shouldn't have taken it so seriously." madame shook her head and kept tight lips,--an ominous sign. yvonne strove at once to change this ticklish topic. "didn't captain popple say something about bringing peridot here tomorrow?" she said. "if he comes, he and madeleine will soon bury the hatchet, especially when they know that mrs. carmac means to present peridot with a fully equipped _vague_ [sardine boat]." "good!" cried tollemache. "mère pitou and i will foot it together at the wedding. i'm stuck on breton weddings. there's no nonsense about them. everybody enjoys life to the limit." he had answered in english; but madame evidently gathered the drift of his words, because she laughed dryly, and herself turned the talk to the day's outing. yvonne, finding her father's eye on her, was just able to repress a sigh. mère pitou knew of her friend's folly, and, if she knew, there must have been gossip in the village. there was a chance, the barest chance, that peridot's arrival might still scandalous tongues, if only madeleine could be persuaded to receive him graciously and fix an early date for their marriage. the girl had already ruined any prospects she might have possessed of being elected queen for the next feast of the gorse flowers. the pont aven maid who aspires to this must display not only a pretty face but a spotless escutcheon. it might be that madeleine would see this for herself. if not, she must be told. * * * * * next morning, then, yvonne called at madeleine's cottage in order to make a later appointment. madame brissac, who admitted her, was in tears. "madeleine is gone!" she explained. "she went to quimperlé by the early train. nothing i could say would prevail on her. i've never seen her so determined about anything." yvonne, sick with apprehension at first, found a crumb of solace in the aunt's statement, which apparently limited the girl's flight to a town not far removed from pont aven. "but why has she gone to quimperlé?" she faltered. "that grinning fool peridot left her too much to herself. she has been moping about the house during the last week, saying that her lover had deserted her. this morning she was out of bed before dawn. her box was packed when i rose at six. then she told me she had decided to accept her cousin's offer of a place in his shop, and meant to give it a fair trial. as she might be of some use during the few days before christmas, she was going at once. i argued and stormed; but it was useless. off she went!" yvonne knew indeed that a quimperlé draper in a small way of business had often tried to induce madeleine to take charge of his retail trade so that he might travel in the rural districts; but the girl had always scoffed at the notion. perhaps, dreading the weight of public opinion in pont aven, or finding life in the village insupportable, she had sought refuge in quimperlé for a while, and would return when present clouds were blown over. "you are sure she means to join monsieur bontot?" she asked anxiously. "of course. there is no one else. marie bontot will welcome her, because madeleine's help will enable jacques to double his turnover; but i'll miss her dreadfully, and i can't imagine why she should want to scurry away in such a whirl. i haven't recovered from the shock yet." yvonne could only endeavor to console the old woman with a prediction of the truant's early return. she herself was greatly distressed by madeleine's action in leaving the village without giving the least hint of her intention, or uttering a word of farewell. moreover, it was more than unkind to put the blame on peridot. the fact that madeleine should have stooped to positive deception in that respect brought a suspicion, an ill-defined uneasiness, which was better suppressed at the moment. * * * * * but when she learned that mrs. carmac intended to take another run in the car she asked as a favor that they should proceed direct to quimperlé in the first instance, as she wished to pay a call there. moreover, if mrs. carmac didn't particularly want the big car, it would be more convenient if they used a smaller vehicle that day. her mother was only too glad to agree; so a servant was sent off post haste with orders to hire the limousine. raymond was annoyed, but dared not show it. he heard the girl's request, and marked her agitated air, and searched for some explanation of an arrangement that he interpreted as aimed against himself. puzzled and irritated, he seized an opportunity to put a daring question. "miss ingersoll," he said, "i hope you have not forgotten your promise to introduce me to your father?" "no. how could i forget?" she cried. "will you come to mère pitou's this evening about five o'clock? mrs. carmac and i will be home long before that hour. i--i'm afraid, mr. raymond, i may have cost you an agreeable outing today; but i want to find madeleine demoret, and have a long talk with her. it might be rather awkward if there were men in the party. she would not discuss matters freely." raymond was so profoundly relieved that he nearly blurted out, "oh, is _that_ it?" he contrived, however, to murmur something about his complete agreement with any course suggested by miss ingersoll, when mrs. carmac intervened. "madeleine demoret?" she said. "isn't she the girl you spoke of the other evening?" "yes. she is definitely engaged to peridot, and now, the very day he is expected back in pont aven, she has flown off to quimperlé, vowing that she means to stay there with a married cousin. i want to see her, and coax her into meeting peridot soon, either here or in quimperlé." "you seem to be very much concerned about this young lady's love affairs," smiled the older woman. "madeleine has been my playmate ever since i was able to walk," said yvonne simply, quite unaware of the pang that this seemingly innocuous remark caused her mother, "and i do wish to see her happily married to peridot, who is an excellent fellow, and thoroughly devoted to her. it would be too bad if they should separate now because of some absurd tiff. in any case," she added, "i want to know the truth." "as to why she has gone?" "yes." mrs. carmac was perplexed. she too, like raymond, felt that there was more in yvonne's anxiety than met the eye; but it was inadvisable to probe deeper into the problem until she and her daughter were alone. "ah, well," she said lightly. "within the hour, i have no doubt, we shall be listening to a tearful denunciation of peridot. the perfidy of peridot--it sounds like the alliterative title of a magazine story. is that our car? tell celeste you'll wear the furs you had yesterday. they suit you admirably." * * * * * monsieur and madame bontot were the most surprised people in quimperlé when two elegant ladies alighted from an automobile outside their tiny shop, and inquired for madeleine demoret. they were almost astounded when they recognized yvonne, whom they had never before seen in such guise. "but why do you seek madeleine here, mademoiselle?" cried madame bontot, recovering her breath and her wits simultaneously. "i've not even heard from her or her aunt since jacques was in pont aven two months ago. isn't that so, jacques?" "_parfaitement_," agreed jacques, a rotund little man, coatless, and decorated with a tape measure slung round his neck. yvonne paled, but was, in a sense, sufficiently forewarned that she did not make matters worse for her unhappy friend by blurting out the true cause of her visit. "i'm sorry," she said. "it is my fault. i have not seen madeleine for some days, and i had a sort of idea that she meant coming to you about this time. it was discussed, i believe?" "yes, yes!" admitted madame bontot instantly. "we should be glad to have her in the shop. then i could look after the dressmaking, and jacques could run all over the country for orders. isn't that so, jacques?" "_parfaitement_," said the stout man, breathing heavily. in imagination he was running already. "well, i'll look her up when i return home, and tell her of my mistake. then i'll see that she writes to you, at least," said yvonne. "take us to the station," she said to the chauffeur, controlling voice and features with difficulty until safe in the seclusion of the closed car. then she broke down, and sobbed bitterly; for she feared the worst. mrs. carmac, unable to share this distress on account of some village girl's escapade, felt nevertheless that some minor tragedy was about to be added to the already heavy burden which life had imposed since the stella was shattered against the inhospitable rocks of brittany. "are you afraid she has run away--that she is making for paris, or london?" she whispered. yvonne nodded. she could not speak. for the first time in her life she understood what hysteria meant. "to join rupert fosdyke?" persisted her mother. "oh, i don't know! i am afraid--terribly afraid!" was the broken answer. "but--it is inconceivable. a rustic of her type can have no attractions for a man like him. she would weary him in a day." yvonne did not reply; and in her heart mrs. carmac knew why. rupert fosdyke might share her half-veiled contempt for one of the "lower orders"; but he would have no scruples in using poor madeleine's infatuation as a whip to scourge certain folk in pont aven. * * * * * inquiry at the station was almost fruitless. yvonne dared not appeal to the conductor of the tramway service, because any hue and cry raised for the missing girl must reach pont aven in the course of a few hours. she ascertained that no young woman in breton costume had bought a ticket to paris or st. malo that day. this signified little. the very fact that the coif identifies the bretonne would induce madeleine to travel in an empty first-class carriage and change her outer garments. "was any ticket issued for a long journey to a girl of twenty after the arrival of the first train from pont aven?" said yvonne as a last resource. the booking clerk was inclined to be helpful. not often did young american ladies speak french with such an accent. usually they misunderstood him, or blandly assumed that he spoke english. "_tiens!_" he said, tickling his scalp with a pen-holder. "such a one booked to nantes. i remember thinking that she had a lot of money, because she picked a hundred-franc note out of a fair-sized packet." "was she a bretonne?" "yes, madame. wait one moment." he called a porter. "pierre," he cried, "you had charge of a lady's baggage by the nine o'clock train to nantes. did she come from pont aven?" pierre thought she did, but could not be sure. if so, the local conductor had brought her box across to the departure platform. at any rate, she was not a known resident in quimperlé. and she possessed one trunk, a black one, iron-clamped, and studded with brass nails. madeleine owned a similar box: but so did half the inhabitants of brittany. with that yvonne had to be satisfied. madeleine might or might not have gone to nantes; whence, if so minded, she could travel on to paris in the same train. it was difficult to account for her possession of the amount of money spoken of by the observer behind the wicket; but mrs. carmac solved the riddle at once. "until i am convinced to the contrary," she declared, "i shall believe that your friend is on her way to meet rupert fosdyke somewhere. of course he would provide her with ample means. gold is the most potent of all lures." yvonne shuddered. her mother was least lovable when she became cynical. the girl felt unutterably sad and depressed. * * * * * it was a relief, in a sense, when the car sped down the hill into pont aven, and she could make some excuse to hurry home. her father and lorry, thinking she would be absent till a much later hour, had gone out, tempted by the continued fine weather. but she was given no respite from her misery. madame brissac had posted an urchin to watch for the return of the motorists. she came now to gather tidings of her wayward niece, and yvonne was obliged to confess that madeleine was not at her cousin's house. then the storm broke. madame brissac had probably been made aware in the meantime that madeleine had outraged local conventions by "walking out" with a stranger, and she poured her wrath on yvonne. "this is your doing!" she screamed, her black eyes flashing fire, and her swarthy skin bleaching yellow with fury. "you turned her head with your fine friends and their fairy tales. what could i expect but that my girl would be led astray? but her character is not the only one at stake. when we know the truth we'll hear more about that precious aunt of yours. aunt, indeed! who ever heard of an aunt screaming for her daughter and meaning her niece?" mère pitou bustled out, breathing the flame of battle. "marie brissac," she cried, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself! isn't this a case of what's bred in the bone coming out in the flesh? have you forgotten why jean brissac married you? because, if your memory is failing, mine isn't. i can tell you now that madeleine simply flung herself at that young englishman's head, and, if that's news to you, it's the talk of everybody else in pont aven. don't you dare come here insulting my friends, or you'll get more than you bargain for!" "oh, please, please, don't quarrel with madame brissac on my account," wailed yvonne, daring all, even a blow, and putting her arms round the half-demented woman's shoulders. "you poor dear," she went on in a voice choked with sobbing, "blame me if you wish, but don't condemn madeleine unheard. it may not be true. let us pray the good god that it is not true! i love madeleine as my sister, and i shall never believe that she has fled with any man until i hear it from her own lips." anger melted in tears. madame brissac suffered yvonne to lead her back to the deserted cottage. there the two talked for a long time, and the girl got the old woman to agree that, in madeleine's interests, the fiction of transference to the drapery establishment in quimperlé should be maintained until something really definite became known. not that any such, pretense could avail to shield the lost one. the village was already agog with the sensation of madeleine's flight, and not a soul credited madame brissac's story of the quimperlé cousins. the shy, rabbit-eyed glances of every village girl met in the street told yvonne that madeleine could never again raise her head in her native place. the maid of honor was dishonored--the gorse flower crushed into the mire! and all this wretched hotchpotch of suffering and contumely was directly attributable to the presence of _her_ mother in the community! truly, yvonne was sorrow-laden and oppressed when she reached the cottage again, and found harvey raymond awaiting her. chapter xi mutterings of storm unfortunately neither ingersoll nor tollemache had returned. yvonne was on the point of asking raymond to pardon her if she deferred receiving him until the next day, when his adroit brain anticipated some such setback to his plans, and he strove instantly to prevent it. "i fear you made an unpleasant discovery at quimperlé today," he said, striking boldly into the one subject that he guessed was occupying her thoughts. "is mr. ingersoll at home? if so, i ought to tell you briefly what i purpose doing to help, as you may not care to discuss the matter in your father's presence." it was cheering even to hear the man speaking of "help," and he had already given solid proof of honest intent in his stern rebuke of fosdyke; though, alas! it had come too late to be of any real service. yvonne's mind belonged to that somewhat rare order that magnifies good and minimizes evil. she was grateful to her mother's secretary for that which he had tried to do, though failing, and abandoned her first design forthwith. "come into the studio," she said, leading the way. "my father and mr. tollemache will be here soon. meanwhile i'll ask mère pitou to bring some tea. we won't wait. of course i must tell dad everything about madeleine now. we can depend on him for sound advice. he doesn't lose his head in an emergency, and i shall be guided entirely by what he says." "naturally," agreed raymond, throwing the utmost deference into voice and manner. "it is delightful to meet a father and daughter who are on terms of genuine confidence and comradeship. i only meant to suggest, miss yvonne, that i should communicate with a friend in paris who is acquainted with rupert fosdyke, and ascertain by that means whether or not mademoiselle demoret is in his company. i have taken action already in a small way. thinking it advisable to keep an eye on him, i telegraphed to my friend this morning, asking him to let me hear if fosdyke was in paris, and his address. here is the reply." even in the chaos of the hour yvonne was conscious of a certain surprise at raymond's singular foresight; but she took the proffered telegram, and read: "yes. arrived in paris early yesterday. residing hotel chatham. "duquesne." "ah, how thoughtful and clever of you!" she cried. "can anything be done now? suppose madeleine is in the train, would monsieur duquesne meet her and urge her to return at once?" "how would he recognize her?" "oh, dear! i had not thought of that. but it might be possible to telegraph a general description, and there will not be so many young women traveling alone in a train reaching paris in the small hours of the morning that he should have no chance of picking out one in particular. i know it is asking a great favor of your friend; but he may act with decision if you hint at a matter of life or death. and it is all that. poor madame brissac will never survive the shame of a public scandal. if madeleine would only come back, i should meet her on the way, and persuade her to go straight to her cousins in quimperlé. don't you see, mr. raymond, she would be saved, _saved_? you have accomplished wonders already. please don't hesitate, but send a telegram at once. i sha'n't know how to thank you if you succeed in this. but i forget. you cannot write. let me write for you. now what is monsieur duquesne's address?" yvonne, flushed with new hope, was seated already at a small writing table, pen in hand. for once raymond was caught off his guard. he had not expected this development, and would vastly have preferred a friendly and sympathetic chat; but he dared not refuse the girl's excited demand. moreover, he would be earning her gratitude and repaying some of rupert fosdyke's insults in the same breath. so he blurted out the information: "duquesne, avenue kleber, paris." yvonne wrote rapidly. "will this do?" she asked: "person mentioned in earlier message is probably decoying to paris a breton girl of twenty, madeleine demoret, from her home in pont aven. she is believed to be in train due saint lazare a.m., is good-looking, slim, of medium height, and quietly dressed. you are besought to discover her, and use all possible means to convince her that she ought to return. her friend yvonne will meet her at quimperlé on receipt of message, and promises that everything will be arranged satisfactorily. her aunt, madame brissac, is grief-stricken and prostrate. madeleine should come home if only for her sake." "there, mr. raymond--can i add anything to make it stronger, more emphatic? should i say that all expenses will be paid?" "no," he said, bending over her, and resting his left hand on her shoulder. "that is quite clear and understandable. any man of experience should read between the lines that the undertaking is vital and imperative to the last degree. if i were in trouble, miss yvonne, i wish i dared think that you would display such heartfelt interest in my affairs." "you!" she cried, rising hurriedly. "you are one of the best of men! you hardly realize yet what good you are achieving. mrs. carmac, i am sure, will appreciate your kind action just as greatly as i do. shall i take the telegram to the postoffice?" "one moment. we have plenty of time. should a message of that direct nature be despatched locally?" some of the light died out of the girl's eyes. the officials in the pont aven postoffice were discreet as any in france, and courteous beyond the average; but they all knew madeleine! still, yvonne might be trusted to fight to the last ditch in her friend's behalf. "there is a train to quimperlé within half an hour," she said. "someone must go. if necessary, i'll go myself. you are not fit to travel, mr. raymond. if only lorry would come----" "you may leave the mission in my hands, miss yvonne," said raymond suavely. "indeed, rather than risk the journey over that bumping tramway, i'll hire an automobile, and reach quimperlé more quickly." barbe came in with a laden tray, and raymond swallowed a cup of tea and ate some of mère pitou's famous cakes. * * * * * he was bidding his hostess an impressive farewell when ingersoll and tollemache appeared. yvonne's father, observing men and events with a certain detachment in these days, was not drawn to the ungainly secretary. he was puzzled, at finding the man there, and even bewildered by the warmth of yvonne's introduction. but raymond was master of himself now. he withdrew promptly, trusting to yvonne's enthusiasm to make smooth the way for his next visit. and indeed his back was hardly turned before she plunged into a recital of the day's doings. her father listened quietly, passing no comment other than to express a brief but complete agreement with every step she had taken. then she hurried out, being restless until assured that her messenger had really started for quimperlé. ingersoll sighed deeply, rose to reach a tobacco jar from the mantel, and threw a question sidewise, as it were, at his companion, who was smoking meditatively, and apparently in a somewhat subdued mood. "lorry," he said, "what do you make of this chap raymond?" "i've no use for him, socrates, and that's a fact." "he seems to be acting in perfect good faith in this affair." "yes; but why?" "that is what is bothering me. there are two points about his behavior that may have escaped you. in the first place, if madeleine has gone to paris by arrangement with that scamp fosdyke, he of course will meet her at saint lazare, so what chance will raymond's 'friend' have of intercepting her? again, who is this duquesne? i have a good memory, and i happen to recollect a notorious case reported in the newspapers about a month ago, a case in which a private inquiry agent of the name figured, and his address was in the avenue kleber. i don't profess to recall the number; but when name and street coincide it is safe to assume that raymond's duquesne and the other duquesne are one and the same individual. now the momentous question that presents itself is, why should raymond be in prior communication with a private inquiry agent in paris?" "i can't guess." ingersoll stooped, and tapped his pipe on one of the heavy iron dogs guarding the hearth. straightening himself, he drew a labored breath, like one who braces his nerves to face a dreaded but unavoidable ordeal. "then i'll tell you," he said. "mrs. carmac is yvonne's mother. she left me soon after yvonne was born--went off to her people in the states. there, after some delay, she secured a divorce. later i heard that she had married carmac, who was immensely rich, while i could barely afford to maintain a small flat in montmartre. carmac was not a bad sort of fellow in his way. he was, i believe, devoted to stella, my wife. she too was better suited to him than to me. "but carmac, though of southern birth, had become a naturalized englishman, having, i understand, some ambition toward a political career on this side. now i doubt very much whether the divorce proceedings were valid according to british law, and a wife takes her husband's nationality. had i been wise and dispassionate, i should have given stella her full freedom. but i did not--may heaven forgive me! i was so utterly crushed after leaving paris and seeking sanctuary in pont aven that i disregarded her entirely. none of my associates knew where i had gone. every sort of effort was put forth to find me, but without success. eighteen years ago, lorry, pont aven was a long way from paris. there was no railway, and communication with the outside world was mainly by sea. "at last, despairing of any assistance from me, stella and carmac risked everything on the american decree. they were married openly. the wedding was announced in all the society newspapers. even i, buried alive here, read of it. but, if the question were raised, it might be held in england that stella is still my wife in the eyes of british law." ingersoll made this astounding statement in a voice so calm and free from emotion that tollemache stared at him in blank amazement. of course events had given the younger man some inkling of the truth; but he had never imagined anything so disastrously far-reaching. "good lord!" he gasped. "that is terrible--that means all sorts of beastly complications!" ingersoll threw out a hand in a gesture of sheer hopelessness. "it means this,--if raymond suspects that the marriage was invalid, and carmac left his money to his 'wife,' the will can be upset, mrs. carmac will be stripped of every penny except her personal belongings, and rupert fosdyke and his sisters will inherit the estate. naturally i know nothing of the exact position of affairs beyond the hints i pick up from yvonne. "she, poor girl, hasn't the remotest notion of the tragedy that i see looming darkly above the horizon--because it is the very essence of tragedy that a woman who sold her happiness for gold should be despoiled in the hour when the bribe might be regarded as most surely within her grasp. lorry, i pity her! she is well aware that she is clinging to the edge of a precipice. "raymond's inquiries concerning yvonne and myself, which you overheard, and which were confirmed by peridot, warned me of her danger. when you carried that maimed scoundrel into the cabin of the hirondelle he retained his senses sufficiently to understand the tremendous significance of mrs. carmac's ravings. to the ordinary ear they would sound like the gabble of dementia; to raymond, already disliked by his mistress, and retained only as a useful slave by his master, they conveyed immense potentialities. but at first he must have felt like a traveler in the desert tantalized by a mirage. investigation in pont aven might strengthen his suspicions; but he could never obtain proof. he dared not appeal to me. rogues of his class have a tolerably clear notion of the sort of man they must not meddle with: probably he summed up the father through the daughter. now, perhaps, you see where this parisian inquiry agent comes in?" "no, i'm dashed if i do!" "there isn't much guile in your composition, lorry," and ingersoll smiled forlornly. "i gather from yvonne's story that during the talk on board the cutter her mother spoke of having deserted her in paris. unhappily she thereby supplied raymond with the most important clue. the very next day he had the impudence to remind mrs. carmac that she had claimed her 'niece' as a daughter. he drew in his horns when checked; but set about unveiling her early life without delay. paris is a city of records. it was a simple matter for anyone to discover the date of my marriage, which took place nearly four years before the american ceremony between carmac and my wife. "good god, man! that poor woman is in a damnable position. not only can she be robbed of the wealth given her by carmac, but in england she is likely to be prosecuted on a charge of bigamy! and i shall be responsible! my pride and futile anger deprived her of the only means whereby she could have married carmac without fear of consequences. i left her no alternative. oh, lorry, lorry, if only i could have foreseen something, howsoever shadowy, of the evils that were impending when we brought those people on board! had i even known the name of the yacht, i might have been vouchsafed some glimpse of the peril. one glance at stella herself, or at carmac, would have revealed an abyss from which i should have recoiled with horror. i might have contrived some subterfuge, some wild scheme, to keep yvonne and her mother apart. but it is too late! the mischief is done. i am bound hand and foot,--a man delivered over to the torturers!" ingersoll's voice trailed off into silence. he sank into a chair, threw aside the pipe which he had filled automatically but not lighted, and buried his face in his hands. * * * * * but tollemache sat bolt upright, his shoulders squared, his strong features frowning in thought. thus had he looked when swinging precariously above the precipice at le faouet, and thus when the hirondelle was backing into the hell's broth of the reef. "tell you what, old sport, we must act, and quickly at that," he said at last, springing to his feet as though some valiant deed was called for straight away. "but what can i do?" came the despairing answer, and ingersoll, the leader, the master, the kindly cynic, lifted woebegone eyes to the lithe and stalwart figure towering above him. "lots!" cried tollemache. "first, let's get down to bedrock--then we can talk plainly. i've never said a word to you, ingersoll, and mighty little to your daughter; but i love yvonne, and if she will marry me, our wedding day will be the proudest day of my life. i'm not a poor man. i've a heap more money than ever i've owned up to, because i like the life here, and i like you, and i worship the ground yvonne walks on, and i was afraid that if you knew i was fairly well fixed in a financial sense you'd regard me as a _poseur_, and cut me out. why, i've saved nearly ten thousand dollars a year since i came to pont aven! i can lay my hands tomorrow on a hundred thousand, and still have enough left to keep yvonne in pretty good shape. "now i'm not making any bargain with you. that isn't our way. but if i am given a free hand with raymond, i'll settle his hash in double quick time. swine of his variety are always blackmailers. very well! i'll pay his price. he must clear out, bag and baggage, giving me the promise of his silence, over and above an acknowledgment that he obtained the money by threatening to expose mrs. carmac. don't imagine he won't go! i'll make him! it's rather rotten even to talk of using violence to a fellow with a broken arm; but he must be got rid of, and i'll frighten him into a deal--see if i don't!" ingersoll rose, and caught the younger man's hand in an impulsive grip. "lorry," he said, "if it pleases providence to ordain that yvonne shall marry you, i'll offer thanks on my knees. you are honest as the sun, and transparent as the aven beneath the trees of the bois d'amour in summer. i have known your story for years. i had hardly learned your name before a man told me of the quarrel with your father because you refused to fall in with some marriage brokerage arranged between him and the father of a girl whose business interests marched with his. i knew too that you bought ten of my pictures during the first six months of our acquaintance. i didn't interfere with your well meaning subterfuge. you have lost nothing on that speculation, at any rate, because you acquired my work at its best period, and your investment would yield two hundred per cent. if you sold now. "but let that pass. do you believe i would ever have encouraged you to waste your time in pursuing the fickle goddess of art but for the knowledge that you were happy, and content, and far removed from the temptations that beset youngsters of means but of no occupation? no, you know well that i should have driven you forth with hard words. yet i have never deceived you. how often have i said that art is a cruel mistress, a wanton who refuses her favors to some most ardent wooers, yet flings them with prodigal hands at others who, though worthy of her utmost passion, despise it? but you have a quality that ranks you far above the painter who, while fitted to see divine things, wallows in the mud of mediocrity. you are a loyal friend and good comrade, a man of clean soul and single thought. "would to heaven i might leave you now to deal with this prying hound, raymond! but the plan you suggest is useless. he would laugh at you, disregard your threats, and taunt you with personal designs on mrs. carmac's millions. you have forgotten, lorry, that yvonne is her daughter. i know my wife's nature to the depths. she has drunk to nausea of the nectar of wealth. what has it given her? happiness? good health? a contented mind? no; she is scourged with scorpions, torn by a thousand regrets. she would give all her money now if some magician would wipe out from her life the record of the last eighteen years. very gladly, very humbly, would she dwell in this cottage, provided that no cloud existed between her and yvonne. but that cannot be. as offering a middle way, i have agreed that yvonne shall visit her at intervals, and even that small concession has delighted her beyond measure. and what will be the outcome? no matter what i may say, she will try to capture my girl's heart with a shower of gold. "no; i don't believe for one moment that she will ever estrange yvonne from me. i do not even commit the injustice of attributing any such design to her. but that yvonne will inherit carmac's millions if they are left undisturbed in her mother's possession is almost as certain as death,--the one certainty life holds for us poor mortals. and, above all, don't hug the delusion that the man who has discovered my wife's pitiful secret is not alive to this phase of a problem which is in my mind night and day to the exclusion of all else. he will exact a price which you cannot pay. each hour his ambitions mount higher. that unhappy woman is as powerless as a fawn caught in the coils of a python." "one can free the fawn by dislocating the python's vertebræ. is there any harm in my trying?" "you may not kill the man. if you tackle him openly, you admit the very contention that he may never be able to establish in a court of law; because, although he may have ferreted out the prior marriage, he cannot yet be sure that there the divorce may not hold good. even i myself am doubtful in that respect. it is a difficult legal point. obviously stella fears something. the fact that she has retained raymond when she meant to dismiss him seems to indicate a weak spot in her armor. no, lorry. i've looked at this thing from every point of view, and i see no loophole of escape. she is trapped, and raymond alone can set her free. we must await his pleasure, act when he acts, and strive to assist her when the crisis arrives. meanwhile, for her sake, we must endeavor to tolerate him." tollemache sat down again. "i feel like my namesake, saint lawrence the martyr," he said gloomily. "you remember that when he was put on a gridiron, and done to a crisp golden brown on one side, he suggested that by way of a change his executioners should grill him a little on the other. gee whizz! that reminds me, socrates--if sainte barbe can't arrange matters better for pilgrims to her shrine, she ought to go out of the business. here are madeleine, yvonne, you, and myself mixed up in fifty-seven varieties of trouble! and i suppose mère pitou and little barbe will receive attention in turn. if ever i meet sainte barbe in kingdom come, i'll tell her her real name. it strikes me that whoever invented the pin-dropping scheme knew what he was doing." ingersoll needed no explanation of his friend's outburst against the gentle lady whose love story has descended through the centuries. it was a confession of sheer impotence. he was forcing himself to admit that he could no more stay the course of events than stem the next tide rushing in from the atlantic. feeling that he wanted to bite something, tollemache lit his pipe and clenched the stem viciously between his strong teeth. aroused by the striking of the match, ingersoll began to smoke too. the attitude of the two bespoke their sense of utter helplessness. thus might men imprisoned on some volcanic island sit and await in dumb misery the next upheaval of the trembling earth. * * * * * at last tollemache, whose lively and strenuous temperament rebelled against indecision, even in circumstances such as these, where one false move might precipitate the very crisis he wished to avoid, put a question which ingersoll had been expecting, and fearing, since their talk began. "i take it you haven't told yvonne what you have told me?" he said. "i can't recall your exact words, but you implied that she is ignorant of the true nature of the dilemma her mother is in?" "yes, that's the worst of it," muttered ingersoll. "it comes hard, lorry, to parade the wretchedness of forgotten years before one's own daughter,--a girl like yvonne, whose mind is an unblemished mirror. before this blight fell on our lives i don't believe she really understood why sin and wrongdoing should exist. we dwelt apart. we moved and breathed in a gracious world of our own contriving. she read of evil in books and newspapers; but it passed her by, leaving her unruffled as our earth when astronomers report some clash of suns in the outer universe. now, although her mother's callousness is patent to her, and this mad escapade of madeleine's has stabbed her as with a dagger, she is wholly unaware of the chief offense, my neglect to facilitate the divorce proceedings." "for the first time in our acquaintance, socrates, i've got to say that you're talking nonsense," blurted out tollemache excitedly. "it's bad enough that mrs. carmac--i suppose i'd better stick to that name for her--should be in such a hole, and we be unable at present to pull her out. but it's absolute rot that you should blame yourself for her mismanagement of her own affairs. dash it all! where is the man or woman who can act tomorrow in face of such an experience as yours as they might, twenty years hence, wish they had acted? that's no way to look at things. tell yvonne, i say. tell her tonight. then she can discuss the situation fairly and squarely with her mother. don't you see, heaps of things may have occurred which, if you knew of them, might modify your judgment? this american divorce may be bad law in england, but good law in france. that lawyer fellow, mr. bennett, struck me as a wise old codger. he, or someone like him, might put mrs. carmac up to all sorts of dodges to do raymond in the eye. and, in any event, don't start accusing yourself to yvonne. if you do, d'ye know what the upshot will be? she'll take your side against her mother, and where will mrs. carmac be then?" "probably you are right, lorry. i have learned to distrust my own thoughts. yes, i'll tell yvonne the whole truth." ingersoll spoke in the accents of stoic despair; but tollemache was in fighting mood, and eager to close with the enemy. "it's sound policy to defend by attacking," he went on, with an air of profundity that, at any other time, the older man would have found intensely amusing. "that's what we were taught in college football, and it's true of every other kind of rough and tumble. why shouldn't mrs. carmac blow raymond and his blackmailing schemes sky high by making a deal with fosdyke and the other relatives? the cake is big enough, you say, that each should get a good slice and be satisfied. as for legal proceedings in england, who's going to prosecute? not you. and who else can act? the more i look at this affair the more i'm convinced it's a bogy that will fall to bits at the first straight punch." certainly the enthusiastic advocate of strong measures seemed to have hit on a project that, though difficult, was not wholly impracticable. if fosdyke had only kept clear of that stupid intrigue with madeleine demoret, a settlement by consent might come well within the bounds of reason. for the first time in many days ingersoll saw a gleam of light in a choking fog. he brightened perceptibly, and talked with some of his wonted animation. * * * * * neither man noticed how the time was slipping by until mère pitou summoned them to supper. yvonne had not arrived; so they assumed that she had remained with mrs. carmac. about ten o'clock ingersoll--probably in a state of subdued nervousness as to the outcome of the projected disclosure--asked tollemache to convey a message to yvonne that she was wanted at home. lorry obeyed cheerfully. he believed he had blundered on a means of discomfiting the rascally secretary, and, that laudable object once attained, the path was clear for his own love making. though his aims and hopes differed from harvey raymond's as the open sea from a slime-covered morass, he too made the mistake of imagining that money could level all obstacles; which, if regarded as an infallible maxim, is misleading alike to the just and the unjust. usually, when returning to the hotel from the cottage, he took the short cut by the footbridge on which yvonne had encountered madeleine and fosdyke. he was aware, however, that the girl habitually used the slightly longer but more open highway. so he turned into the concarneau road, and was approaching the main bridge (the famous old pont that gives the village its name) when he saw two people sauntering slowly toward the harbor, and apparently engaged in close converse. they were some distance away, and partly hidden in the deep shadow of a fifteenth century mill with curious carvings beneath the roof of a lion and a man; but he could not be mistaken as to yvonne and raymond, for no other girl in pont aven carried herself with yvonne's grace, and the misshapen little secretary was in a class apart. evidently raymond had offered his escort to yvonne, and they were extending a somewhat late promenade to enable the former to convey such news as he had to give of the journey to quimperlé. possibly he had received an answer from that mysterious "friend" duquesne. nevertheless tollemache was aware of a sudden lessening of his exaltation. it was as though when overheated by exertion he had entered a cold and clammy vault. he could give no valid reason why he should not quicken his pace and overtake yvonne with her father's message. yet he hung back, conscious of a sense of intrusion, yet furious with himself on account of this inexplicable hesitancy. finally he compromised. yvonne would surely not take a prolonged stroll after ten o'clock at night. he would walk a little way up the old concarneau road (so called because, after the fashion of ancient tracks, it climbs a steep hill boldly, while its modern supplanter follows a longer and easier sweep) and keep in the gloom of the ancient houses clustered there until he saw her making for the cottage. with growing impatience, and a prey to not a little misgiving, he waited fully half an hour. * * * * * at last she appeared, walking swiftly and alone. and now his anxiety yielded to astonishment. coming quietly down the hill, and crossing the place au beurre, he was just in time to see her vanish into the obscurity of the rue mathias. at any rate, then, she was heading for mère pitou's. glancing toward the harbor, he fancied he could make out raymond at the end of the short, narrow street. he did not think it necessary to lurk in the background until raymond passed, but went to the hotel and stood on the terrace under the sycamores, but well in view of anyone approaching the annex. soon raymond came, picking his steps with careful slowness, and keeping to the well lighted center of the square. his chin was sunk in the upturned collar of an overcoat, and he had the aspect of one lost in thought. yet he seemed to know of tollemache's presence, and raised his eyes in a steady stare when the two were within a few yards of each other. he did not speak, but his pallid face creased into a malevolent grin. whether or not this was intended as a polite recognition, tollemache neither knew nor cared. he returned raymond's stare with the impassivity of a red indian, and, though puzzled and distressed, resolved to look in on harry jackson before retiring for the night. in after life tollemache never forgot that moment. it was big with fate. perhaps, if left to their own course, events might have followed the same channel next day or some succeeding day. but there could be no questioning the tremendous significance of that particular hour when its outcome was recalled in the after light of accomplished facts. thenceforth there was no damming the torrent that swept away men and women in its fury. some were lost for evermore, some were thrown, bruised and maimed, on far distant strands; but all were caught in an irresistible flood, and, if tollemache were a visionary, he might have heard the rush of mighty waters as he turned to enter the hotel. chapter xii wherein both the reef and mr. raymond yield information yvonne was looking forward to raymond's return from quimperlé with an ill concealed restlessness that drew a sympathetic inquiry from her mother. "are you still fretting about madeleine?" she said. this solicitude was not feigned; but it centered wholly in yvonne. the folly, or stupidity, of some pert village maid whom she had never either seen or cared to see did not interest mrs. carmac in the least. had she voiced her real feeling in the matter she would have condemned her daughter's lack of proportion. during half a lifetime she had dwelt among the elect. to her it was quite immaterial whether or not madeleine's career was ruined. nor was this a mere pose on her part. she had trained herself to think that way. yet, so sharply may deeds clash with personal inclination, both she and walter carmac were noted for their philanthropy. she strove to do good, but not by stealth. she could lecture rupert fosdyke with genuine zeal; but, while seeking to reform the victimizer, she had little pity for the victim. from her point of view, madeleine was one of a fixed percentage of girls who rebelled against the social law. of course one tried to reduce their number; but it was almost bad form to wear one's heart out because the expected had happened. yvonne, though she would not have cared to put her impressions into words, was aware of this attitude on her mother's part, and it saddened her inexpressibly. at such moments a seemingly impassable gulf yawned between them. madeleine had been her trusted associate since they were babies together, toddling up the hill in convoy of some older girl to the kindergarten class in the convent. she knew that her friend was pure-minded and warm-hearted. nothing could have shocked her so greatly as the discovery that a man like rupert fosdyke should have succeeded in so brief a time in undermining the moral structure that brittany builds so solidly in its women folk. "i shall never cease fretting about her," she answered. "if by some cruel chance mr. raymond's friend fails me, i am minded to ask my father to come with me to paris tomorrow. madeleine will not resist me if once we are brought face to face." "your father has far too much sense," said mrs. carmac composedly. "oh, please don't talk in that strain. i cannot bear it!" pleaded the girl. "it hurts, of course; but isn't it better to look at the facts squarely? i am surprised that mr. raymond, who has more experience of life, should have flown on a wild-goose chase to quimperlé. it is nothing else. if madeleine is actually on her way to paris, the journey is a matter of obvious arrangement. rupert will unquestionably meet her at the gare st. lazare, and what opportunity will your deputy have then of making any appeal to the girl herself? rupert would simply take him by the collar and swing him aside. you see, yvonne, i am forty-two, and you are twenty. we survey life from different angles." "from different levels, at any rate," said yvonne, closing her ears to the cold accuracy of her mother's reasoning. "you gaze down on us simple pont avenois from the altitude of new york and london, while i cannot peer above the eaves of our little mills. i am looking now through the low door of a desolate cottage, and i can discern a broken-hearted woman crooning her sorrow by the embers of a dying fire. oh, mother, mother, if ever you would have me love you as a daughter, you must try and realize that my very heartstrings are twined round my breton friends, that i rejoice with them and grieve with them, that i love them for their many virtues and condone their few faults! i have never knowingly wished evil to anyone, but if god in his mercy should preserve my dear madeleine from that horrid man i would not care what means his wisdom adopted. even though fosdyke marries her, madeleine will not be happy, and i cannot think that if he meant to behave honorably he would have tempted her to plunge her people into such distress by leaving home clandestinely." mrs. carmac could have rocked with laughter at the notion of rupert fosdyke marrying madeleine demoret; but she curbed the impulse. despite her primitive simplicity, yvonne was in an excitable mood that night, and this affair must be allowed to settle itself without disturbing their good relations. "well," she sighed, affecting an accord she did not feel, "we can only hope now that your telegram will prove effective. who is the person whose aid mr. raymond is securing?" "a monsieur duquesne." mrs. carmac wrinkled her smooth forehead. "i have not heard the name," she said, after a pause. "but there is nothing unusual in that. raymond is curiously secretive. any other man, living in a household on the footing he occupied in the chase and in charles street, would have spoken at times of his relatives. he, for all i knew of his earlier history, might have been born in--saturn. i was going to say mars; but mr. raymond does not meet one's ideal of a martian." at that yvonne was constrained to smile. neither she nor the woman who dismissed raymond and duquesne so flippantly could guess what sinister influences lurked behind the association of those two men. an astrologer would have found something ominous in that haphazard reference to the planetary harbingers of disaster, saturn and mars, and, oddly enough, a half-thought of the sort did flit through yvonne's mind, because she often found amusement and interest, during the mild and clear winters of brittany, in reading the firmament from a stellar atlas, and there was hardly a constellation in the northern heavens she could not name at sight. at that moment, however, relief from a rather forced conversation came in the shape of captain popple's burly form. * * * * * "beg pardon, ma'am, for intrudin' at this time," he said, when admitted, "but i thought you'd like to hear the result of today's operations on the reef. atween peridot an' a trawl, we've been doin' things." "is peridot here--in pont aven?" interrupted yvonne, blanching in quick alarm. "yes, miss. he kem from concarneau this mornin', an' i've brought him up the river on tonight's tide." "where is he now?" "i'm not quite sure, miss. he left me a couple o' minutes since. while i was havin' a word with jackson, peridot went up the hill." "was he tired?" popple was undoubtedly perplexed by this sudden concern as to peridot's physical condition; but he answered readily enough, "well, miss, if he isn't, he ought to be. we've been hard at it, high water an' low, for fourteen hours." yvonne was so visibly relieved that popple's bewilderment increased. of course he had heard no word of madeleine's flight, and he could not understand that if peridot had gone home and to bed there was a chance that the fisherman might leave the village again early in the morning without being told the disastrous news, since madame larraidou was a cautious old body, who would not vex her son with idle gossip. popple hesitated. if further details of peridot's well-being were needed, he was ready to vouch for the breton's apparent good health and complete sobriety. mrs. carmac fathomed his difficulty at once. "go on, captain," she smiled. "miss ingersoll only wanted to be assured that peridot was safe in his cottage. his mother was anxious about him--that is all." "no need, ma'am, i assure you," said popple earnestly. "he's one of the best, is peridot. for a frenchman, i've never met his ekal. i had a sort of notion he'd bring good luck, an' he did too. we've got your boxes!" * * * * * mrs. carmac stood up. her pale cheeks flushed with gratification. "i am more than pleased," she cried. "where are they? can they be brought here tonight?" "no, ma'am; not both, that is. like meself, i reckon, you're forgettin' the ways of a french custom house. i've got yours, because it was open; but the other one, which is locked, had to be left in a shed down below there until the key is produced. i tried to tell some chap in a blue coat and cheese-cutter cap that if poor mr. carmac had any cigars or cigarettes in his cabin trunk they wouldn't be of much account after soakin' in salt water for a matter o' ten days or thereabouts; but, bless your heart, he wouldn't listen. mossoo guého, the gentleman from brest, tole me i'd have to bring the key in the mornin', or, more likely, force it open; so i left it at that." mrs. carmac was puzzled, and showed it. "you say my box is open. do you mean, that it has been smashed to pieces?" she inquired. "it's hardly been scratched, ma'am. you see, it was this way: when the yacht broke in two the fore part was carried clean away by the sea. the trawl picked up fittin's an' bits o' machinery two hundred yards from the reef. but the after part must ha held together longer, an' the heavy seas didn't get at it quite so fierce like. anyhow, peridot sort o' nosed out where them boxes might be lyin', an' we sent the diver down--an' sure enough there they were." "could the box have been wrenched open while being lifted to the surface?" popple scratched his head dubiously, not because of any doubt suggested by mrs. carmac's question, but on account of a problem that had bothered him ever since the salvage was effected. "no, ma'am," he said, evidently weighing his words. "it received no rough usage. it wasn't locked." "but it was!" insisted the lady, rather emphatically. "i locked it myself before coming on deck after we left brest. i remember doing so most distinctly." "then it's a myst'ry, ma'am,--a real myst'ry, seein' as the lock has been turned. the wards are full o' sand, of course; but that has nothin' to do with their position." "where is the box now?" "outside on a handcart, ma'am. jackson's on guard. that's been his job all day--just sittin' on that box. you see, ma'am, you tole me you was particular about it an' the other one; so i've taken care that each of 'em reaches you just as we found it." "will you kindly ask the hotel porters to carry the one box here now?" "cert'nly, ma'am. there's on'y one thing. the contents are in a sad mess. the sight of 'em may upset you." "no, no. the loss of the clothing is immaterial. please have the box brought in." * * * * * popple lost no time. mrs. carmac was explaining to yvonne that the solitary article of jewelry she valued, a necklace of graded pearls, had been left in a locked case, itself inclosed in a locked box, when a porter entered and dumped a rust-covered steel trunk on the floor. popple untied the knots of a rope that kept the lid in position. unquestionably, if mrs. carmac had turned the key in the lock on leaving her cabin, it had been opened later, either by accident or design. the owner dropped to her knees instantly. after an alarmed glance at an arrangement of straps beneath the lid, she piled a number of sodden and salt-stained articles on the floor. soon she was gazing disconsolately at an empty box. the jewelcase was not there. but she was more than disturbed, she was exceedingly annoyed. "i have been robbed!" she cried. "someone on board the stella possessed a key that would open a yale lock, a thing that called for careful planning. i have lost twenty thousand pounds' worth of pearls and diamonds!" "mr. raymond tole me the necklace alone was worth ten thousand, ma'am," breathed popple thickly. "mr. raymond! how came you and he to be discussing the value of my jewels?" she was on her feet now, glowering in anger, a woman despoiled of her prized possessions, and ready to suspect anyone. popple was apologetic. he felt as if he were personally in default. "we was talkin' one day about the salvage, ma'am. if you remember, you mentioned a lot o' money in notes, which ought to turn up in the trunk at the customs shed, and it seemed sort o' nateral that mr. raymond an' i should talk things over." "yes, yes. of course he knew all about the notes and the rest. don't look at me in that stupid fashion. i am not accusing you or mr. raymond of stealing my belongings. but how can one account for this wretched business? who could have dared to go to my cabin, when the robbery must be discovered before we reached port that night? i locked both case and box. here are the keys. celeste found them in a special pocket inside the skirt i wore that day. my husband's keys were in his pocket too. they were brought to me by the mayor on behalf of the police." she was talking excitedly, almost at random, and had snatched at a porte-monnaie to display the keys, as though the fact that they existed and were in her keeping supplied proof positive that she could not be mistaken. "it's an awkward business, an' that's the solemn truth, ma'am," wheezed popple. "it 'ud please me an' jackson if you'd send for the police an' have 'em search us an' our rooms. not that we've got much beyond a few bits o' linen----" "you and jackson--the steward!" repeated mrs. carmac shrilly. "did you know already that my jewels were gone?" "we guessed it, ma'am. we didn't like the look o' that there box, an' that's a fact." she stamped a foot angrily on the floor of polished wood. "it does not concern you or jackson," she cried. "i would as soon think of blaming mr. raymond, who was with me in the deck saloon during all those miserable hours----" * * * * * "blaming me for what, mrs. carmac?" came in the secretary's harsh voice. the door had been left open when the box was brought in, and raymond himself was standing there now. he had just returned from quimperlé, and had the semblance of a man pierced with cold, as the night had suddenly grown chilly. his small eyes roved from mrs. carmac's irritated face to yvonne, who was still seated, and had not interfered in the conversation. then they dwelt on the empty trunk and the disheveled heap of its contents. "you've recovered some of your baggage, i see," he went on quietly. "is that the box containing your jewelcase?" "it is the box that did contain it at one time," came the vexed rejoinder. "do you mean that the case is not there?" "yes. someone has stolen it. i care nothing about the diamonds; but the pearls were given me by mr. carmac, and cannot be replaced." "but--forgive the question--why did you say you do not blame me?" "i blame no one, you least of any, as you are the one man who was never near my cabin since i quitted it." raymond advanced farther into the room. after one sharp glance at the flustered sailor, he gazed again at the limp collection of garments on the floor, from which a light haze of steam was curling lazily, as the temperature of the apartment was many degrees higher than that of the wet and closely packed lingerie and dresses. "this is a very serious matter," he said slowly. "unfortunately most of the stella's crew have left pont aven." "my men were not thieves, mr.----" broke in popple fiercely. "i am not even hinting that they were," said raymond. "i only mention the chief obstacle in the way, of a search for the missing gems--granted the almost incredible thing that any man on board the stella stole them in the belief that he could win clear with his loot before mrs. carmac discovered her loss. do you mean to send for the police?" he continued, addressing mrs. carmac. "and--that reminds me--what of the money mr. carmac carried in one of his trunks? is that gone also?" mrs. carmac snapped that she did not mean to trouble the police. the sooner she was out of pont aven and free of its oppressive atmosphere the better she would be pleased. then, apparently ashamed of her petulance, she explained the mystery of the open lock. raymond tried to be helpful. he frowned judicially. "where did you actually place the jewelcase?" he asked. "in those straps," she said, pointing to the slings attached to the inside of the lid. "then isn't it at least possible that you did not actually lock the box, though believing you had done so? in this event the case, being heavy, may have fallen out, and be now somewhere in the locality where the box was found." "no," said popple. "the diver had his orders. he searched pertic'lar." his tone was gruff, even hostile. he would be hard to convince that the secretary's reference to the departed members of the yacht's company was not meant as a slur on their character. raymond ignored popple's curtness. "still, as you yourself said, captain, the sea acts in a curiously uncertain way at times," he replied blandly. "there will be no harm in making a fresh search tomorrow. weather permitting, i shall accompany you, if for no other reason than a wish to see once again a place where some of us--not all, unhappily--were so providentially rescued." mrs. carmac rang for celeste. "take these articles, and give them to mademoiselle julia for distribution among the poor women of the village," she said. her attitude was eloquent. the pearls were lost irretrievably. she dismissed the subject. "_mais, madame_," cried the dismayed celeste, "much of the linen is veritably new, and only requires washing." "do as i bid you. i shall never wear any of those garments again. captain popple, here is the key you want. i leave you to deal with the customs people. will you help celeste to remove the box? thank you. well, mr. raymond, you have just returned from quimperlé, i suppose? did you have a cold journey?" * * * * * raymond took the cue, and said nothing more of the theft. when popple and the maid had gone he explained that during the run to quimperlé he decided that it would be more discreet to telephone duquesne than send yvonne's telegram. he was lucky in reaching his friend without delay, and was thus able to give him detailed instructions, including a full description of madeleine's appearance. duquesne had promised to meet the train at the gare st. lazare. in fact, he was so eager to serve that, failing madeleine's arrival at the expected hour, he would meet the next train, and the next. in any case he would telegraph the result early in the morning. in a word, raymond had acquitted himself admirably. he had forgotten nothing, left no stone unturned. yvonne was more than ever grateful. mrs. carmac was tired, almost peevish; so the girl did not remain much longer. she agreed readily when raymond asked to be allowed to see her home, and did not demur on reaching the bridge at an unexpected request that she should walk with him a little way down the road to the harbor. "the hour is not so late," he said deferentially, "and i wish to lay before you a very serious matter. i may surprise you greatly. i may even distress you. but i do want you to believe, miss yvonne, that in baring my heart to you i am not swayed by unworthy motives." the girl was certainly astonished by this portentous opening; but the secretary's action with regard to madeleine had completely dissipated a sense of restraint and dislike that she was usually aware of when in his company. thinking he had some news from paris that he did not wish to reveal in mrs. carmac's presence, she hastened to assure him that he might speak with the utmost candor. "that is good and kind of you," he said; "but it is only what i expected to hear from your lips. but i am sure you will forgive me if i tread warily. i have that to tell which may find you unprepared, and i think you will thank me afterward--no matter what view you take of what i may call an astounding revelation--if i do not blurt out what i have to say like some frightened child. my nature is a cautious one, and i shrink from even the semblance of inflicting pain. such characteristics may be commendable in their way; but they have their drawbacks in a case like this, when a man who would willingly undergo any suffering for your sake is forced, against the grain, to utter unpleasant truths." * * * * * yvonne was more and more bewildered. she realized intuitively now that he meant to discuss her mother's affairs, since madeleine could not possibly have reached paris yet, and any tidings he might have obtained with regard to rupert fosdyke's schemes hardly warranted such an alarming preamble. so she strove to make him comprehend that he was treading on dangerous ground. "if you are referring, even indirectly, to mrs. carmac," she said frankly, "i must warn you instantly that i cannot listen to anything concerning her. until she came to pont aven i was not even aware that such a relative as an aunt existed. when she leaves this place--though i shall see her often, i hope, in the future--the relations between us will be rather those of good friends than of aunt and niece. you ought to understand, then, mr. raymond, that if your confidences deal with her i refuse to hear them." raymond sighed heavily. he seemed to be at a loss for words. in reality yvonne had said exactly what he anticipated, and he counted on a well judged delay as calculated to increase her agitation and weaken her defenses. "please don't render an ungracious task harder," he said, as though nerving himself to a supreme effort, when yvonne, after walking a few paces in silence, was about to tell him that she would go no farther. "i meant to prepare you by some vague comments that would clear the air. but your highly strung and generous temperament will not permit any display of what i have described as my methods of caution. well, then, if it must be so, let us get to the crux of the matter at once. mrs. carmac is not your aunt, miss yvonne. she is your mother! she was your father's lawful wife! she deserted him and you, got an american divorce, and was married to walter carmac in england. i believe that the second marriage was not a valid one. it is terrible to have to say these things; but they are true, and it rests with you to save her from exposure and ignominy. i beseech you to credit my good faith in this matter. to whom can i appeal if not to you, her daughter? it is manifestly impossible that i should go to your father. he could not help her if he would. her future happiness, her very means of existence, are in your hands. can you then reproach me if i ask you to bear with me while i endeavor to show a way out of a situation bristling with difficulties for all of us, alive with real danger for your own mother?" * * * * * in the first shock of this disclosure yvonne was minded to rend the man with a few quiet words of scorn and disdain, and then leave him. twice she essayed to break in on his measured utterances, and twice she held back. she could not know that raymond had forged his thunderbolt with no slight skill. he could not hope to achieve the final effect he aimed at by merely revealing a secret that was no secret. close observation had shown that the girl was well aware of the relationship she bore to mrs. carmac, and, although she might be a prey to terror and dismay at finding the knowledge in possession of a comparative stranger, she would hardly do other than resent his interference, resent it too with a good deal of spirit and hot indignation. he contrived therefore to combine innuendo with fact. he had counted the cost. he was playing a desperate game. during the next five minutes he must have in yvonne either a determined opponent or a subservient if unwilling ally. there could be no half measures. if his suit was spurned, he must attach himself forthwith to rupert fosdyke's fortunes. if yvonne wavered, or was cowed, he would strike a telling blow through her mother. no matter how the issue tended, he was secure of a thumping reward. once again the hazard of the hour seemed to be with him. yvonne, almost tongue-tied and wholly bewildered, could only falter brokenly, "having said so much, you cannot stop now. what do you mean when you say that mrs. carmac is in danger?" he almost chuckled. things were going well, exceedingly well. she was ready to listen. but he managed to throw an emotional vibration into his voice. for the moment the man was a consummate actor; though indeed he had so much at stake that no extraordinary effort was called for. "thank you," he said, apparently groping in a fog of doubt, and forcing an unwilling parade of unpalatable and distressing facts. "it is something gained to feel that you have suspended judgment. you may or may not know already that mrs. carmac is your mother. i ask you to admit nothing: only to hear and weigh my statements dispassionately. eighteen years ago your mother deserted you and your father in paris. for some reason mrs. ingersoll married carmac in her maiden name two years later. none of her associates ever guessed that the beautiful and distinguished stella fordyce had been the wife of an unknown artist. her secret was safe with your father. it would have gone to the grave with her but for the wreck of the yacht on a breton reef, and the really phenomenal chance that brought her first husband and her child to her rescue. even then nothing might have been revealed had not carmac lost his life. really, if one were superstitious, one would see the action of providence in----" "please spare me any references of that sort," broke in yvonne. she could endure much; but she was not compelled to suffer this hypocritical scoundrel's blasphemy. raymond started. there was a new quality in her voice. she was regaining her self control, and at all costs he must prevent that. if he would win, he must adopt tactics of the whirlwind order. "forgive me," he said. "the thought has been so constantly in my mind of late that it came unbidden. but you leave me no choice. i must speak plainly, almost brutally. let rupert fosdyke obtain the faintest shadow of the unquestionable facts, and he will not only drive your mother forth a pauper, but put such a complexion on the facts that she will be disgraced forever among her equals." "disgraced! why? people are not disgraced because they obtain a divorce according to the laws of their own country." "no; but they are punished severely if they offend against the social code. mrs. carmac's offense is against british law. she cannot deny it. the first person who lodges an information can upset her husband's will. deprived of his money and its influence, what becomes of her?" * * * * * yvonne stood in the road as though she had been turned to stone, and perforce raymond halted and faced her. there was not a strong light in that place. some fifty yards away shone a lamp that marked a footbridge across the top of the harbor. just beneath the aven took its last plunge as a mountain stream and mingled its sweet waters with the tides. on the rocks, high above the river, a calvary was silhouetted against the cold, clear blue of a starlit sky, and it needed no highly imaginative mind to picture the stark figure of the christ gazing down compassionately on one of his creatures who was disobeying his ordinances. not far distant was the cheerful café frequented by artists and writers on summer evenings, where madame maréchale, julia guillou's sister, dispensed cups of black coffee, and tiny glasses of liqueur cider, and epigrams--each excellent in their way. in a flash the notion presented itself to yvonne's overburdened mind that the pleasant intimacy of those mild revels was being banned by some malign influence which had its living agent in the diminutive creature now confronting her. the empty right sleeve of raymond's overcoat added to his lop-sided appearance. the black figure, sharply outlined against the white road and the luminous mist rising from the river, was almost ghoul-like in its ungainliness. she could see the calvary. raymond had turned his back on it. instantly she found in him the personification of the impenitent thief. but she had her wits about her now. life was becoming too complex in its issues that a girl should handle them alone. no matter what the outcome, her father must take control; but before going to him she must probe this miscreant's full intent. "do you imply that you are the person who may lodge an information?" she said, with a calmness of tone that sounded bizarre in her own ears. "no, no. that is the last thing i would think of," protested raymond heatedly. "or that you feel compelled to acquaint rupert fosdyke with his rights as his uncle's heir?" "he has no rights. his uncle has cast him off deliberately. he is an unscrupulous roué--witness his heartless philandering with your friend madeleine!" "in that event, why have you made revelations to me, which, if true, cannot fail to be hurtful?" "i want to become your loyal ally in shielding your mother from the consequences of her past mistakes." "i am almost powerless, mr. raymond. mrs. carmac will go from pont aven soon. i remain with my father. what sort of alliance can you and i form that will protect or benefit her?" raymond's small eyes blazed with sudden fire. she had actually helped him to surmount the stiffest barrier. "the best and most enduring of all," he said thickly. "marry me! why not? you are free. i shall be a devoted husband. your slightest wish will be my law. you will not be separated from your parents, with either of whom you can dwell for such periods as you think fit. marry me, and every ill now threatening your mother will dissolve into thin air!" at that crisis the image of laurence tollemache obliterated that of the little man with the grating voice, and yvonne could have laughed aloud. but she kept her head. the naïve habit of thought induced by close communion with her breton friends stood her in good stead then, when a false move might precipitate she knew not what ills. "is that the price of your silence?" she said, and the clear, precise enunciation recalled her mother in every syllable. "that is not a fair way to put it," was the hoarse answer; for the strain was beginning to tell, even on raymond's nerves of steel. "let me hear how you put it," she went on mercilessly. "we would be making a compact to our mutual advantage," he said. "i would gain a beautiful and accomplished wife; you would inherit your mother's millions. we would unite in protecting her and punishing rupert fosdyke." "i see," she said, with an air of careful consideration. "you do not want an answer tonight, i suppose?" "time is pressing--horribly pressing." "in that respect time must stand still until tomorrow. we shall meet then." she went off without any attempt at bidding him farewell. raymond glared after her fixedly. he was annoyed, almost discomfited, but not disheartened. he had taken the step that counts. she knew now what lay at the back of his projects, and that was a long stride toward the goal. he was so deeply absorbed in reckoning the pros and cons of every word yvonne had spoken that he failed to see tollemache standing outside julia's until close on him. even then he could not find his tongue; so he merely grinned. thus might a fiend gloat over a soul in peril. was there none to help? raymond, at any rate, saw a clear road. he was most affable to the porter who was waiting to assist him in undressing. for a man with a broken arm he had struck a shrewd blow in pont aven that night. chapter xiii showing how tollemache took charge yvonne found her father hunched up in his accustomed chair. he was smoking, and brooding, his gaze centered in the pine logs crackling on the hearth. thus had she found him each night since his return from concarneau. he, seldom without a book after daylight failed unless some crony called in for a chat, had not opened a book during many days. he had the aspect of a man crushed by misery. it was borne in on his daughter that he was slowly yielding under an intolerable strain; yet it had become her bitter portion to add materially to a load carried so uncomplainingly. he looked up as she entered, and essayed a welcoming smile which conveyed a ghostly reminiscence of a joyous past now utterly remote. it cut her to the quick; but she strove to emulate his seeming nonchalance. "i thought my message would have brought you sooner," he said. "but perhaps you were helping your mother to overhaul her boxes. mère pitou gave me the news of the salvage, which has surprised our local experts. this is the first time in the memory of man that les verrés have disgorged their prey." "what message, dad?" yvonne removed her hat and coat, and seated herself on a sheepskin rug by her father's side. she had that to say which would be hard for both, and she did not wish to see the agony in his face. "haven't you seen lorry, then?" he inquired. "no, dear." "but that is strange. lorry left here quite half an hour ago, meaning to ask you to come home. i didn't think pont aven could hide you from lorry if he was bent on the chase." "sorry, dad. nothing--no one--would have kept me had i known. but i understand what happened. i quitted julia's about half an hour since. mr. raymond was anxious for a brief talk, and we walked to the top of the quay. lorry would go to julia's by the mills. that is how he missed me." she felt her father's body quiver, as a mettlesome horse might flinch under the touch of a spur, and knew that the mere mention of raymond's name had affected him. it was her habit, when seated at his knee, to catch his hand and draw it over her shoulder, holding it in both of hers, and using it as a sort of stay. she had done this insensibly, and her downcast eyes dwelt on the thin, nervous fingers--they seemed to have shrunk during that time of suffering. the discovery affected her strangely. she could not, she dared not, unburden her soul then. no matter what the cost to herself and others, he must be spared--at any rate till another day of wretchedness was upon them. she realized just in time that a hot tear stealing down her cheek would drop on that dear hand, and bring about an instant demand for an explanation. with a jerk she averted her head, and the tear fell scalding on her own wrist. her father misinterpreted the movement. "don't stir, girly," he said. "i have something to say, a confession to make. remain where you are. i shall cause you pain, and if i find my own anguish mirrored in your eyes, i may falter in my duty." * * * * * so father and daughter were animated by the same thought. each desired only to lighten the shock for the other. yvonne nestled closer. more than ever was she resolved to keep her woes to herself for the hour. with an effort that cost a cruel biting of her under lip, she contrived to murmur without a catch in her voice: "you're tired, darling. don't tell me you're not. you ought to be in bed and asleep. let us wait till the morning, and have a nice long chat after _petit déjeuner_." "no," said ingersoll firmly. "i promised lorry i would speak tonight. he--expects it of me." "lorry!" she gasped, in a sudden fright born of the knowledge that had come to her in the gloom down there by the whispering river, when a cold-blooded trafficker in her mother's difficulties had offered to sell his secret at the price of all she held dear. "lorry! how is lorry concerned in our present troubles?" "your troubles are his, sweetheart. lorry loves you. true knight-errant that he is, he wants to slay the dragon that would devour you." "but, father dear, how could he know? how could anyone know?" in her quick alarm the cry slipped out unaware. happily, as it transpired,--for there is no telling what john ingersoll might have done in his anger if raymond's infamous suggestion had reached him in the present state of tension,--he misunderstood a second time. "lorry didn't know, he only guessed," he said gently. "he is a good fellow, and i ached for the sympathy of some man to whom i could talk freely. so, to remove the cloud between us, of which each has been sensible since we came ashore on that thursday night, i told him the truth, and the whole truth. he urged that you should be told too. he is right. oddly enough, despite my vaunted repute for wisdom, he saw into the muddle more clearly than i. yvonne, i did not divorce your mother. i--i regret my action now, when regret comes too late. according to english law she never could have been walter carmac's wedded wife while i lived. girly, forgive me! i have wronged both her and you grievously." yvonne whirled round and flung her arms about the stricken man's neck. there was no pretense now at hiding her tears; but her eyes shone with another light than that of grief. "dad," she cried fiercely, "i sha'n't have you torn and harried in this way! i refuse, do you hear? it is my turn to bear some of the suffering, some of the sacrifice. i am young and strong, and you have trained me well for the battle. my mother's story must not become known. we must save her, you and i. isn't it by such means that our worth is tested? do you think i'll shirk the ordeal? no, a thousand times no! we can't talk reasonably tonight. we would rend each other's hearts. but tomorrow, when we are calmer, we must look at things fearlessly, and take the road that leads to honor, no matter what the cost!" her father stroked her hair to still her frenzy, just as he had often done in the stress of some childish tantrum; for yvonne had never been a demure little saint, but owned in full measure the defects of a frank and impulsive temperament. "don't let us give way to hysteria," he said, smiling wanly. "of course it was my fault. i cracked up first; but i sha'n't offend again. perhaps, as you say, we may take a more level-headed view of our difficulties in cold daylight. but, to prepare you, so to speak, i must warn you that your mother's chief enemy is that churl raymond." "raymond!" again was yvonne almost choked with apprehension. how could her father suspect the devilish scheme the secretary had hatched? had lorry probed the depths of the man's evil mind? her brain swam; but she compelled her faculties to remain alert. "yes--raymond," her father was saying. "i have no absolute proof; but i am convinced that he overheard your mother's frantic words of self reproach when the hirondelle was coming up the river. the very agent he is employing in paris, ostensibly in aid of your quest for poor madeleine, is really engaged in a search into the early records of our lives, your mother's and mine. the inquiry is a simple thing. if raymond has not secured the necessary evidence already, it is only a matter of hours before it is in his hands. then, unless a miracle happens, he can dictate his own terms. worst of all, your mother will be in his power as long as she lives, and an unscrupulous scoundrel, such as i believe raymond to be, could cause untold mischief after her death." yvonne rose to her feet, and straightened her lithe, slim body. with a determined gesture she brushed away a mist from before her eyes. "i want to ask a few questions," she said. "you will be quite open and candid with me, i know, because it is necessary that we should meet the trials of the next few days with the clearest knowledge of each other's aims. do you think it possible to make any arrangement with raymond that would be binding?" "the blackmailer's appetite only grows by feeding. pay him a very large sum today, and he will demand four or five times the amount within a month or a year. there is no finality. the wolf may eat to repletion; but it will continue to slay in mere lust of killing. "is there no way of defeating him?" "lorry, as i hinted, hit on a notion. i have no means of knowing exactly what legal steps carmac and stella took to make their marriage valid. carmac might have been advised to establish, or secure, american citizenship. moreover, french law may adapt itself readily to american standards. those are points for lawyers; but i want you to go into the matter thoroughly with your mother, and ascertain whether or not there exists any sort of legal barrier that may serve to keep this jackal from devouring her. that is one reason why i have opened my heart to you tonight." yvonne had mrs. carmac's trick of wrinkling her brows when in deep thought. many a time had her father chaffed her on the habit, and pretended to wait in breathless suspense till the oracle announced its weighty decision. but the creasing of the smooth forehead passed unnoticed now. they were no longer light-hearted playmates, but a man and a woman pondering one of life's most harrowing problems. "raymond can get nothing at all unless he acts through rupert fosdyke," she said collectedly. "why shouldn't an arrangement be made with him--fosdyke, i mean? it's all a question of this wretched money. why shouldn't mother give it to him and his sisters? surely they would leave her sufficient to live on?" youth is sanguine. yvonne had reached the same conclusion as tollemache; that, if money were really the root of all evil, the noxious growth that had sprung into such vigorous existence in pont aven since the feast of saint barbara might be torn out bodily. but ingersoll thought the discussion had gone far enough for the time. certainly a settlement on reasonable lines might be effected; but it was impracticable to form anything in the nature of a fixed opinion until yvonne and her mother had talked matters over in the light of full understanding. something was gained in the fact that the last obstacle in the way of complete confidence between yvonne and himself had been thrown down. his manner showed how beneficial this belief on his part might prove. he sprang up with a certain alertness of movement that was eloquent of new-born hope. "no more talk tonight, mignonne," he cried cheerfully. "now that we know the worst, we can fight in the open side by side. hitherto i have felt that i was treating you unfairly in withholding from your ken the most damaging item in your mother's catalogue of worries. tell her what i have said. i want you to speak without reservation. then, if she is equally candid, we shall know just where we stand, and whence the main attack may come." unhappily yvonne was aware, when kissing her father goodnight, that the enemy was attacking already; but she held steadfast to the resolve not to disclose raymond's brazen scheme at present. the day had produced sufficient wretchedness of spirit already. * * * * * so the two parted, and yvonne, when safe in the solitude of her room, knelt and prayed that some ray of sunshine should pierce the gathering clouds. then, in more tranquil mood, she forced her thoughts into a new channel by reading some pages of a biography of john ruskin. by curious chance she came across a passage dealing with ruskin's ill-fated love for rosie la touche, and containing a poignant passage in a letter he wrote to a friend: "i wanted my rosie _here_. in heaven i mean to go and talk with pythagoras and socrates and valerius publicola. i sha'n't care a bit for rosie there; she needn't think it. what will grey eyes and red cheeks be good for _there_?" yvonne closed the book with a snap. that shaft from the bow so deftly wielded by a master archer had pierced her very heart. she loved tollemache. she wanted her lorry _here_. if any maleficent influence drove him from her, all the brightness and color would depart out of her life, a pleasant world grow cold and gray for evermore. then, being weary yet eminently healthy, she went to bed and slept dreamlessly, and was up betimes in the morning. it was pleasant to see the sun rising into a clear sky above the stunted trees crowning the toulifot hill. the frosty weather, coming unusually early that year, had lasted far beyond the prescribed brief period of such cold snaps in december. there was little or no wind. it was an ideal day for a walk. meaning to excuse herself from motoring, and wheedle her father into a long tramp after luncheon,--with lorry, perchance, to disprove the infallibility of the adage that two is company and three is none,--she warned mère pitou that she would return for the midday meal. "ah, _tcha_!" said madame testily. "what between one thing and another, i'm thinking of taking a holiday. little barbe could have done all the cooking needed in this house during the past week. look at your father! anyone would say i starved him. as for you, flying about and eating scraps and hashes in strange hotels, i'm surprised at you!" yvonne assured her irate landlady that the best ragout in brittany would not lack appreciation that day, and went to visit her mother in more cheerful mood than she would have deemed possible overnight. it was market day, and the place au beurre, beside whose old houses the parish church of saint guenolé reared its modest spire, was alive already with country carts, smart coifs, and velvet jackets. in the larger square across the bridge traders from neighboring towns were erecting stalls for the display of their merchandise, mostly wearing apparel and articles of household use. yvonne knew everybody, and everybody knew her. she had a smile and a nod for the widow limbour, whose confectionery and sweets had won her heart years ago, for marrec the barber, daoudal the baker, madame le naour, purveyor of a strange blend in hats and liqueurs, and madame le garrec, seller of newspapers and picture postcards. monsieur le courronc, whose little gallery had held many of her father's pictures, had spared a moment from his artistic wood carving, and was looking out at the crowded marketplace. the morvans, _monsieur et madame_, whose breton costumes and laces excite the desire and empty the purses of fair visitors in the summer, were in pont aven that day, and canivet the coach builder was standing at the entrance to the yard that houses his industry. each and all greeted yvonne. for a few happy minutes she forgot her worries, until a girl met her, and asked shyly: "is there any news of madeleine?" that took some of the blue out of the sky. yvonne had to confess that nothing was known of madeleine except that she had gone to quimperlé the previous day. her questioner simpered, and passed on. madeleine's story was already discredited. much water would flow under the bridge before she was reinstated in the good opinion of pont aven. * * * * * yvonne caught sight of tollemache, standing, with a pipe in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, outside julia's. (and, by the way, there is no disrespect in this curt allusion to the name of the chief hotel in the village. it is never spoken of locally otherwise than as "julia's" in english and "chez julia" in french. the excellent lady who to a large extent built, and in every other way owns, the property would think her popularity was fading if any more ceremonious description was used.) near lorry were captain popple and jackson, the latter now promoted to a stick and a slow limp. yvonne would have passed with a smiling "goodmorning," but tollemache pocketed his pipe and hailed her. she realized instantly that he was excited about something quite out of the common run, though his air was studiously composed. "you're going to mrs. carmac, i suppose?" he said. "yes," she answered, coloring slightly under the intensity of his gaze, for lorry had fine eyes, and now they seemed to be looking into her heart; which was so absurd a notion that her cheeks grew redder and redder. "you won't be there long before raymond comes in," he went on earnestly. "when he turns up i want you to look out through the window, and touch your chin with your right hand. that's all." she laughed quite merrily, for sheer relief at the discovery that he was thinking of anything but the fantasy that had caused that riot in her veins. "dear me!" she cried. "what does that signify in the code? is he to be garroted straight off?" tollemache laughed too. "don't ask any questions, little girl, and you won't be told any fibs," he said. "captain popple and jackson and i have some business on hand, and we want mrs. carmac and you to be present when we drive a bargain with the wily raymond. now, i sha'n't tell you any more; so you needn't pout." "i'm not pouting." "oh, by the way, if there's any news of madeleine, get it while the deputation is approaching." she courtesied, with a demure "_oui, m'sieur_." somehow, that morning, despite the unpleasing tidings that might have arrived from paris, she felt oddly light-hearted. * * * * * but the smile froze on her lips when she met raymond on the steps of the annex, where he had evidently stationed himself in order to waylay her. his slight figure was tightly buttoned up in a heavy overcoat, and he carried another coat over his left arm; so he raised his hat more awkwardly even than usual. then she remembered that he was going down the river with the salvors, and summoned all her woman's guile to the task of bringing him back to her mother's apartments, in case he had been there already and taken leave. she could hardly have explained her motive. it sufficed that lorry had made a point of raymond's attendance under given conditions, and she was determined that his wish should be obeyed. "i've received a telegram from duquesne," he said, plunging at once into a topic on which they could converse freely without the inevitable constraint of a first meeting after the extraordinary disclosure of the preceding night. "it's satisfactory, in a sense. he was unable to approach madeleine, because fosdyke met her on arrival at the gare st. lazare. but he followed them. fosdyke took madeleine to a small hotel, and left her there. duquesne will endeavor to see her this morning." "has he obtained her address?" inquired the girl eagerly, sinking her loathing of the man in the importance of his statement. "no. i'll show you the message, if you'll hold this coat for a second or two." "come to mrs. carmac's room." "sorry, i've just seen mrs. carmac, and am making for the quay." "i insist," she said, with a very creditable effort at a coquettish glance. "we can't stand talking here. come. i'll not keep you more than a minute." raymond, veritably astounded by her manner, as well he might be, followed her without demur. he was elated, almost excited. a new and entrancing vista opened before his mind's eye. were the difficulties that yet loomed so large about to vanish into thin air? if yvonne proved gracious, what else was there to bother him? each upward step on the creaking stairs seemed to be another rung in the ladder of fortune. he did not know it, but he had reached the highest point of the climb when he stood in mrs. carmac's room on the first floor. yvonne had hurried on ahead, and put a warning finger on her lips when she cried aloud, ostensibly to her mother but actually for the secretary's benefit, "mr. raymond is coming in. he has news of madeleine, and i didn't want to wait outside lest peridot should pass. i mean to avoid peridot until, by one method or another, i get in touch with madeleine." the explanation was not only plausible but strictly accurate. when she crossed to the window and made the agreed signal to tollemache she might well have been looking out to learn if peridot was coming down the toulifot. lorry and his companions were already on the way. they had seen the meeting in the doorway, and assumed that yvonne had drawn raymond in her wake. nevertheless her stanch friend and devout lover was watching the window. he grinned broadly, and waved a hand. why, she knew not; but her pulses throbbed. some remarkable thing was going to happen. she felt it in the air. then she focused her thoughts on what raymond was saying. he had produced the telegram, the text of which ran exactly as he had given it. "as i may be absent all day," he added, "i took the liberty to tell duquesne to wire the result of his interview with mademoiselle demoret to mrs. carmac. you have his address, and can communicate with him without waiting for me." mrs. carmac nodded. she knew of the arrangement already, and meant to inform yvonne of it herself. she was quick-witted, and her daughter's manner carried a vague consciousness of the imminence of some matter more important even than the tangle in which madeleine demoret was involved. "that sounds practicable," said yvonne, rather for the sake of detaining raymond than by way of agreement, since her father's revelation had destroyed every shred of confidence in the man himself and his parisian helper. "monsieur duquesne can at least let us know where madeleine is staying. then i'll risk all in a personal appeal." "i would advise you strongly to act only through duquesne," said raymond. "he has wide experience, and is thoroughly trustworthy. you can depend on his discretion. he----" * * * * * there was a knock at the door. tollemache entered. after him came popple, red-faced and serious, and jackson, with a bulldog expression on his cockney features. "i want you to give me five minutes, mrs. carmac," said lorry gravely. "certain facts have reached me----" "i'm sure you'll forgive me," broke in raymond, with glib assurance, "but i am accompanying the salvage party, and i'll walk slowly on to the quay." "no, you'll remain here!" said tollemache. "what i have to say concerns you more than any other person breathing. just listen! i'll come to the point quickly. mrs. carmac, i have good reason to believe that this man raymond stole your jewels. i believe he has them in his possession at this moment. of course i'm fully alive to the risk i run in bringing such a charge if it is not substantiated. now, raymond, if you're in a hurry, hand over those pearls and diamonds. by staging the _pièce de conviction_ you'll save a lot of bother. then the court, which is now assembled, can pronounce sentence, and you'll know exactly where you are, which should be a relief." tollemache paid no heed to the half-repressed cry of amazement that burst simultaneously from the lips of both women. he was gazing sternly and fixedly at raymond, whose sallow face had suddenly grown livid. during a few trying seconds it really seemed as though the rascal thus roundly accused of a dastardly crime would collapse in a faint. but he rallied, and blurted out a protest in a voice choked with fury. "how dare you?" he cried. "you hound, to attack a defenseless man! mrs. carmac, i appeal to you! do you allow me to be so grossly insulted in your presence?" "_defenseless_ strikes me as the right word," said tollemache, ignoring mrs. carmac's involuntary attempt at interference. "of course you intend it as a plea on account of your injury; but unless i am mistaken--in which case i stand to be shot at in any way you choose--you got your arm broken when rifling mrs. carmac's trunk. however, i'll explain the whole business to your complete satisfaction. give me those pearls and the other things. i mean to have them now! don't think you can escape by bluff, you miserable whelp! hand them over, or i'll take them, and use as much force as may be necessary!" tollemache strode forward, and grasped the lapel of raymond's coat. then indeed it was more than probable that the secretary would drop where he stood. he trembled like one in a palsy, and his lips twitched convulsively, but could only mouth incoherent sounds. * * * * * tollemache did not hesitate. unbuttoning the overcoat, and endeavoring to avoid touching the bandaged arm, he thrust a hand into the inner right-hand pocket of raymond's jacket. at that the accused man uttered a queer squeal of mingled rage and despair, and struck wildly at his adversary with his left fist. tollemache merely moved his head, and the blow passed harmlessly over his shoulder. in the same instant he withdrew something from raymond's pocket, and stepped back. "what's this?" he said coolly, exhibiting a small square case, covered with morocco leather. mrs. carmac, who had watched this trying scene with manifest distress, looked at the object that tollemache held in full view. her eyes dilated in sheer terror; but recognition dawned in them, and she cried excitedly: "that is the case which contained my pearls!" tollemache pressed a spring, and a lid flew open. there, coiled within, reposed a string of pearls. mrs. carmac gave them one glance; then she turned on the man who had been so dramatically compelled to relinquish his booty. "oh, how could you do such a thing?" she wailed brokenly. "you knew how i prized them--the one gift of my husband's which i valued." "your husband's!" snarled raymond. "which husband? carmac?" she flinched as if he had dealt her the blow intended for tollemache; but her champion was in no mind to permit a discomfited rogue to vent his spleen on a woman. "unless you're a bigger fool than you are unquestionably a knave, you'll hold your tongue," he said, speaking with a vehemence that silenced raymond for the moment. "now let us have no more humbug. i don't want to hurt you. where are the other articles? either give them up yourself or tell me where to find them." though quivering with passion, the detected thief apparently realized that he had nothing to gain by further pretense. from the left-hand outer pocket of his jacket he took two cases similar in size and material to that which held the pearls, though the color of the leather differed in each instance. he ignored tollemache, and gave them to mrs. carmac. even in that supreme instant his brazen nerve did not fail him. "this dispute really affects you and me," he said. "i suggest that you discuss it with me privately." "at present, raymond, i would call your attention to the fact that you are discussing things with me," said tollemache firmly. "mrs. carmac," he went on, "kindly glance through your belongings, and tell me if there is anything missing." she obeyed, though in a pitiable state of nervousness. in the cold, clear light of a december day, diamonds and rubies, sapphires and emeralds, winked at her evilly as her trembling fingers turned over the contents of the cases, which had evidently been extracted from a larger receptacle so that they might be disposed of in raymond's clothing without attracting attention by their bulk. "yes," she faltered, "i believe that every article is here." * * * * * "now," said tollemache, turning again to the ashen-faced raymond, "i've proved my charge in the presence of witnesses. the stolen goods have been found in your possession. i admit that it is sheer good luck alone that swung the investigation my way. had you been searched tonight, we might have whistled for the actual proof, because mrs. carmac's property would have been lying beneath the sea on the reef, unless it happened to be picked up by the diver. the facts are simple. you were with mrs. carmac in the deck saloon of the stella during the gale. when mr. carmac shouted to his wife that the yacht had broken down, and would be dashed ashore within ten minutes, mrs. carmac fainted. neither you nor anyone on board realized that the vessel would strike on les verrés and not on the coast. "being a thief in heart, you remembered that a small fortune was lying in those two boxes, and you thought you had plenty of time to open them, secure both the money and the jewels, and trust to luck for escape when the yacht was wrecked. if either of your employers was saved, and inquiry seemed possible, you had the plausible excuse that you were safeguarding the most valuable part of their property. you might have found some difficulty in explaining how you came to be in possession of duplicate keys; but you took the chance. i must say that for a man at the very gates of death you displayed a cool nerve which might command admiration if applied to a worthy object. "as it happened, there was one man who kept an eye on you. jackson here was below at the time, preparing tea. the sudden racing of the engines, the stoppage of the screw, and the fact that the yacht was drifting told him what had occurred. then he heard the cry, 'all hands on deck!' and was himself running along the gangway when he saw you rush down the main companion and dart into the cabin occupied by mr. and mrs. carmac. thinking you might need his help, he followed you. "by the time he reached the door you had mrs. carmac's box open, and had snatched the jewelcase, which, being locked, you stuffed into a breast pocket. then you turned to mr. carmac's trunk, and were about to insert a key, when the yacht struck, and fell on her beam ends. the heavy trunk rolled on top of you, and broke your arm. jackson thought you were killed; but in the same instant he was flung across the lower saloon, and had his ankle dislocated. when he was lying there you managed to crawl in and join him, and each of you was carried out by the crew later. is that the correct story, jackson?" "true as the gospel, every word, s'elp me!" said jackson. "so you see, raymond, this poor fellow didn't know what to think during the last few days. he couldn't swear that you actually took the case, because you were kneeling beside the box, and your back was toward him. but you took something, and until the search was made and the robbery discovered he could not be certain what it was. he had his suspicions, but wisely kept a still tongue; though, had he left pont aven earlier, he meant to tell me what he had seen. last night he and captain popple and i reviewed the facts carefully. in the first instance, we believed that you meant to drop the jewels overboard today, and then cause a careful search to be made in that exact place. i know why you were willing to relinquish your loot. i'll deal with that side of a nasty business in a minute or two. secondly, i called on dr. garnier early this morning, and both he and the nurse assured me that, notwithstanding the physical agony you were suffering when brought ashore, you insisted on removing your coat yourself, placed it on a chair, and stipulated that your clothes should not be touched by anyone. of course i had to do a bit of guessing; but i guessed right." * * * * * yvonne, now that the shock of an extraordinary and painful scene was yielding to a sense of its paramount importance in view of raymond's previous attitude, was gazing at tollemache with new wonder in her eyes. the light-hearted, happy-go-lucky dabbler in art had conducted this remarkable investigation into a crime with the easy assurance of a skilled lawyer. he had marshaled his facts lucidly. he had decided on the one method that would insure complete success, and had adopted it without hesitation. each trenchant sentence had a sledge-hammer effect on the culprit, who saw his inmost thoughts laid bare mercilessly, yet in a manner wholly devoid of heat or bluster. she could not find it in her heart to pity raymond; but she was aware, for the first time in her life, of a species of awe with regard to tollemache. the man who was judge and jury and prosecuting counsel in this new and thrilling form of criminal procedure had not, however, reached the end of his brief. he nodded to popple and jackson. "thanks," he said quietly. "we've carried that job almost to a finish without a hitch. i'll join you on the terrace when mrs. carmac has settled matters with this chap." raymond made one last effort to assert himself. "i have not interfered with your stage effect," he sneered. "it was not necessary. i shall explain to mrs. carmac, and to none other, why her jewels came to be in my care." "don't think it!" said lorry, smiling pleasantly into the vengeful face raised to his. "i'm not through with you yet. you're dealing with a man now, not with a terrified woman. so long, you two! i'll soon make an end of our unworthy secretary!" the two men saluted silently and went out. * * * * * when the door had closed on them tollemache drew some sheets of manuscript from a pocket. "you've heard the evidence and verdict, raymond," he said, piercing the defeated schemer with unwavering eyes. "now i shall proceed to pass sentence. i have jotted down here a full confession. in return for my clemency you will undertake never to interfere in any way with regard to mrs. carmac's second marriage. you understand exactly what i mean. you and i both know why you were giving up to the vagaries of the sea thousands of pounds' worth of pearls and diamonds. "this bargain is between you and me. mrs. carmac herself is not a party to it. i return her jewels, and she asks no questions. so long as you hold your tongue, and leave her in peace, she will ignore the facts i have made known this morning. breathe one syllable affecting her private affairs, whether today, or next year, or in twenty years, and your signed confession of the theft is handed over to the proper authorities. you need not hope to extricate yourself by appeals or threats. your fate doesn't rest with mrs. carmac, but with me, and if the occasion arises i'll crush you as i would a scorpion. sit down, if you're tired, or feel faint. but keep your wits active. "it's now or never for you! you either agree or go to jail, and if you choose the latter course, you'll find french law devilish unpleasant to any scoundrel who tries to bolster up his offense by trading on a woman's bygone history." chapter xiv a breton reckoning raymond squirmed, but signed the confession. tollemache forced the belief that he was in deadly earnest. the blackmailer had either to accept the proffered terms or concoct schemes of reprisal in a cell. at the last moment mrs. carmac intervened. "i know what it means to be tempted, and to yield," she said sadly, realizing now that her own somewhat checkered record was not hidden from anyone in that room. "you, mr. raymond, have only yourself to blame for your misfortunes. even your physical injury is the direct outcome of an attempt to steal the few trinkets i prize. but i would never forgive myself if i turned you out into the world penniless and suffering. please tell me the truth. have you any money?" "very little," came the sullen answer. "i have spent a good deal during the last few days." "but how?" she cried, genuinely surprised. "you are under no expense here." "since candor is in the air, i may as well acquaint you with the facts," said raymond bitterly. "you blurted out your own secret, and i thought i saw a way of improving my position. i should have won too if it were not for a piece of cursed ill luck in the finding of those boxes. i employed duquesne to ferret out your early history in paris. if i disappear, you had better pay him well, or he may take it into his head to go to rupert fosdyke with the story. of course i don't expect you to place much credence in anything i say; but mere commonsense should show you that the only safe course is to send me to paris with sufficient means to secure duquesne's silence. that is a fair offer. take it or leave it, as you will. let me point out, however, that the madeleine demoret affair supplies a reasonable excuse for my journey, and, if you are as generous as you can afford to be, i promise to devote myself wholly to the task of diverting any suspicions duquesne may have formed as to the motive behind my previous instructions." tollemache, with a wisdom beyond his years, seemed to know when to strike and when to hold his hand. raymond's suggestion was eminently reasonable. the evil spirit that had raised all this commotion could best allay it. "come, yvonne," he said. "let us leave mrs. carmac to determine this matter as she thinks fit. i offer no opinion. mrs. carmac has not compounded a felony,--that responsibility rests with me,--and, if she chooses to employ raymond in a personal undertaking, i cannot interfere. he knows the penalty if she is troubled by any future act of his. i'll hunt him round the globe!" * * * * * yvonne never knew what terms her mother made with raymond. that they did not err on the side of parsimony may be taken for granted. long after the tornado that swept through pont aven that christmastide was forgotten by all save a few, the ex-secretary was able to buy a share in an automobile agency. lorry was hugely amused as the two descended the stairs. "socrates believes there isn't any guile in my composition," he grinned. "i wonder what he'll say when he reads the screed to which that beauty has just put his left-handed signature?" "dad will agree with me that you carried a very difficult matter through with great skill, lorry," said yvonne. "but the joke is that if raymond stuck to his guns i was done for. who cares tuppence whether a skunk like him goes to prison or not? not a soul! but the whole press of europe would stand up on its hind legs and roar if the carmac millions were thrown into the melting pot of the law courts. don't you see, yvonne, i had to rush raymond off his feet. i've broken about twenty statutes made and provided. if he had shown one quarter the nerve in that room which he displayed when the stella was drifting on to the reef, he could have laughed at me." "for all that, lorry, you were very clever, and i think you're a dear," said yvonne quietly. neither her father nor her lover should ever be told now of the sordid compact that raymond had put before her during that memorable walk by the side of the aven. she would simply erase the hateful record from her mind; but she could not close her eyes to the certain fact that raymond's daring project had shriveled into nothingness because he saw that, no matter what the consequences, mrs. carmac's daughter would never marry a common thief. that phase had passed like the stupor of a nightmare. the vital problem presented by her mother's future remained insoluble as ever. * * * * * in the crowded place they met peridot. there was no chance of avoiding him: he had seen them leaving the annex. before they could join popple and jackson beneath the sycamores the fisherman barred the way, cap in hand. "pardon, ma'mselle," he said, speaking with a civility that hardly masked a note of defiance, "have you any news of madeleine?" "nothing definite, nothing reliable," she answered, striving valiantly to convey the impression that the mystery of madeleine's whereabouts would soon be cleared up satisfactorily. "nothing that you would care to tell, ma'mselle--is that it?" "no, peridot. madeleine said she was going to quimperlé; but i have heard that she is in paris. that is all i know--probably all that anyone in pont aven knows." she had flushed under the fisherman's penetrating, scornful gaze not because of the effort to conceal a scanty budget concerning her wilful friend's flight, but out of sheer sympathy with the man, whom she knew to be consumed with wrath and shame. "then i shall be justified in killing any man who calls her a strumpet?" went on peridot icily. he had used a breton word which tollemache did not understand, but yvonne's gasp of horror was eloquent, and lorry came to the rescue. "you must have taken leave of your senses, peridot, to address mademoiselle yvonne in that manner," he said. the fisherman spat, an unprecedented thing. "_gars!_" he growled. "taken leave of my senses, have i? i'd like to see you if your girl had bolted with the first well dressed dandy who made eyes at her. scratch a russian and you find a tatar, they say. scratch monsieur tollemache and you might find--peridot!" with that he left them, swaggering off among the throng of peasants as though he had not a care in the world. yvonne's troubled glance followed him. here was a new peridot, a man out of whose life was fled the light-hearted gaiety and spirit of good-fellowship that had made him so popular in the village. no sooner, it would seem, was one cloud dispelled than another gathered. yvonne shuddered with foreboding; for in those gray-green eyes she had seen the lurid light of a volcano. * * * * * during some days peace reigned in that small circle of a small community with which this chronicle has dealt so intimately. mrs. carmac did not hurry her departure. she promised yvonne that on arriving in london she would consult bennett as to her exact position. she neither affirmed nor denied that walter carmac had renewed his american citizenship. ingersoll, when the girl brought a faithful record of the discussion between her mother and herself, drew the only reasonable inference,--that no steps had been taken in that direction. the knowledge was disheartening. not without cause did he say to tollemache that he had fathomed his wife's nature to the depths. were it possible for her to end her days in real communion with the husband and child she had forsaken deliberately, she would gladly have renounced wealth and social position. as it was, she meant to cling fiercely to the bulk of her possessions, thinking that thereby she would have a stronger hold on yvonne, since she hoped to draw the girl nearer by the lure that money alone could spread so enticingly. undoubtedly she had it in mind to provide ample revenues for the fosdyke family, with guarantees of large interests in the estate at her death, and thus close the only source that threatened discredit and loss. but this was the half-measure that so often spells disaster. its outcome lay in the lap of the gods, and the gods were frowning on her. meanwhile she lingered on in pont aven. the equable climate suited her health, she said. she dreaded the formalities with regard to the succession, and wanted to leave all such disagreeable details to the lawyers. until madeleine demoret's affair was settled she wished to remain within call of paris. these were excuses. they deceived none, yvonne least of any. the girl's affection never wavered for an instant when the interests of father and mother were at war. her father could not be at ease until the woman who had broken his life was far from the village, and the daughter was on pins and needles of anxiety that the mother should depart. * * * * * raymond--suddenly reverted to type, become once more the discreet, unobtrusive secretary--reported that madeleine and fosdyke seemed to have quarreled. he had visited the girl, and found her uncommunicative and rebellious. fosdyke had gone to england. he supplied madeleine's address, and yvonne wrote, in friendly and sympathetic strain, asking for news of her welfare. by this time ingersoll had advised the cessation of any effort to persuade her to return. it was not in human nature to expect the girl to endure the slights that would inevitably attend her reappearance. to her pont aven must henceforth be a sealed paradise. if ever she saw the place again, she would tread its familiar ways a stranger and unregarded. at last came a letter from madeleine herself. its tone was honest, and very much to the point. she had imagined that rupert fosdyke meant marriage. when she was disillusioned she spurned him, and had obtained a situation as a nurse, her country speech and breton costume being passports to ready employment. it was better so. paris takes a more lenient view of certain aspects of life than pont aven. * * * * * singularly enough, during those days no word of love was spoken between tollemache and yvonne. the mine was laid, and the smallest spark would fire it; but the spark was not forthcoming, and for the excellent reason that lorry wished mrs. carmac and her millions far away before he asked yvonne to marry him. if, in some distant time, the girl's mother insisted on enriching her, it would be difficult to defeat her intent. but it was yvonne he wanted, not mrs. carmac's money. he was more attached to ingersoll than to his own father, a narrow-minded philistine who had cut himself adrift from a son because the ingrate preferred art to money spinning. if once he and yvonne were wed, mrs. carmac's ambitious schemes in behalf of her beautiful "niece" would go by the board. circumstances had made it impossible that father and mother should meet, even at their daughter's wedding--and where could such a marriage take place but in pont aven, and who should spread the wedding feast but mère pitou? so lorry bided his time; though yvonne read him like a book, and the knowledge that her mother's continued residence in the village alone prevented lorry from taking her in a bearlike grip and telling her that she was the one woman he had ever loved, or ever would love, gave active reinforcement to her anxiety concerning her father, whose well-being, she was convinced, depended on the prompt and complete restoration of life to its normal plane. thus, when preparations were being made by mère pitou for the réveillon--that cheerful feast which enlivens the midnight of christmas--yvonne did not hesitate to tell her mother that on that occasion at least they would see little of each other, and perhaps less in the immediate future, as she was going with her father to concarneau. mrs. carmac took the hint gracefully. as a preliminary she sent captain popple and jackson to england; the one to become a sort of factotum in her surrey house, the other to join the staff in her charles street residence. "ask your father, as a last concession, to allow you to travel with me as far as st. malo when i leave on the twenty-sixth," she said. "it will be a long and weary journey otherwise. have you a friend who can accompany you? you would need to stay one night in st. malo and return here next day." ingersoll did not demur. it was arranged that barbe should go with yvonne; so one heart, at least, rejoiced, since the mere prospect of such an outing brought untold joy to a little maid who regarded st. malo as a place so unutterably remote that it figured in her mind only as a geographical expression somewhat akin to timbuktu and the north cape of lapland. * * * * * yvonne left her mother about four o'clock on christmas eve. tollemache was waiting for her, and together they strolled to the cottage. there was much to be done, because mère pitou expected a large party. peridot, though specially invited, had refused to come. indeed, his manner was so gruff that barbe, who acted as messenger, was moved to tears while relating the reception accorded her. "_tcha!_" snorted her mother. "that's a man's way, all over. when a woman gives him the slip he'll sulk and paw the ground like an angry bull for a week or so. then he'll drown his sorrows in cognac, and at the next _pardon_ you'll see him squaring up to some pretty girl as if the other one had never existed. what about that sardine boat which the american lady promised him? that should widen his mouth when it reaches the quay." mère pitou never alluded to mrs. carmac by name. to a frenchwoman the word presented no difficulty; but, owing to some whim, yvonne's "aunt" was "the american lady," and was never promoted to greater intimacy of description in the old woman's speech. "the vessel is ordered in concarneau," said yvonne. "with complete equipment it is to cost five thousand francs. mrs. carmac has also given another five thousand francs to the notary to be invested for peridot; who is well aware of both gifts, but has neither called nor written to express his thanks." "the worm!" cried madame. "_peridot_, indeed! he ought to be christened _asticot_!" as an _asticot_ is a maggot, it was well that none but yvonne had overheard mère pitou's biting comment, or the fisherman's new nickname might have stuck, its point being specially appreciable in a fishing community. * * * * * the weather that night was peculiarly calm and mild, even for southern brittany. shortly after midnight ingersoll, who had been watching yvonne and tollemache dancing the gavotte, in which the girl was an adept, and her lover a sufficiently skilful partner to show off her graceful steps to the utmost advantage, suddenly decided to smoke a cigar in the open air. he quitted the studio by a french window, and strolled into the garden, which stretched some little way up the steep slope of the hill, and through a narrow strip toward the road on one side of the cottage. owing to the feast, pont aven was by no means asleep; but the streets were empty, as the people were either entertaining or being entertained. in a house near the church a girl was singing the "_adeste fideles_" in a high, pure treble. those in her company, men, women, and children, burst into the harmonious chorus, "_venite, adoremus; venite adoremus in bethlehem._" as the appeal swelled and then died away, and the girl's voice took up the solo, ingersoll remembered the verse, "and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising god," and his eyes grew dim with unshed tears. the hymn ceased. from some more distant gathering came the strumming of a banjo in the latest boulevard refrain. ingersoll smiled at that. not often might any man hear twenty centuries summed up so concisely. he was about to reënter the cottage when a woman, hatless, but with head and face veiled in a shawl of black lace, appeared indistinctly in the roadway. he knew instantly that it was his wife. only two women in pont aven walked with such ease and elegance, and they were yvonne and her mother. a second later he heard the familiar creak of the garden gate. so she was coming in! he was utterly at a loss to account for this amazing intrusion. he had counted implicitly on his wife's sense of good breeding and fairness restraining her from any frenzied effort to undo the havoc of the past, and a spasm of anger shook him now because of this threatened invasion of his small domain. at any rate she should not have the hysterical satisfaction of placing him in a false position before mère pitou and her guests, to say nothing of yvonne and tollemache. he retreated into the deep shadow of a lofty retaining wall, whence he could see without being seen. if, as he expected, there was a commotion among the dancers when the unexpected visitor was announced, he would escape by way of the open hillside, and remain away during some hours. then, in the morning, yvonne and he would end an intolerable state of things by leaving pont aven for some unknown refuge until lorry told them that the coast was clear. thus do some men plan when beset by some unforeseen difficulty. be they wise or foolish, they seldom learn that in those crucial moments of life when events of real importance take place they are as straws caught in a whirlpool, and no more capable than straws of predetermined governance of their deeds and movements. ingersoll was barely hidden before he received a fresh surprise. his wife had not gone to the door. she was in the garden, and coming round to the back evidently meaning to look in on the revelers and remain unseen. she halted but a few paces short of the place where ingersoll was standing, and soon he knew that she was crying in a heartbroken way. her very attitude, the care she took to restrain the sounds of her grief, and not become visible to any eye that chanced to look out through the open window, showed that she was in the depths of despair. by a rapid revulsion of feeling the man's heart ached for her. strive as he might, and strong as were the dictates of the social laws that closed and bolted the door of reconciliation, he was tempted, or it may be divinely inspired, to make known his presence, and utter words of healing and forgiveness. but the opportunity, no less than the impulse, passed as quickly as it had risen. the dancing had stopped. evidently in response to some question of yvonne's, tollemache came to the window, and peered out. "ingersoll!" he cried. there was no answer. the artist could not be detected in any event, and the change from a well lighted room to the external darkness temporarily blinded lorry's sharp eyes, or he might have noted the slight, shrinking figure beneath one of the apple trees. "he's not there," he said, speaking over his shoulder to yvonne. the girl came nearer. "i saw him go out," she persisted. "yes, of course. i saw him too. he stopped to light a cigar. bet you he's gone for a stroll. you remember last year at this time he went to julia's for half an hour." that was an unfortunate recollection on lorry's part. he was aware of it instantly; but yvonne helped to slur it over by saying that she had no doubt "dad" would soon return. then the two rejoined their breton friends. * * * * * mrs. carmac clearly meant to take no further risk of discovery. she hurried away. after a momentary indecision ingersoll followed. his action was inexplicable, even to himself. it arose, perhaps, from a desire to make certain that his wife reached the hotel. such a motive was at least comprehensible. it came within the bounds of that intelligence which regulates ordinary human affairs. but there is another subtler spirit essence which sends out through space its impalpable, invisible, yet compelling influences. sometimes the storm-tossed soul makes silent appeal for help, and finds response in some other heart whence aid is unsought and unsuspected. howsoever that may be, john ingersoll followed his wife, and pont aven was soon in an uproar, when the news spread that while monsieur ingersoll was rescuing _l'américaine_, madame carmac, from the waters of the harbor, peridot, easygoing, devil-may-care peridot, was battering rupert fosdyke into a hardly recognizable corpse on the open road near the hotel. * * * * * in a village rumor of that sort seldom lies. both these sensational statements were true; though the one became widely known far more speedily than the other. in fact, peridot's crime had witnesses. a party of villagers, coming down the toulifot, heard voices raised in altercation. then there were sounds of a scuffle, and a tall man was seen to fall, while a shorter man stooped over the prostrate body and struck blow after blow with an iron belaying pin. the women screamed; the men ran forward to seize the would-be murderer. he offered no resistance, but said calmly: "when one meets a viper one batters its head. it is the only safe thing to do, eh?" he seemed to find comfort in the thought. he repeated it many times, in one form or another. when the police came, and a sergeant who happened to be a great friend of his had the miserable task of arresting him and charging him with murder,--for rupert fosdyke was dead; would have died under any one of those half-dozen fiercely vindictive blows,--peridot was quite cheerful. "_cré nom!_" he cried. "it is not often one finds a snake hereabouts at christmastime. this one made a mistake. it shouldn't have come to pont aven, where we wear stout sabots!" then he broke gaily into one of albert larrieu's breton songs: "_toc! toc! toc! toc! c'est à concarneau qu'on voit de belles filles, prestes et gentilles, dans leur petits sabots!_" "shut up, peridot, for the sake of the good god!" muttered his friend. "come, man! there's your mother looking out. she heard your voice!" "is that you, jean jacques?" came a shrill cry from a bent figure etched in the lighted rectangle of an open door in a cottage higher up the hill. "time you were home and in bed!" "don't worry, mother, i'm in good company," he shouted. "here is the law on one side of me, and a dead viper on the other! i'll go straight tonight, never fear!" mère larraidou saw her son walk off down the hill with his friend the sergeant. in pity the men who were lifting a corpse desisted from their gruesome labor till the door was closed again. * * * * * when ingersoll carried the body of an insensible and half-drowned woman into mère pitou's there was a rare stir. by chance the lesser tragedy which took place in the river beneath the line of dwarfed oaks had passed unnoticed by the villagers. greatly wondering, and wholly at a loss to account for his wife's behavior, the artist had followed her into the main road, and kept her under close observation when she failed to cross the bridge and hurried along the narrow street leading to the harbor. once clear of the last mill, he could watch her from a greater distance, because the valley widens with the stream, and the hills are neither so high nor so precipitous. on and on she went, past madame maréchale's café, past the triangular grass plot where roundabouts and swings and canvas theaters stand in the summer, past the jolly little hotel terminus, and along the picturesque chemin du hallage; which is not a carriage road, but a pleasant footpath, bordered on the one hand by pretty villas and on the other by the tidal stream, with here and there beneath the stunted trees a rustic seat overlooking the water. at such an hour, long after midnight, the last pollard oak marks the ultima thule of pont aven. the nearest house in front is nearly a mile away, and reached only by a narrow track through the gorse. some vague terror caused ingersoll to quicken his pace, and a few seconds later to break into a run. perhaps his wife heard him, and, fearing interference, made up her mind to delay the great adventure not a moment longer. uttering a wailing cry, she threw herself into the water. the tide was falling, and as the main stream travels close to the right bank at that point she was swept away as though some giant hand were waiting to clutch her. commending his soul to heaven, ingersoll raced ahead to a rocky plateau which, although submerged now, drove a broad and fairly level causeway far into the center of the river. he was just in time. he saw a white face, a hand, whirling in the current. plunging in, he grasped desperately at the place where he judged the body might be. then began a fight, a life and death struggle against a relentless, overwhelming force. yet somehow he conquered, and found himself with a limp body in his arms, wading knee deep in a tract of mud and slime. though slightly built and frail looking, and, owing to the worry and confinement of his recent life, rather out of condition, once he had regained his breath he made light of carrying his wife to the cottage. he could not tell why he brought her there, rather than to the hotel. he remembered afterward giving the matter some thought; but he was either deterred by the sight of so many people in the place,--brought thither by the affrighting news of murder,--or by the notion that a further scandal might be averted if the unhappy woman were tended by those whom he and she could trust. none of mère pitou's guests knew that mrs. carmac had been rescued from the estuary. they thought she had mistaken some byway, and fallen into the aven, a quite possible accident to a stranger on a dark night. * * * * * so a second time yvonne stripped her mother's slender form of its water-soaked garments, while mère pitou loudly invoked the aid and commiseration of various saints--but did not forget to fill hot-water bottles and wrap them in flannel before applying them to the unconscious woman's benumbed body and feet. dr. garnier came, and shook his head, muttering of "shock," and "derangement of the nervous system," and in the midst of all this turmoil and furtive fear of the worst consequences arrived celeste, searching for her mistress, and almost incoherent with her story of rupert fosdyke's fate. he had arrived in the village by the half-past four train that afternoon, and after a long talk with madame had dined alone. she was told that he went out shortly before midnight, and met peridot, and was straightway beaten to death. after some hours of horrible uncertainty mrs. carmac recovered sufficiently to speak. "where am i?" she muttered, staring about wildly. "at home, dear, with me," whispered yvonne. the dazed eyes slowly gathered consciousness of yvonne's presence. "who took me out of the river?" she went on. "the man who has loved you all his life, dear," said the girl softly. she had the fixed belief now that her mother would surely die, and was resolved that her last hours should be made happy by knowledge of her husband's devotion. "what! john saved me! was it he who followed me?" "yes, dear. he risked his life for your sake, and carried you here unaided." "a good man," came the low murmur. "i was not worthy of him." "mother, you are to try and sleep now. the doctor's orders must be obeyed. otherwise you will be very, very ill." "i am sick unto death already, dear one. but i shall do as you bid--to please you--and john. one word! tell him--tell him--that i am poorer than when i left him. rupert is here. he gloated over my downfall. he knows everything, and would hear of no terms. no, it is not raymond's doing. i asked that. he met some man, who knew us in the old days, and who had read the account of the wreck. i am a pauper of sorts, yvonne. please ask your father not to turn me out." "mother!" wailed the girl in a voice strangled with grief. "you must not talk like that! you'll break my heart!" "ah, _tout passe_, yvonne, even broken hearts! you will be far happier in your cottage than ever i was in a mansion. yes, i'll sleep--if only to please you--and john. tell him i said that, will you?" * * * * * next morning ingersoll, who, thanks to the exertion demanded after the plunge into the river, was not one whit the worse for the wetting, sent the following telegram to bennett: "rupert fosdyke met his death here last night, and mrs. carmac was nearly drowned. both events closely bound up with succession to carmac estate. probably you will understand. can you come at once?--ingersoll." that afternoon came the reply: "profoundly distressed. crossing tonight. wire reports concerning mrs. carmac's health southampton and st. malo. "bennett." yvonne wept with sheer gratitude when her father said that, with dr. garnier's permission, he would visit her mother. she had not dared to suggest it; but ingersoll knew that his action had added one more link to the chain of love that bound his daughter and himself. dr. garnier, of course, was aware of no reason why the woman should not meet her rescuer; though he might have been startled had he seen the look of terror that darkened her eyes when she found her husband bending over her. "don't be afraid, stella," said he. "i am not here to reproach you. be content, and live! we want you to live, yvonne and i." "john, forgive!" she murmured. "i do forgive, stella, as i hope to be forgiven!" "john, how could i have left you?" "that is all passed now--merged in the mists of long years. you will be made happy here. i mean what i say. you are in yvonne's care, and in mine, and always in god's. believe that, and you will soon be restored to health and to such happiness as life can bring." she sobbed convulsively, and he called yvonne in haste, thinking that perhaps he had done more harm than good. however, the invalid rallied after he had gone, and seemed to gain strength, though slowly. next day she was wracked by the first symptoms of pneumonia. when bennett arrived she was conscious and free from pain. he had not been seated by the bedside many minutes before he put a curious question. "do you feel able to sign a will?" he said. she smiled wistfully. "have you not been told?" she said. "i shall lose everything. my second marriage can be proved illegal." "i am not quite sure of that. i only want you to pull through this present illness. but it is well to prepare against all eventualities. would you wish to constitute your daughter your sole heiress?" she was beyond the reach of surprise, and contented herself with a fervent yes. "i have prepared the necessary documents. listen now, while i read," and the woman's weary, puzzled eyes dwelt on the lawyer's grave face as he recited the testamentary clauses by which "stella ingersoll, otherwise known as stella carmac," left all her real and personal estate to "her daughter, yvonne ingersoll." "now we'll get witnesses, and remember that you sign your name stella ingersoll," said the lawyer, with a cheerful and businesslike air. "mr. tollemache will be one witness, my clerk another, and little barbe pitou a third; so you need not worry at all because of the change of signature." forthwith, in the presence of lorry and bennett's clerk, and the scared barbe, mrs. carmac signed her name in a way that was strangely familiar, though she had not seen it written that way during two decades. a precisely similar will was executed in the name of "stella carmac." * * * * * bennett had not erred in his judgment. the pneumonia developed a high temperature that night, and yvonne's mother died without recovering consciousness. she was buried at nizon. to silence gossip, and by her husband's emphatic wish, she was described on the monument erected to her memory and to that of walter carmac as "stella, wife of the above-named walter carmac, and formerly known as stella ingersoll." the lawyer's extraordinary haste and anxiety with regard to the two wills was explained after the funeral. "i have always had reason to believe that the validity of the marriage might be questioned," he said, when he had drawn ingersoll, yvonne, and tollemache into the privacy of the studio. "when mr. carmac executed the will which may now, under advice, be set aside, he caused two copies to be made with blank spaces for names and dates. a few days later he lodged a sealed envelope with me and another with his bankers, and each bore the superscription: "'this document is to be kept always in its present condition, and never opened unless my wife's succession to my estate shall be disputed. in that event the document must be produced and acted on.' "i broke the seal yesterday, soon after mr. ingersoll's telegram came to hand, and was not surprised to find a will, properly filled in, signed, and attested, leaving carmac's estate to 'stella ingersoll, formerly wife of john ingersoll, artist, at one time resident in the rue blanche, paris,' and dated subsequently to that already in existence. so, you see, all these tragic happenings might have been averted. rupert fosdyke could never have touched a penny of his uncle's money beyond the provision made for him in both wills." but a white-faced girl looked at her father, and their eyes met, and each knew that a power not to be controlled by any human agency had brought about the horrors that had agitated their beloved village during that memorable month. * * * * * and, when the clouds disappeared, and the sun shone on a brittany pink with apple blossom, yvonne herself had to ask that absurd fellow lorry whether or not he really wanted to marry her, because he was hanging back shamefacedly, for no better reason apparently than the ridiculous one that he had no right to woo and wed a girl so rich as she. at least if she didn't exactly say "will you marry me?" she did the next thing to it by telling him that she and her father had decided to regard themselves merely as trustees of the carmac millions for the benefit of their fellows. they would touch little, if any, of the money for personal needs. the notion was thoroughly distasteful to both, and they would help each other to find the best and wisest means of getting rid of the incubus. "so, you see, lorry, with the exception of some of my mother's jewelry, which i know she would wish me to keep and wear, i shall be quite poor," said yvonne demurely. that settled matters completely. they were in a secluded part of the bois d'amour. how could locality be better named? the wedding took place before the summer, and they roamed through switzerland in june. * * * * * madeleine? madeleine is a certificated nurse in a big paris hospital, very smart in her nice uniform, and thoroughly devoted to her profession. peridot? what french jury would convict peridot of murder when his story was told? his advocate almost moved the judge to righteous indignation against the iniquitous fosdyke, and peridot was let off with a light sentence. he came back to pont aven, was received with open arms by the village, and sailed away in his own _vague_ to pursue the elusive sardine. last year he married little barbe. so mère pitou's views anent fishermen as husbands must have been modified by peridot's ownership of a fine boat and good money invested in french rentes. pont aven, save for the riotous month of august, is still unchanged. a new house springs up here and there, and rumor has it that sometime soon, maybe when the gorse is in flower next summer, a new launch will replace the old one which has to be coaxed daily to port manech and back during the season. but that is all--nothing to make a song about. mademoiselle julia, ever busy, growing younger each year, still cracks jokes and encourages art; though, to be sure, her opinion of cubism and futurist pictures is distinctly unfavorable to both forms of excess. she is always ready with a smile and the right word. if, for instance, anyone asks her if she knew yvonne, and ingersoll, and lorry, and where mere pitou's cottage stands, you should see the way she jerks her head on one side, and hear her rattle out, with a merry twinkle in her eyes: "_qu'est-ce que tu veux que je te dise, moi?_" note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustration. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) the secret of sarek by maurice leblanc translated by alexander teixeira de mattos [illustration: "we're done for! they are aiming at us!"] [illustration] frontispiece a. l. burt company publishers new york published by arrangement with the macaulay company copyright, by the macaulay company printed in u. s. a. foreword the war has led to so many upheavals that not many people now remember the hergemont scandal of seventeen years ago. let us recall the details in a few lines. one day in july , m. antoine d'hergemont, the author of a series of well-known studies on the megalithic monuments of brittany, was walking in the bois with his daughter véronique, when he was assaulted by four men, receiving a blow in the face with a walking-stick which felled him to the ground. after a short struggle and in spite of his desperate efforts, véronique, the beautiful véronique, as she was called by her friends, was dragged away and bundled into a motor-car which the spectators of this very brief scene saw making off in the direction of saint-cloud. it was a plain case of kidnapping. the truth became known next morning. count alexis vorski, a young polish nobleman of dubious reputation but of some social prominence and, by his own account, of royal blood, was in love with véronique d'hergemont and véronique with him. repelled and more than once insulted by the father, he had planned the incident entirely without véronique's knowledge or complicity. antoine d'hergemont, who, as certain published letters showed, was a man of violent and morose disposition and who, thanks to his capricious temper, his ferocious egoism and his sordid avarice, had made his daughter exceedingly unhappy, swore openly that he would take the most ruthless revenge. he gave his consent to the wedding, which took place two months later, at nice. but in the following year a series of sensational events transpired. keeping his word and cherishing his hatred, m. d'hergemont in his turn kidnapped the child born of the vorski marriage and set sail in a small yacht which he had bought not long before. the sea was rough. the yacht foundered within sight of the italian coast. the four sailors who formed the crew were picked up by a fishing-boat. according to their evidence m. d'hergemont and the child had disappeared amid the waves. when véronique received the proof of their death, she entered a carmelite convent. these are the facts which, fourteen years later, were to lead to the most frightful and extraordinary adventure, a perfectly authentic adventure, though certain details, at first sight, assume a more or less fabulous aspect. but the war has complicated existence to such an extent that events which happen outside it, such as those related in the following narrative, borrow something abnormal, illogical and at times miraculous from the greater tragedy. it needs all the dazzling light of truth to restore to those events the character of a reality which, when all is said, is simple enough. contents chapter page i the deserted cabin ii on the edge of the atlantic iii vorski's son iv the poor people of sarek v "four women crucified" vi all's well vii franÇois and stÉphane viii anguish ix the death-chamber x the escape xi the scourge of god xii the ascent of golgotha xiii "eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani!" xiv the ancient druid xv the hall of the underground sacrifices xvi the hall of the kings of bohemia xvii "cruel prince, obeying destiny" xviii the god-stone the secret of sarek chapter i the deserted cabin into the picturesque village of le faouet, situated in the very heart of brittany, there drove one morning in the month of may a lady whose spreading grey cloak and the thick veil that covered her face failed to hide her remarkable beauty and perfect grace of figure. the lady took a hurried lunch at the principal inn. then, at about half-past eleven, she begged the proprietor to look after her bag for her, asked for a few particulars about the neighbourhood and walked through the village into the open country. the road almost immediately branched into two, of which one led to quimper and the other to quimperlé. selecting the latter, she went down into the hollow of a valley, climbed up again and saw on her right, at the corner of another road, a sign-post bearing the inscription, "locriff, kilometers." "this is the place," she said to herself. nevertheless, after casting a glance around her, she was surprised not to find what she was looking for and wondered whether she had misunderstood her instructions. there was no one near her nor any one within sight, as far as the eye could reach over the breton country-side, with its tree-lined meadows and undulating hills. not far from the village, rising amid the budding greenery of spring, a small country house lifted its grey front, with the shutters to all the windows closed. at twelve o'clock, the angelus-bells pealed through the air and were followed by complete peace and silence. véronique sat down on the short grass of a bank, took a letter from her pocket and smoothed out the many sheets, one by one. the first page was headed: "dutreillis' agency. _"consulting rooms._ _"private enquiries._ _"absolute discretion guaranteed."_ next came an address: _"madame véronique,_ _"dressmaker,_ _"besanÇon."_ and the letter ran: "madam, "you will hardly believe the pleasure which it gave me to fulfill the two commissions which you were good enough to entrust to me in your last favour. i have never forgotten the conditions under which i was able, fourteen years ago, to give you my practical assistance at a time when your life was saddened by painful events. it was i who succeeded in obtaining all the facts relating to the death of your honoured father, m. antoine d'hergemont, and of your beloved son françois. this was my first triumph in a career which was to afford so many other brilliant victories. "it was i also, you will remember, who, at your request and seeing how essential it was to save you from your husband's hatred and, if i may add, his love, took the necessary steps to secure your admission to the carmelite convent. lastly, it was i who, when your retreat to the convent had shown you that a life of religion did not agree with your temperament, arranged for you a modest occupation as a dressmaker at besançon, far from the towns where the years of your childhood and the months of your marriage had been spent. you had the inclination and the need to work in order to live and to escape your thoughts. you were bound to succeed; and you succeeded. "and now let me come to the fact, to the two facts in hand. "to begin with your first question: what has become, amid the whirlwind of war, of your husband, alexis vorski, a pole by birth, according to his papers, and the son of a king, according to his own statement? i will be brief. after being suspected at the commencement of the war and imprisoned in an internment-camp near carpentras, vorski managed to escape, went to switzerland, returned to france and was re-arrested, accused of spying and convicted of being a german. at the moment when it seemed inevitable that he would be sentenced to death, he escaped for the second time, disappeared in the forest of fontainebleau and in the end was stabbed by some person unknown. "i am telling you the story quite crudely, madam, well knowing your contempt for this person, who had deceived you abominably, and knowing also that you have learnt most of these facts from the newspapers, though you have not been able to verify their absolute genuineness. "well, the proofs exist. i have seen them. there is no doubt left. alexis vorski lies buried at fontainebleau. "permit me, in passing, madam, to remark upon the strangeness of this death. you will remember the curious prophecy about vorski which you mentioned to me. vorski, whose undoubted intelligence and exceptional energy were spoilt by an insincere and superstitious mind, readily preyed upon by hallucinations and terrors, had been greatly impressed by the prediction which overhung his life and which he had heard from the lips of several people who specialize in the occult sciences: "'vorski, son of a king, you will die by the hand of a friend and your wife will be crucified!' "i smile, madam, as i write the last word. crucified! crucifixion is a torture which is pretty well out of fashion; and i am easy as regards yourself. but what do you think of the dagger-stroke which vorski received in accordance with the mysterious orders of destiny? "but enough of reflections. i now come . . ." véronique dropped the letter for a moment into her lap. m. dutreillis' pretentious phrasing and familiar pleasantries wounded her fastidious reserve. also she was obsessed by the tragic image of alexis vorski. a shiver of anguish passed through her at the hideous memory of that man. she mastered herself, however, and read on: "i now come to my other commission, madam, in your eyes the more important of the two, because all the rest belongs to the past. "let us state the facts precisely. three weeks ago, on one of those rare occasions when you consented to break through the praiseworthy monotony of your existence, on a thursday evening when you took your assistants to a cinema-theatre, you were struck by a really incomprehensible detail. the principal film, entitled 'a breton legend,' represented a scene which occurred, in the course of a pilgrimage, outside a little deserted road-side hut which had nothing to do with the action. the hut was obviously there by accident. but something really extraordinary attracted your attention. on the tarred boards of the old door were three letters, drawn by hand: 'v. d'h.,' and those three letters were precisely your signature before you were married, the initials with which you used to sign your intimate letters and which you have not used once during the last fourteen years! véronique d'hergemont! there was no mistake possible. two capitals separated by the small 'd' and the apostrophe. and, what is more, the bar of the letter 'h.', carried back under the three letters, served as a flourish, exactly as it used to do with you! "it was the stupefaction due to this surprising coincidence that decided you, madam, to invoke my assistance. it was yours without the asking. and you knew, without any telling, that it would be effective. "as you anticipated, madam, i have succeeded. and here again i will be brief. "what you must do, madam, is to take the night express from paris which brings you the next morning to quimperlé. from there, drive to le faouet. if you have time, before or after your luncheon, pay a visit to the very interesting chapel of st. barbe, which stands perched on the most fantastic site and which gave rise to the 'breton legend' film. then go along the quimper road on foot. at the end of the first ascent, a little way short of the parish-road which leads to locriff, you will find, in a semicircle surrounded by trees, the deserted hut with the inscription. it has nothing remarkable about it. the inside is empty. it has not even a floor. a rotten plank serves as a bench. the roof consists of a worm-eaten framework, which admits the rain. once more, there is no doubt that it was sheer accident that placed it within the range of the cinematograph. i will end by adding that the 'breton legend' film was taken in september last, which means that the inscription is at least eight months old. "that is all, madam. my two commissions are completed. i am too modest to describe to you the efforts and the ingenious means which i employed in order to accomplish them in so short a time, but for which you will certainly think the sum of five hundred francs, which is all that i propose to charge you for the work done, almost ridiculous. "i beg to remain, "madam, &c." véronique folded up the letter and sat for a few minutes turning over the impressions which it aroused in her, painful impressions, like all those revived by the horrible days of her marriage. one in particular had survived and was still as powerful as at the time when she tried to escape it by taking refuge in the gloom of a convent. it was the impression, in fact the certainty, that all her misfortunes, the death of her father and the death of her son, were due to the fault which she had committed in loving vorski. true, she had fought against the man's love and had not decided to marry him until she was obliged to, in despair and to save m. d'hergemont from vorski's vengeance. nevertheless, she had loved that man. nevertheless, at first, she had turned pale under his glance: and this, which now seemed to her an unpardonable example of weakness, had left her with a remorse which time had failed to weaken. "there," she said, "enough of dreaming. i have not come here to shed tears." the craving for information which had brought her from her retreat at besançon restored her vigour; and she rose resolved to act. "a little way short of the parish-road which leads to locriff . . . a semicircle surrounded by trees," said dutreillis' letter. she had therefore passed the place. she quickly retraced her steps and at once perceived, on the right, the clump of trees which had hidden the cabin from her eyes. she went nearer and saw it. it was a sort of shepherd's or road-labourer's hut, which was crumbling and falling to pieces under the action of the weather. véronique went up to it and perceived that the inscription, worn by the rain and sun, was much less clear than on the film. but the three letters were visible, as was the flourish; and she even distinguished, underneath, something which m. dutreillis had not observed, a drawing of an arrow and a number, the number . her emotion increased. though no attempt had been made to imitate the actual form of her signature, it certainly was her signature as a girl. and who could have affixed it there, on a deserted cabin, in this brittany where she had never been before? véronique no longer had a friend in the world. thanks to a succession of circumstances, the whole of her past girlhood had, so to speak, disappeared with the death of those whom she had known and loved. then how was it possible for the recollection of her signature to survive apart from her and those who were dead and gone? and, above all, why was the inscription here, at this spot? what did it mean? véronique walked round the cabin. there was no other mark visible there or on the surrounding trees. she remembered that m. dutreillis had opened the door and had seen nothing inside. nevertheless she determined to make certain that he was not mistaken. the door was closed with a mere wooden latch, which moved on a screw. she lifted it; and, strange to say, she had to make an effort, not a physical so much as a moral effort, an effort of will, to pull the door towards her. it seemed to her that this little act was about to usher her into a world of facts and events which she unconsciously dreaded. "well," she said, "what's preventing me?" she gave a sharp pull. a cry of horror escaped her. there was a man's dead body in the cabin. and, at the moment, at the exact second when she saw the body, she became aware of a peculiar characteristic: one of the dead man's hands was missing. it was an old man, with a long, grey, fan-shaped beard and long white hair falling about his neck. the blackened lips and a certain colour of the swollen skin suggested to véronique that he might have been poisoned, for no trace of an injury showed on his body, except the arm, which had been severed clean above the wrist, apparently some days before. his clothes were those of a breton peasant, clean, but very threadbare. the corpse was seated on the ground, with the head resting against the bench and the legs drawn up. these were all things which véronique noted in a sort of unconsciousness and which were rather to reappear in her memory at a later date, for, at the moment, she stood there all trembling, with her eyes staring before her, and stammering: "a dead body! . . . a dead body! . . ." suddenly she reflected that she was perhaps mistaken and that the man was not dead. but, on touching his forehead, she shuddered at the contact of his icy skin. nevertheless this movement roused her from her torpor. she resolved to act and, since there was no one in the immediate neighbourhood, to go back to le faouet and inform the authorities. she first examined the corpse for any clue which could tell her its identity. the pockets were empty. there were no marks on the clothes or linen. but, when she shifted the body a little in order to make her search, it came about that the head drooped forward, dragging with it the trunk, which fell over the legs, thus uncovering the lower side of the bench. under this bench, she perceived a roll consisting of a sheet of very thin drawing-paper, crumpled, buckled and almost wrung into a twist. she picked up the roll and unfolded it. but she had not finished doing so before her hands began to tremble and she stammered: "oh, god! . . . oh, my god! . . ." she summoned all her energies to try and enforce upon herself the calm needed to look with eyes that could see and a brain that could understand. the most that she could do was to stand there for a few seconds. and during those few seconds, through an ever-thickening mist that seemed to shroud her eyes, she was able to make out a drawing in red, representing four women crucified on four tree-trunks. and, in the foreground, the first woman, the central figure, with the body stark under its clothing and the features distorted with the most dreadful pain, but still recognizable, the crucified woman was herself! beyond the least doubt, it was she herself, véronique d'hergemont! besides, above the head, the top of the post bore, after the ancient custom, a scroll with a plainly legible inscription. and this was the three initials, underlined with the flourish, of véronique's maiden name, "v. d'h.", véronique d'hergemont. a spasm ran through her from head to foot. she drew herself up, turned on her heel and, reeling out of the cabin, fell on the grass in a dead faint. * * * * * véronique was a tall, energetic, healthy woman, with a wonderfully balanced mind; and hitherto no trial had been able to affect her fine moral sanity or her splendid physical harmony. it needed exceptional and unforeseen circumstances such as these, added to the fatigue of two nights spent in railway-travelling, to produce this disorder in her nerves and will. it did not last more than two or three minutes, at the end of which her mind once more became lucid and courageous. she stood up, went back to the cabin, picked up the sheet of drawing-paper and, certainly with unspeakable anguish, but this time with eyes that saw and a brain that understood, looked at it. she first examined the details, those which seemed insignificant, or whose significance at least escaped her. on the left was a narrow column of fifteen lines, not written, but composed of letters of no definite formation, the down-strokes of which were all of the same length, the object being evidently merely to fill up. however, in various places, a few words were visible. and véronique read: "four women crucified." lower down: "thirty coffins." and the bottom line of all ran: "the god-stone which gives life or death." the whole of this column was surrounded by a frame consisting of two perfectly straight lines, one ruled in black, the other in red ink; and there was also, likewise in red, above it, a sketch of two sickles fastened together with a sprig of mistletoe under the outline of a coffin. the right-hand side, by far the more important, was filled with the drawing, a drawing in red chalk, which gave the whole sheet, with its adjacent column of explanations, the appearance of a page, or rather of a copy of a page, from some large, ancient illuminated book, in which the subjects were treated rather in the primitive style, with a complete ignorance of the rules of drawing. and it represented four crucified women. three of them showed in diminishing perspective against the horizon. they wore breton costumes and their heads were surmounted by caps which were likewise breton but of a special fashion that pointed to local usage and consisted chiefly of a large black bow, the two wings of which stood out as in the bows of the alsatian women. and in the middle of the page was the dreadful thing from which véronique could not take her terrified eyes. it was the principal cross, the trunk of a tree stripped of its lower branches, with the woman's two arms stretched to right and left of it. the hands and feet were not nailed but were fastened by cords which were wound as far as the shoulders and the upper part of the tied legs. instead of the breton costume, the woman wore a sort of winding-sheet which fell to the ground and lengthened the slender outline of a body emaciated by suffering. the expression on the face was harrowing, an expression of resigned martyrdom and melancholy grace. and it was certainly véronique's face, especially as it looked when she was twenty years of age and as véronique remembered seeing it at those gloomy hours when a woman gazes in a mirror at her hopeless eyes and her overflowing tears. and about the head was the very same wave of her thick hair, flowing to the waist in symmetrical curves: and above it the inscription, "v. d'h." véronique long stayed thinking, questioning the past and gazing into the darkness in order to link the actual facts with the memory of her youth. but her mind remained without a glimmer of light. of the words which she had read, of the drawing which she had seen, nothing whatever assumed the least meaning for her or seemed susceptible of the least explanation. she examined the sheet of paper again and again. then, slowly, still pondering on it, she tore it into tiny pieces and threw them to the wind. when the last scrap had been carried away, her decision was taken. she pushed back the man's body, closed the door and walked quickly towards the village, in order to ensure that the incident should have the legal conclusion which was fitting for the moment. but, when she returned an hour later with the mayor of le faouet, the rural constable and a whole group of sightseers attracted by her statements, the cabin was empty. the corpse had disappeared. and all this was so strange, véronique felt so plainly that, in the disordered condition of her ideas, it was impossible for her to answer the questions put to her, or to dispel the suspicions and doubts which these people might and must entertain of the truth of her evidence, the cause of her presence and even her very sanity, that she forthwith ceased to make any effort or struggle. the inn-keeper was there. she asked him which was the nearest village that she would reach by following the road and if, by so doing, she would come to a railway-station which would enable her to return to paris. she retained the names of scaër and rosporden, ordered a carriage to bring her bag and overtake her on the road and set off, protected against any ill feeling by her great air of elegance and by her grave beauty. she set off, so to speak, at random. the road was long, miles and miles long. but such was her haste to have done with these incomprehensible events and to recover her tranquillity and to forget what had happened that she walked with great strides, quite oblivious of the fact that this wearisome exertion was superfluous, since she had a carriage following her. she went up hill and down dale and hardly thought at all, refusing to seek the solution of all the riddles that were put to her. it was the past which was reascending to the surface of her life; and she was horribly afraid of that past, which extended from her abduction by vorski to the death of her father and her child. she wanted to think of nothing but the simple, humble life which she had contrived to lead at besançon. there were no sorrows there, no dreams, no memories; and she did not doubt but that, amid the little daily habits which enfolded her in the modest house of her choice, she would forget the deserted cabin, the mutilated body of the man and the dreadful drawing with its mysterious inscription. but, a little while before she came to the big market-town of scaër, as she heard the bell of a horse trotting behind her, she saw, at the junction of the road that led to rosporden, a broken wall, one of the remnants of a half-ruined house. and on this broken wall, above an arrow and the number , she again read the fateful inscription, "v. d'h." chapter ii on the edge of the atlantic véronique's state of mind underwent a sudden alteration. even as she had fled resolutely from the threat of danger that seemed to loom up before her from the evil past, so she was now determined to pursue to the end the dread road which was opening before her. this change was due to a tiny gleam which flashed abruptly through the darkness. she suddenly realized the fact, a simple matter enough, that the arrow denoted a direction and that the number must be the tenth of a series of numbers which marked a course leading from one fixed point to another. was it a sign set up by one person with the object of guiding the steps of another? it mattered little. the main thing was that there was here a clue capable of leading véronique to the discovery of the problem which interested her: by what prodigy did the initials of her maiden name reappear amid this tangle of tragic circumstances? the carriage sent from le faouet overtook her. she stepped in and told the driver to go very slowly to rosporden. she arrived in time for dinner; and her anticipations had not misled her. twice she saw her signature, each time before a division in the road, accompanied by the numbers and . véronique slept at rosporden and resumed her investigations on the following morning. the number , which she found on the wall of a church-yard, sent her along the road to concarneau, which she had almost reached before she saw any further inscriptions. she fancied that she must have been mistaken, retraced her steps and wasted a whole day in useless searching. it was not until the next day that the number , very nearly obliterated, directed her towards fouesnant. then she abandoned this direction, to follow, still in obedience to the signs, some country-roads in which she once more lost her way. at last, four days after leaving le faouet, she found herself facing the atlantic, on the great beach of beg-meil. she spent two nights in the village without gathering the least reply to the discreet questions which she put to the inhabitants. at last, one morning, after wandering among the half-buried groups of rocks which intersect the beach and upon the low cliffs, covered with trees and copses, which hem it in, she discovered, between two oaks stripped of their bark, a shelter built of earth and branches which must at one time have been used by custom-house officers. a small menhir stood at the entrance. the menhir bore the inscription, followed by the number . no arrow. a full stop underneath; and that was all. in the shelter were three broken bottles and some empty meat-tins. "this was the goal," thought véronique. "some one has been having a meal here. food stored in advance, perhaps." just then she noticed that, at no great distance, by the edge of a little bay which curved like a shell amid the neighbouring rocks, a boat was swinging to and fro, a motor-boat. and she heard voices coming from the village, a man's voice and a woman's. from the place where she stood, all that she could see at first was an elderly man carrying in his arms half-a-dozen bags of provisions, potted meats and dried vegetables. he put them on the ground and said: "well, had a pleasant journey, m'ame honorine?" "fine!" "and where have you been?" "why, paris . . . a week of it . . . running errands for my master." "glad to be back?" "of course i am." "and you see, m'ame honorine, you find your boat just where she was. i came to have a look at her every day. this morning i took away her tarpaulin. does she run as well as ever?" "first-rate." "besides, you're a master pilot, you are. who'd have thought, m'ame honorine, that you'd be doing a job like this?" "it's the war. all the young men in our island are gone and the old ones are fishing. besides, there's no longer a fortnightly steamboat service, as there used to be. so i go the errands." "what about petrol?" "we've plenty to go on with. no fear of that." "well, good-bye for the present, m'ame honorine. shall i help you put the things on board?" "don't you trouble; you're in a hurry." "well, good-bye for the present," the old fellow repeated. "till next time, m'ame honorine. i'll have the parcels ready for you." he went away, but, when he had gone a little distance, called out: "all the same, mind the jagged reefs round that blessed island of yours! i tell you, it's got a nasty name! it's not called coffin island, the island of the thirty coffins, for nothing! good luck to you, m'ame honorine!" he disappeared behind a rock. véronique had shuddered. the thirty coffins! the very words which she had read in the margin of that horrible drawing! she leant forward. the woman had come a few steps nearer the boat and, after putting down some more provisions which she had been carrying, turned round. véronique now saw her full-face. she wore a breton costume; and her head-dress was crowned by two black wings. "oh," stammered véronique, "that head-dress in the drawing . . . the head-dress of the three crucified women!" the breton woman looked about forty. her strong face, tanned by the sun and the cold, was bony and rough-hewn but lit up by a pair of large, dark, intelligent, gentle eyes. a heavy gold chain hung down upon her breast. her velvet bodice fitted her closely. she was humming in a very low voice as she took up her parcels and loaded the boat, which made her kneel on a big stone against which the boat was moored. when she had done, she looked at the horizon, which was covered with black clouds. she did not seem anxious about them, however, and, loosing the painter, continued her song, but in a louder voice, which enabled véronique to hear the words. it was a slow melody, a children's lullaby; and she sang it with a smile which revealed a set of fine, white teeth. "and the mother said, rocking her child a-bed: 'weep not. if you do, the virgin mary weeps with you. babes that laugh and sing smiles to the blessed virgin bring. fold your hands this way and to sweet mary pray.'" she did not complete the song. véronique was standing before her, with her face drawn and very pale. taken aback, the other asked: "what's the matter?" véronique, in a trembling voice, replied: "that song! who taught it you? where do you get it from? . . . it's a song my mother used to sing, a song of her own country, savoy . . . . and i have never heard it since . . . since she died . . . . so i want . . . i should like . . ." she stopped. the breton woman looked at her in silence, with an air of stupefaction, as though she too were on the point of asking questions. but véronique repeated: "who taught it you?" "some one over there," the woman called honorine answered, at last. "over there?" "yes, some one on my island." véronique said, with a sort of dread: "coffin island?" "that's just a name they call it by. it's really the isle of sarek." they still stood looking at each other, with a look in which a certain doubt was mingled with a great need of speech and understanding. and at the same time they both felt that they were not enemies. véronique was the first to continue: "excuse me, but, you see, there are things which are so puzzling . . ." the breton woman nodded her head in approval and véronique continued: "so puzzling and so disconcerting! . . . for instance, do you know why i'm here? i must tell you. perhaps you alone can explain . . . it's like this: an accident--quite a small accident, but really it all began with that--brought me to brittany for the first time and showed me, on the door of an old, deserted, road-side cabin, the initials which i used to sign when i was a girl, a signature which i have not used for fourteen or fifteen years. as i went on, i discovered the same inscription many times repeated, with each time a different consecutive number. that was how i came here, to the beach at beg-meil and to this part of the beach, which appeared to be the end of a journey foreseen and arranged by . . . i don't know whom." "is your signature here?" asked honorine, eagerly. "where?" "on that stone, above us, at the entrance to the shelter." "i can't see from here. what are the letters?" "v. d'h." the breton woman suppressed a movement. her bony face betrayed profound emotion, and, hardly opening her lips, she murmured: "véronique . . . véronique d'hergemont." "ah," exclaimed the younger woman, "so you know my name, you know my name!" honorine took véronique's two hands and held them in her own. her weather-beaten face lit up with a smile. and her eyes grew moist with tears as she repeated: "mademoiselle véronique! . . . madame véronique! . . . so it's you, véronique! . . . o heaven, is it possible! the blessed virgin mary be praised!" véronique felt utterly confounded and kept on saying: "you know my name . . . you know who i am . . . . then you can explain all this riddle to me?" after a long pause, honorine replied: "i can explain nothing. i don't understand either. but we can try to find out together . . . . tell me, what was the name of that breton village?" "le faouet." "le faouet. i know. and where was the deserted cabin?" "a mile and a quarter away." "did you look in?" "yes; and that was the most terrible thing of all. inside the cabin was . . ." "what was in the cabin?" "first of all, the dead body of a man, an old man, dressed in the local costume, with long white hair and a grey beard . . . . oh, i shall never forget that dead man! . . . he must have been murdered, poisoned, i don't know what . . . ." honorine listened greedily, but the murder seemed to give her no clue and she merely asked: "who was it? did they have an inquest?" "when i came back with the people from le faouet, the corpse had disappeared." "disappeared? but who had removed it?" "i don't know." "so that you know nothing?" "nothing. except that, the first time, i found in the cabin a drawing . . . a drawing which i tore up; but its memory haunts me like a nightmare that keeps on recurring. i can't get it out of my mind . . . . listen, it was a roll of paper on which some one had evidently copied an old picture and it represented . . . oh, a dreadful, dreadful thing, four women crucified! and one of the women was myself, with my name . . . . and the others wore a head-dress like yours." honorine had squeezed her hands with incredible violence: "what's that you say?" she cried. "what's that you say? four women crucified?" "yes; and there was something about thirty coffins, consequently about your island." the breton woman put her hands over véronique's lips to silence them: "hush! hush! oh, you mustn't speak of all that! no, no, you mustn't . . . . you see, there are devilish things . . . which it's a sacrilege to talk about . . . . we must be silent about that . . . . later on, we'll see . . . another year, perhaps . . . . later on . . . . later on . . . ." she seemed shaken by terror, as by a gale which scourges the trees and overwhelms all living things. and suddenly she fell on her knees upon the rock and muttered a long prayer, bent in two, with her hands before her face, so completely absorbed that véronique asked her no more questions. at last she rose and, presently, said: "yes, this is all terrifying, but i don't see that it makes our duty any different or that we can hesitate at all." and, addressing véronique, she said, gravely: "you must come over there with me." "over there, to your island?" replied véronique, without concealing her reluctance. honorine again took her hands and continued, still in that same, rather solemn tone which appeared to véronique to be full of secret and unspoken thoughts: "your name is truly véronique d'hergemont?" "yes." "who was your father?" "antoine d'hergemont." "you married a man called vorski, who said he was a pole?" "yes, alexis vorski." "you married him after there was a scandal about his running off with you and after a quarrel between you and your father?" "yes." "you had a child by him?" "yes, a son, françois." "a son that you never knew, in a manner of speaking, because he was kidnapped by your father?" "yes." "and you lost sight of the two after a shipwreck?" "yes, they are both dead." "how do you know?" it did not occur to véronique to be astonished at this question, and she replied: "my personal enquiries and the police enquiries were both based upon the same indisputable evidence, that of the four sailors." "who's to say they weren't telling lies?" "why should they tell lies?" asked véronique, in surprise. "their evidence may have been bought; they may have been told what to say." "by whom?" "by your father." "but what an idea! . . . besides, my father was dead!" "i say once more: how do you know that?" this time véronique appeared stupefied: "what are you hinting?" she whispered. "one minute. do you know the names of those four sailors?" "i did know them, but i don't remember them." "you don't remember that they were breton names?" "yes, i do. but i don't see that . . ." "if you never came to brittany, your father often did, because of the books he used to write. he used to stay in brittany during your mother's lifetime. that being so, he must have had relations with the men of the country. suppose that he had known the four sailors a long time, that these men were devoted to him or bribed by him and that he engaged them specially for that adventure. suppose that they began by landing your father and your son at some little italian port and that then, being four good swimmers, they scuttled and sank their yacht in view of the coast. just suppose it." "but the men are living!" cried véronique, in growing excitement. "they can be questioned." "two of them are dead; they died a natural death a few years ago. the third is an old man called maguennoc; you will find him at sarek. as for the fourth, you may have seen him just now. he used the money which he made out of that business to buy a grocer's shop at beg-meil." "ah, we can speak to him at once!" cried véronique, eagerly. "let's go and fetch him." "why should we? i know more than he does." "you know? you know?" "i know everything that you don't. i can answer all your questions. ask me what you like." but véronique dared not put the great question to her, the one which was beginning to quiver in the darkness of her consciousness. she was afraid of a truth which was perhaps not inconceivable, a truth of which she seemed to catch a faint glimpse; and she stammered, in mournful accents: "i don't understand, i don't understand . . . . why should my father have behaved like that? why should he wish himself and my poor child to be thought dead?" "your father had sworn to have his revenge." "on vorski, yes; but surely not on me, his daughter? . . . . and such a revenge!" "you loved your husband. once you were in his power, instead of running away from him, you consented to marry him. besides, the insult was a public one. and you know what your father was, with his violent, vindictive temperament and his rather . . . his rather unbalanced nature, to use his own expression." "but since then?" "since then! since then! he felt remorseful as he grew older, what with his affection for the child . . . and he tried everywhere to find you. the journeys i have taken, beginning with my journey to the carmelites at chartres! but you had left long ago . . . and where for? where were you to be found?" "you could have advertised in the newspapers." "he did try advertising, once, very cautiously, because of the scandal. there was a reply. some one made an appointment and he kept it. do you know who came to meet him? vorski, vorski, who was looking for you too, who still loved you . . . and hated you. your father became frightened and did not dare act openly." véronique did not speak. she felt very faint and sat down on the stone, with her head bowed. then she murmured: "you speak of my father as though he were still alive to-day." "he is." "and as though you saw him often." "daily." "and on the other hand"--véronique lowered her voice--"on the other hand you do not say a word of my son. and that suggests a horrible thought: perhaps he did not live? perhaps he is dead since? is that why you do not mention him?" she raised her head with an effort. honorine was smiling. "oh, please, please," véronique entreated, "tell me the truth! it is terrible to hope more than one has a right to. do tell me." honorine put her arm round véronique's neck: "why, my poor, dear lady, would i have told you all this if my handsome françois had been dead?" "he is alive, he is alive?" cried véronique, wildly. "why, of course he is and in the best of health! oh, he's a fine, sturdy little chap, never fear, and so steady on his legs! and i have every right to be proud of him, because it's i who brought him up, your little françois." she felt véronique, who was leaning on her shoulder, give way to emotions which were too much for her and which certainly contained as much suffering as joy; and she said: "cry, my dear lady, cry; it will do you good. it's a better sort of crying than it was, eh? cry, until you've forgotten all your old troubles. i'm going back to the village. have you a bag of any kind at the inn? they know me there. i'll bring it back with me and we'll be off." when the breton woman returned, half an hour later, she saw véronique standing and beckoning to her to hurry and heard her calling: "quick, quick! heavens, what a time you've been! we have not a minute to lose." honorine, however, did not hasten her pace and did not reply. her rugged face was without a smile. "well, are we going to start?" asked véronique, running up to her. "there's nothing to delay us, is there, no obstacle? what's the matter? you seem quite changed." "no, no." "then let's be quick." honorine, with her assistance, put the bag and the provisions on board. then, suddenly standing in front of véronique, she said: "you're quite sure, are you, that the woman on the cross, as she was shown in the drawing, was yourself?" "absolutely. besides, there were my initials above the head." "that's a strange thing," muttered honorine, "and it's enough to frighten anybody." "why should it be? it must have been someone who used to know me and who amused himself by . . . it's merely a coincidence, a chance fancy reviving the past." "oh, it's not the past that's worrying me! it's the future." "the future?" "remember the prophecy." "i don't understand." "yes, yes, the prophecy made about you to vorski." "ah, you know?" "i know. and it is so horrible to think of that drawing and of other much more dreadful things which you don't know of." véronique burst out laughing: "what! is that why you hesitate to take me with you, for, after all, that's what we're concerned with?" "don't laugh. people don't laugh when they see the flames of hell before them." honorine crossed herself, closing her eyes as she spoke. then she continued: "of course . . . you scoff at me . . . you think i'm a superstitious breton woman, who believes in ghosts and jack-o'-lanterns. i don't say you're altogether wrong. but there, there! there are some truths that blind one. you can talk it over with maguennoc, if you get on the right side of him." "maguennoc?" "one of the four sailors. he's an old friend of your boy's. he too helped to bring him up. maguennoc knows more about it than the most learned men, more than your father. and yet . . ." "what?" "and yet maguennoc tried to tempt fate and to get past what men are allowed to know." "what did he do?" "he tried to touch with his hand--you understand, with his own hand: he confessed it to me himself--the very heart of the mystery." "well?" said véronique, impressed in spite of herself. "well, his hand was burnt by the flames. he showed me a hideous sore: i saw it with my eyes, something like the sore of a cancer; and he suffered to that degree . . ." "yes?" "that it forced him to take a hatchet in his left hand and cut off his right hand himself." véronique was dumbfounded. she remembered the corpse at le faouet and she stammered: "his right hand? you say that maguennoc cut off his right hand?" "with a hatchet, ten days ago, two days before i left . . . . i dressed the wound myself . . . . why do you ask?" "because," said véronique, in a husky voice, "because the dead man, the old man whom i found in the deserted cabin and who afterwards disappeared, had lately lost his right hand." honorine gave a start. she still wore the sort of scared expression and betrayed the emotional disturbance which contrasted with her usually calm attitude. and she rapped out: "are you sure? yes, yes, you're right, it was he, maguennoc . . . . he had long white hair, hadn't he? and a spreading beard? . . . oh, how abominable!" she restrained herself and looked around her, frightened at having spoken so loud. she once more made the sign of the cross and said, slowly, almost under her breath: "he was the first of those who have got to die . . . he told me so himself . . . and old maguennoc had eyes that read the book of the future as easily as the book of the past. he could see clearly where another saw nothing at all. 'the first victim will be myself, ma'me honorine. and, when the servant has gone, in a few days it will be the master's turn.'" "and the master was . . . ?" asked véronique, in a whisper. honorine drew herself up and clenched her fists violently: "i'll defend him! i will!" she declared. "i'll save him! your father shall not be the second victim. no, no, i shall arrive in time! let me go!" "we are going together," said véronique, firmly. "please," said honorine, in a voice of entreaty, "please don't be persistent. let me have my way. i'll bring your father and your son to you this very evening, before dinner." "but why?" "the danger is too great, over there, for your father . . . and especially for you. remember the four crosses! it's over there that they are waiting . . . . oh, you mustn't go there! . . . the island is under a curse." "and my son?" "you shall see him to-day, in a few hours." véronique gave a short laugh: "in a few hours! woman, you must be mad! here am i, after mourning my son for fourteen years, suddenly hearing that he's alive; and you ask me to wait before i take him in my arms! not one hour! i would rather risk death a thousand times than put off that moment." honorine looked at her and seemed to realize that véronique's was one of those resolves against which it is useless to fight, for she did not insist. she crossed herself for the third time and said, simply: "god's will be done." they both took their seats among the parcels which encumbered the narrow space. honorine switched on the current, seized the tiller and skilfully steered the boat through the rocks and sandbanks which rose level with the water. chapter iii vorski's son véronique smiled as she sat to starboard on a packing-case, with her face turned towards honorine. her smile was anxious still and undefined, full of reticence and flickering as a sunbeam that tries to pierce the last clouds of the storm; but it was nevertheless a happy smile. and happiness seemed the right expression for that wonderful face, stamped with dignity and with that particular modesty which gives to some women, whether stricken by excessive misfortune or preserved by love, the habit of gravity, combined with an absence of all feminine affectation. her black hair, touched with grey at the temples, was knotted very low down on the neck. she had the dead-white complexion of a southerner and very light blue eyes, of which the white seemed almost of the same colour, pale as a winter sky. she was tall, with broad shoulders and a well-shaped bust. her musical and somewhat masculine voice became light and cheerful when she spoke of the son whom she had found again. and véronique could speak of nothing else. in vain the breton woman tried to speak of the problems that harassed her and kept on interrupting véronique: "look here, there are two things which i cannot understand. who laid the trail with the clues that brought you from le faouet to the exact spot where i always land? it almost makes one believe that someone had been from le faouet to the isle of sarek. and, on the other hand, how did old maguennoc come to leave the island? was it of his own free will? or was it his dead body that they carried? if so, how?" "is it worth troubling about?" véronique objected. "certainly it is. just think! besides me, who once a fortnight go either to beg-meil or pont-l'abbé in my motor-boat for provisions, there are only two fishing-boats, which always go much higher up the coast, to audierne, where they sell their catch. then how did maguennoc get across? then again, did he commit suicide? but, if so, how did his body disappear?" but véronique protested: "please don't! it doesn't matter for the moment. it'll all be cleared up. tell me about françois. you were saying that he came to sarek . . ." honorine yielded to véronique's entreaties: "he arrived in poor maguennoc's arms, a few days after he was taken from you. maguennoc, who had been taught his lesson by your father, said that a strange lady had entrusted him with the child; and he had it nursed by his daughter, who has since died. i was away, in a situation with a paris family. when i came home again, françois had grown into a fine little fellow, running about the moors and cliffs. it was then that i took service with your father, who had settled in sarek. when maguennoc's daughter died, we took the child to live with us." "but under what name?" "françois, just françois. m. d'hergemont was known as monsieur antoine. françois called him grandfather. no one ever made any remark upon it." "and his character?" asked véronique, with some anxiety. "oh, as far as that's concerned, he's a blessing!" replied honorine. "nothing of his father about him . . . nor of his grandfather either, as m. d'hergemont himself admits. a gentle, lovable, most willing child. never a sign of anger; always good-tempered. that's what got over his grandfather and made m. d'hergemont come round to you again, because his grandson reminded him so of the daughter he had cast off. 'he's the very image of his mother,' he used to say. 'véronique was gentle and affectionate like him, with the same fond and coaxing ways.' and then he began his search for you, with me to help him; for he had come to confide in me." véronique beamed with delight. her son was like her! her son was bright and kind-hearted! "but does he know about me?" she said. "does he know that i'm alive?" "i should think he did! m. d'hergemont tried to keep it from him at first. but i soon told him everything." "everything?" "no. he believes that his father is dead and that, after the shipwreck in which he, i mean françois, and m. d'hergemont disappeared, you became a nun and have been lost sight of since. and he is so eager for news, each time i come back from one of my trips! he too is so full of hope! oh, you can take my word for it, he adores his mother! and he's always singing that song you heard just now, which his grandfather taught him." "my françois, my own little françois!" "ah, yes, he loves you! there's mother honorine. but you're mother, just that. and he's in a great hurry to grow up and finish his schooling, so that he may go and look for you." "his schooling? does he have lessons?" "yes, with his grandfather and, since two years ago, with such a nice fellow that i brought back from paris, stéphane maroux, a wounded soldier covered with medals and restored to health after an internal operation. françois dotes on him." the boat was running quickly over the smooth sea, in which it ploughed a furrow of silvery foam. the clouds had dispersed on the horizon. the evening boded fair and calm. "more, tell me more!" said véronique, listening greedily. "what does my boy wear?" "knickerbockers and short socks, with his calves bare; a thick flannel shirt with gilt buttons; and a flat knitted cap, like his big friend, m. stéphane; only his is red and suits him to perfection." "has he any friends besides m. maroux?" "all the growing lads of the island, formerly. but with the exception of three or four ship's boys, all the rest have left the island with their mothers, now that their fathers are at the war, and are working on the mainland, at concarneau or lorient, leaving the old people at sarek by themselves. we are not more than thirty on the island now." "whom does he play with? whom does he go about with?" "oh, as for that, he has the best of companions!" "really? who is it?" "a little dog that maguennoc gave him." "a dog?" "yes; and the funniest dog you ever saw: an ugly ridiculous-looking thing, a cross between a poodle and a fox-terrier, but so comical and amusing! oh, there's no one like master all's well!" "all's well?" "that's what françois calls him; and you couldn't have a better name for him. he always looks happy and glad to be alive. he's independent, too, and he disappears for hours and even days at a time; but he's always there when he's wanted, if you're feeling sad, or if things aren't going as you might like them to. all's well hates to see any one crying or scolding or quarrelling. the moment you cry, or pretend to cry, he comes and squats on his haunches in front of you, sits up, shuts one eye, half-opens the other and looks so exactly as if he was laughing that you begin to laugh yourself. 'that's right, old chap,' says françois, 'you're quite right: all's well. there's nothing to take on about, is there?' and, when you're consoled, all's well just trots away. his task is done." véronique laughed and cried in one breath. then she was silent for a long time, feeling more and more gloomy and overcome by a despair which overwhelmed all her gladness. she thought of all the happiness that she had missed during the fourteen years of her childless motherhood, wearing her mourning for a son who was alive. all the cares that a mother lavishes upon the little creature new-born into the world, all the pride that she feels at seeing him grow and hearing him speak, all that delights a mother and uplifts her and makes her heart overflow with daily renewed affection: all this she had never known. "we are half-way across," said honorine. they were running in sight of the glenans islands. on their right, the headland of penmarch, whose coast-line they were following at a distance of fifteen miles, marked a darker line which was not always differentiated from the horizon. and véronique thought of her sad past, of her mother, whom she hardly remembered, of her childhood spent with a selfish, disagreeable father, of her marriage, ah, above all of her marriage! she recalled her first meetings with vorski, when she was only seventeen. how frightened she had been from the very beginning of that strange and unusual man, whom she dreaded while she submitted to his influence, as one does at that age submit to the influence of anything mysterious and incomprehensible! next came the hateful day of the abduction and the other days, more hateful still, that followed, the weeks during which he had kept her imprisoned, threatening her and dominating her with all his evil strength, and the promise of marriage which he had forced from her, a pledge against which all the girl's instincts and all her will revolted, but to which it seemed to her that she was bound to agree after so great a scandal and also because her father was giving his consent. her brain rebelled against the memories of her years of married life. never that! not even in the worst hours, when the nightmares of the past haunt one like spectres, never did she consent to revive, in the innermost recesses of her mind, that degrading past, with its mortifications, wounds and betrayals, and the disgraceful life led by her husband, who, shamelessly, with cynical pride, gradually revealed himself as the man he was, drinking, cheating at cards, robbing his boon companions, a swindler and blackmailer, giving his wife the impression, which she still retained and which made her shudder, of a sort of evil genius, cruel and unbalanced. "have done with dreams, madame véronique," said honorine. "it's not so much dreams and memories as remorse," she replied. "remorse, madame véronique? you, whose life has been one long martyrdom?" "a martyrdom that was a punishment." "but all that is over and done with, madame véronique, seeing that you are going to meet your son and your father again. come, come, you must think of nothing but being happy." "happy? can i be happy again?" "i should think so! you'll soon see! . . . look, there's sarek." honorine took from a locker under her seat a large shell which she used as a trumpet, after the manner of the mariners of old, and, putting her lips to the mouthpiece and puffing out her cheeks, she blew a few powerful notes, which filled the air with a sound not unlike the lowing of an ox. véronique gave her a questioning look. "it's him i'm calling," said honorine. "françois? you're calling françois?" "yes, it's the same every time i come back. he comes scrambling from the top of the cliffs where we live and runs down to the jetty." "so i shall see him?" exclaimed véronique, turning very pale. "you will see him. fold your veil double, so that he may not know you from your photographs. i'll speak to you as i would to a stranger who has come to look at sarek." they could see the island distinctly, but the foot of the cliffs was hidden by a multitude of reefs. "ah, yes, there's no lack of rocks! they swarm like a shoal of herring!" cried honorine, who had been obliged to switch off the motor and was using two short paddles. "you know how calm the sea was just now. it's never calm here." thousands and thousands of little waves were dashing and clashing against one another and waging an incessant and implacable war upon the rocks. the boat seemed to be passing through the backwater of a torrent. nowhere was a strip of blue or green sea visible amid the bubbling foam. there was nothing but white froth, whipped up by the indefatigable swirl of the forces which desperately assailed the pointed teeth of the reefs. "and it's like that all round the island," said honorine, "so much so that you may say that sarek isn't accessible except in a small boat. ah, the huns could never have established a submarine base on our island! to make quite sure and remove all doubts, some officers came over from lorient, two years ago, because of a few caves on the west, which can only be entered at low tide. it was waste of time. there was nothing doing here. just think, it's like a sprinkle of rocks all around; and pointed rocks at that, which get at you treacherously from underneath. and, though these are the most dangerous, perhaps it is the others that are most to be feared, the big ones which you see and have got their name and their history from all sorts of crimes and shipwrecks. oh, as to those! . . ." her voice grew hollow. with a hesitating hand, which seemed afraid of the half-completed gesture, she pointed to some reefs which stood up in powerful masses of different shapes, crouching animals, crenellated keeps, colossal needles, sphynx-heads, jagged pyramids, all in black granite stained with red, as though soaked in blood. and she whispered: "oh, as to those, they have been guarding the island for centuries and centuries, but like wild beasts that only care for doing harm and killing. they . . . they . . . no, it's better never to speak about them or even think of them. they are the thirty wild beasts. yes, thirty, madame véronique, there are thirty of them . . . ." she made the sign of the cross and continued, more calmly: "there are thirty of them. your father says that sarek is called the island of the thirty coffins because the people instinctively ended in this case by confusing the two words _écueils_ and _cercueils_.[ ] perhaps . . . . it's very likely . . . . but, all the same, they are thirty real coffins, madame véronique; and, if we could open them, we should be sure to find them full of bones and bones and bones. m. d'hergemont himself says that sarek comes from the word sarcophagus, which, according to him, is the learned way of saying coffin. besides, there's more than that . . . ." [footnote : "reefs" and "coffins."--_translator's note._] honorine broke off, as though she wanted to think of something else, and, pointing to a reef of rocks, said: "look, madame véronique, past that big one right in our way there, you will see, through an opening, our little harbour and, on the quay, françois in his red cap." véronique had been listening absent-mindedly to honorine's explanations. she leant her body farther out of the boat, in order to catch sight the sooner of her son, while the breton woman, once more a victim to her obsession, continued, in spite of herself: "there's more than that. the isle of sarek--and that is why your father came to live here--contains a collection of dolmens which have nothing remarkable about them, but which are peculiar for one reason, that they are all nearly alike. well, how many of them do you think there are? thirty! thirty, like the principal reefs. and those thirty are distributed round the islands, on the cliffs, exactly opposite the thirty reefs; and each of them bears the same name as the reef that corresponds to it: dol-er-h'roeck, dol-kerlitu and so on. what do you say to that?" she had uttered these names in the same timid voice in which she spoke of all these things, as if she feared to be heard by the things themselves, to which she was attributing a formidable and sacred life. "what do you say to that, madame véronique? oh, there's plenty of mystery about it all; and, once more, it's better to hold one's tongue! i'll tell you about it when we've left here, right away from the island, and when your little françois is in your arms, between your father and you." véronique sat silent, gazing into space at the spot to which honorine had pointed. with her back turned to her companion and her two hands gripping the gunwale, she stared distractedly before her. it was there, through that narrow opening, that she was to see her child, long lost and now found; and she did not want to waste a single second after the moment when she would be able to catch sight of him. they reached the rock. one of honorine's paddles grazed its side. they skirted and came to the end of it. "oh," said véronique, sorrowfully, "he is not there!" "françois not there? impossible!" cried honorine. she in her turn saw, three or four hundred yards in front of them, the few big rocks on the beach which served as a jetty. three women, a little girl and some old seafaring men were waiting for the boat, but no boy, no red cap. "that's strange," said honorine, in a low voice. "it's the first time that he's failed to answer my call." "perhaps he's ill?" véronique suggested. "no, françois is never ill." "what then?" "i don't know." "but aren't you afraid?" asked véronique, who was already becoming frightened. "for him, no . . . but for your father. maguennoc said that i oughtn't to leave him. it's he who is threatened." "but françois is there to defend him; and so is m. maroux, his tutor. come, answer me: what do you imagine?" after a moment's pause, honorine shrugged her shoulders. "a pack of nonsense! i get absurd, yes, absurd things into my head. don't be angry with me. i can't help it: it's the breton in me. except for a few years, i have spent all my life here, with legends and stories in the very air i breathed. don't let's talk about it." the isle of sarek appears in the shape of a long and undulating table-land, covered with ancient trees and standing on cliffs of medium height than which nothing more jagged could be imagined. it is as though the island were surrounded by a reef of uneven, diversified lacework, incessantly wrought upon by the rain, the wind, the sun, the snow, the frost, the mist and all the water that falls from the sky or oozes from the earth. the only accessible point is on the eastern side, at the bottom of a depression where a few houses, mostly abandoned since the war, constitute the village. a break in the cliffs opens here, protected by the little jetty. the sea at this spot is perfectly calm. two boats lay moored to the quay. before landing, honorine made a last effort: "we're there, madame véronique, as you see. now is it really worth your while to get out? why not stay where you are? i'll bring your father and your son to you in two hours' time and we'll have dinner at beg-meil or at pont-l'abbé. will that do?" véronique rose to her feet and leapt on to the quay without replying. honorine joined her and insisted no longer: "well, children, where's young françois? hasn't he come?" "he was here about twelve," said one of the women. "only he didn't expect you until to-morrow." "that's true enough . . . but still he must have heard me blow my horn. however, we shall see." and, as the man helped her to unload the boat, she said: "i shan't want all this taken up to the priory. nor the bags either. unless . . . look here, if i am not back by five o'clock, send a youngster after me with the bags." "no, i'll come myself," said one of the seamen. "as you please, corréjou. oh, by the way, where's maguennoc?" "maguennoc's gone. i took him across to pont-l'abbé myself." "when was that, corréjou?" "why, the day after you went, madame honorine." "what was he going over for?" "he told us he was going . . . i don't know where . . . . it had to do with the hand he lost . . . . a pilgrimage . . . ." "a pilgrimage? to le faouet, perhaps? to st. barbe's chapel?" "that's it . . . that's it exactly: st. barbe's chapel, that's what he said." honorine asked no more. she could no longer doubt that maguennoc was dead. she moved away, accompanied by véronique, who had lowered her veil; and the two went along a rocky path, cut into steps, which ran through the middle of an oak-wood towards the southernmost point of the island. "after all," said honorine, "i am not sure--and i may as well say so--that m. d'hergemont will consent to leave. he treats all my stories as crotchets, though there's plenty of things that astonish even him . . . ." "does he live far from here?" asked véronique. "it's forty minutes' walk. as you will see, it's almost another island, joined to the first. the benedictines built an abbey there." "but he's not alone there, is he, with françois and m. maroux?" "before the war, there were two men besides. lately, maguennoc and i used to do pretty well all the work, with the cook, marie le goff." "she remained, of course, while you were away?" "yes." they reached the top of the cliffs. the path, which followed the coast, rose and fell in steep gradients. on every hand were old oaks with their bunches of mistletoe, which showed among the as yet scanty leaves. the sea, grey-green in the distance, girded the island with a white belt. véronique continued: "what do you propose to do, honorine?" "i shall go in by myself and speak to your father. then i shall come back and fetch you at the garden-gate; and in françois' eyes you will pass for a friend of his mother's. he will guess the truth gradually." "and you think that my father will give me a good welcome?" "he will receive you with open arms, madame véronique," cried the breton woman, "and we shall all be happy, provided . . . provided nothing has happened . . . it's so funny that françois doesn't run out to meet me! he can see our boat from every part of the island . . . as far off as the glenans almost." she relapsed into what m. d'hergemont called her crotchets; and they pursued their road in silence. véronique felt anxious and impatient. suddenly honorine made the sign of the cross: "you do as i'm doing, madame véronique," she said. "the monks have consecrated the place, but there's lots of bad, unlucky things remaining from the old days, especially in that wood, the wood of the great oak." the old days no doubt meant the period of the druids and their human sacrifices; and the two women were now entering a wood in which the oaks, each standing in isolation on a mound of moss-grown stones, had a look of ancient gods, each with his own altar, his mysterious cult and his formidable power. véronique, following honorine's example, crossed herself and could not help shuddering as she said: "how melancholy it is! there's not a flower on this desolate plateau." "they grow most wonderfully when one takes the trouble. you shall see maguennoc's, at the end of the island, to the right of the fairies' dolmen . . . a place called the calvary of the flowers." "are they lovely?" "wonderful, i tell you. only he goes himself to get the mould from certain places. he prepares it. he works it up. he mixes it with some special leaves of which he knows the effect." and she repeated, "you shall see maguennoc's flowers. there are no flowers like them in the world. they are miraculous flowers . . . ." after skirting a hill, the road descended a sudden declivity. a huge gash divided the island into two parts, the second of which now appeared, standing a little higher, but very much more limited in extent. "it's the priory, that part," said honorine. the same jagged cliffs surrounded the smaller islet with an even steeper rampart, which itself was hollowed out underneath like the hoop of a crown. and this rampart was joined to the main island by a strip of cliff fifty yards long and hardly thicker than a castle-wall, with a thin, tapering crest which looked as sharp as the edge of an axe. there was no thoroughfare possible along this ridge, inasmuch as it was split in the middle with a wide fissure, for which reason the abutments of a wooden bridge had been anchored to the two extremities. the bridge started flat on the rock and subsequently spanned the intervening crevice. they crossed it separately, for it was not only very narrow but also unstable, shaking under their feet and in the wind. "look, over there, at the extreme point of the island," said honorine, "you can see a corner of the priory." the path that led to it ran through fields planted with small fir-trees arranged in quincunxes. another path turned to the right and disappeared from view in some dense thickets. véronique kept her eyes upon the priory, whose low-storied front was lengthening gradually, when honorine, after a few minutes, stopped short, with her face towards the thickets on the right, and called out: "monsieur stéphane!" "whom are you calling?" asked véronique. "m. maroux?" "yes, françois' tutor. he was running towards the bridge: i caught sight of him through a clearing . . . monsieur stéphane! . . . but why doesn't he answer? did you see a man running?" "no." "i declare it was he, with his white cap. at any rate, we can see the bridge behind us. let us wait for him to cross." "why wait? if anything's the matter, if there's a danger of any kind, it's at the priory." "you're right. let's hurry." they hastened their pace, overcome with forebodings; and then, for no definite reason, broke into a run, so greatly did their fears increase as they drew nearer to the reality. the islet grew narrower again, barred by a low wall which marked the boundaries of the priory domain. at that moment, cries were heard, coming from the house. honorine exclaimed: "they're calling! did you hear? a woman's cries! it's the cook! it's marie le goff! . . ." she made a dash for the gate and grasped the key, but inserted it so awkwardly that she jammed the lock and was unable to open it. "through the gap!" she ordered. "this way, on the right!" they rushed along, scrambled through the wall and crossed a wide grassy space filled with ruins, in which the winding and ill-marked path disappeared at every moment under trailing creepers and moss. "here we are! here we are!" shouted honorine. "we're coming!" and she muttered: "the cries have stopped! it's dreadful! oh, poor marie le goff!" she grasped véronique's arm: "let's go round. the front of the house is on the other side. on this side the doors are always locked and the window-shutters closed." but véronique caught her foot in some roots, stumbled and fell to her knees. when she stood up again, the breton woman had left her and was hurrying round the left wing. unconsciously, véronique, instead of following her, made straight for the house, climbed the step and was brought up short by the door, at which she knocked again and again. the idea of going round, as honorine had done, seemed to her a waste of time which nothing could ever make good. however, realising the futility of her efforts, she was just deciding to go, when once more cries sounded from inside the house and above her head. it was a man's voice, which véronique seemed to recognize as her father's. she fell back a few steps. suddenly one of the windows on the first floor opened and she saw m. d'hergemont, his features distorted with inexpressible terror, gasping: "help! help! oh, the monster! help!" "father! father!" cried véronique, in despair. "it's i!" he lowered his head for an instant, appeared not to see his daughter and made a quick attempt to climb over the balcony. but a shot rang out behind him and one of the window-panes was blown into fragments. "murderer, murderer!" he shouted, turning back into the room. véronique, mad with fear and helplessness, looked around her. how could she rescue her father? the wall was too high and offered nothing to cling to. suddenly, she saw a ladder, lying twenty yards away, beside the wall of the house. with a prodigious effort of will and strength, she managed to carry the ladder, heavy though it was, and to set it up under the open window. at the most tragic moment in life, when the mind is no more than a seething confusion, when the whole body is shaken by the tremor of anguish, a certain logic continues to connect our ideas: and véronique wondered why she had not heard honorine's voice and what could have delayed her coming. she also thought of françois. where was françois? had he followed stéphane maroux in his inexplicable flight? had he gone in search of assistance? and who was it that m. d'hergemont had apostrophized as a monster and a murderer? the ladder did not reach the window; and véronique at once became aware of the effort which would be necessary if she was to climb over the balcony. nevertheless she did not hesitate. they were fighting up there; and the struggle was mingled with stifled shouts uttered by her father. she went up the ladder. the most that she could do was to grasp the bottom rail of the balcony. but a narrow ledge enabled her to hoist herself on one knee, to put her head through and to witness the tragedy that was being enacted in the room. at that moment, m. d'hergemont had once more retreated to the window and even a little beyond it, so that she almost saw him face to face. he stood without moving, haggard-eyed and with his arms hanging in an undecided posture, as though waiting for something terrible to happen. he stammered: "murderer! murderer! . . . is it really you? oh, curse you! françois! françois!" he was no doubt calling upon his grandson for help; and françois no doubt was also exposed to some attack, was perhaps wounded, was possibly dead! véronique summoned up all her strength and succeeded in setting foot on the ledge. "here i am! here i am!" she meant to cry. but her voice died away in her throat. she had seen! she saw! facing her father, at a distance of five paces, against the opposite wall of the room, stood some one pointing a revolver at m. d'hergemont and deliberately taking aim. and that some one was . . . oh, horror! véronique recognized the red cap of which honorine had spoken, the flannel shirt with the gilt buttons. and above all she beheld, in that young face convulsed with hideous emotions, the very expression which vorski used to wear at times when his instincts, hatred and ferocity, gained the upper hand. the boy did not see her. his eyes were fixed on the mark which he proposed to hit; and he seemed to take a sort of savage joy in postponing the fatal act. véronique herself was silent. words or cries could not possibly avert the peril. what she had to do was to fling herself between her father and her son. she clutched hold of the railings, clambered up and climbed through the window. it was too late. the shot was fired. m. d'hergemont fell with a groan of pain. and, at the same time, at that very moment, while the boy still had his arm outstretched and the old man was sinking into a huddled heap, a door opened at the back. honorine appeared; and the abominable sight struck her, so to speak, full in the face. "françois!" she screamed. "you! you!" the boy sprang at her. the woman tried to bar his way. there was not even a struggle. the boy took a step back, quickly raised his weapon and fired. honorine's knees gave way beneath her and she fell across the threshold. and, as he jumped over her body and fled, she kept on repeating: "françois . . . . françois . . . . no, it's not true! . . . oh, can it be possible? . . . françois . . . ." there was a burst of laughter outside. yes, the boy had laughed. véronique heard that horrible, infernal laugh, so like vorski's laugh; and it all agonized her with the same anguish which used to sear her in vorski's days! she did not run after the murderer. she did not call out. a faint voice beside her was murmuring her name: "véronique . . . . véronique . . . ." m. d'hergemont lay on the ground, staring at her with glassy eyes which were already filled with death. she knelt down by his side; but, when she tried to unbutton his waistcoat and his bloodstained shirt, in order to dress the wound of which he was dying, he gently pushed her hand aside. she understood that all aid was useless and that he wished to speak to her. she stooped still lower. "véronique . . . forgive . . . véronique . . . ." it was the first utterance of his failing thoughts. she kissed him on the forehead and wept: "hush, father . . . . don't tire yourself . . . ." but he had something else to say; and his mouth vainly emitted syllables which did not form words and to which she listened in despair. his life was ebbing away. his mind was fading into the darkness. véronique glued her ear to the lips which exhausted themselves in a supreme effort and she caught the words: "beware . . . beware . . . the god-stone . . . ." suddenly he half raised himself. his eyes flashed as though lit by the last flicker of an expiring flame. véronique received the impression that her father, as he looked at her, now understood nothing but the full significance of her presence and foresaw all the dangers that threatened her; and, speaking in a hoarse and terrified but quite distinct voice, he said: "you mustn't stay . . . . it means death if you stay . . . . escape this island . . . . go . . . go . . . ." his head fell back. he stammered a few more words which véronique was just able to grasp: "oh, the cross! . . . the four crosses of sarek! . . . my daughter . . . my daughter . . . crucified! . . ." and that was all. there was a great silence, a vast silence which véronique felt weighing upon her like a burden that grows heavier second after second. "you must escape from this island," a voice repeated. "go, quickly. your father bade you, madame véronique." honorine was beside her, livid in the face, with her two hands clasping a napkin, rolled into a plug and red with blood, which she held to her chest. "but i must look after you first!" cried véronique. "wait a moment . . . . let me see . . . ." "later on . . . they'll attend to me presently," spluttered honorine. "oh, the monster! . . . if i had only come in time! but the door below was barricaded . . . ." "do let me see to your wound," véronique implored. "lie down." "presently . . . . first marie le goff, the cook, at the top of the staircase . . . . she's wounded too . . . mortally perhaps . . . . go and see." véronique went out by the door at the back, the one through which her son had made his escape. there was a large landing here. on the top steps, curled into a heap, lay marie le goff, with the death-rattle in her throat. she died almost at once, without recovering consciousness, the third victim of the incomprehensible tragedy. as foretold by old maguennoc, m. d'hergemont had been the second victim. chapter iv the poor people of sarek honorine's wound was deep but did not seem likely to prove fatal. when véronique had dressed it and moved marie le goff's body to the room filled with books and furnished like a study in which her father was lying, she closed m. d'hergemont's eyes, covered him with a sheet and knelt down to pray. but the words of prayer would not come to her lips and her mind was incapable of dwelling on a single thought. she felt stunned by the repeated blows of misfortune. she sat down in a chair, holding her head in her hands. thus she remained for nearly an hour, while honorine slept a feverish sleep. with all her strength she rejected her son's image, even as she had always rejected vorski's. but the two images became mingled together, whirling around her and dancing before her eyes like those lights which, when we close our eyelids tightly, pass and pass again and multiply and blend into one. and it was always one and the same face, cruel, sardonic, hideously grinning. she did not suffer, as a mother suffers when mourning the loss of a son. her son had been dead these fourteen years; and the one who had come to life again, the one for whom all the wells of her maternal affection were ready to gush forth, had suddenly become a stranger and even worse: vorski's son! how indeed could she have suffered? but ah, what a wound inflicted in the depths of her being! what an upheaval, like those cataclysms which shake the whole of a peaceful country-side! what a hellish spectacle! what a vision of madness and horror! what an ironical jest, a jest of the most hideous destiny! her son killing her father at the moment when, after all these years of separation and sorrow, she was on the point of embracing them both and living with them in sweet and homely intimacy! her son a murderer! her son dispensing death and terror broadcast! her son levelling that ruthless weapon, slaying with all his heart and soul and taking a perverse delight in it! the motives which might explain these actions interested her not at all. why had her son done these things? why had his tutor, stéphane maroux, doubtless an accomplice, possibly an instigator, fled before the tragedy? these were questions which she did not seek to solve. she thought only of the frightful scene of carnage and death. and she asked herself if death was not for her the only refuge and the only ending. "madame véronique," whispered honorine. "what is it?" asked véronique, roused from her stupor. "don't you hear?" "what?" "a ring at the bell below. they must be bringing your luggage." she sprang to her feet. "but what am i to say? how can i explain? . . . if i accuse that boy . . ." "not a word, please. let me speak to them." "you're very weak, my poor honorine." "no, no, i'm feeling better." véronique went downstairs, crossed a broad entrance-hall paved with black and white flags and drew the bolts of a great door. it was, as they expected, one of the sailors: "i knocked at the kitchen-door first," said the man. "isn't marie le goff there? and madame honorine?" "honorine is upstairs and would like to speak to you." the sailor looked at her, seemed impressed by this young woman, who looked so pale and serious, and followed her without a word. honorine was waiting on the first floor, standing in front of the open door: "ah, it's you, corréjou? . . . now listen to me . . . and no silly talk, please." "what's the matter, m'ame honorine? why, you're wounded! what is it?" she stepped aside from the doorway and, pointing to the two bodies under their winding-sheets, said simply: "monsieur antoine and marie le goff . . . both of them murdered." the man's face became distorted. he stammered: "murdered . . . you don't say so . . . . why?" "i don't know; we arrived after it happened." "but . . . young françois? . . . monsieur stéphane? . . ." "gone . . . . they must have been killed too." "but . . . but . . . maguennoc?" "maguennoc? why do you speak of maguennoc?" "i speak of maguennoc, i speak of maguennoc . . . because, if he's alive . . . this is a very different business. maguennoc always said that he would be the first. maguennoc only says things of which he's certain. maguennoc understands these things thoroughly." honorine reflected and then said: "maguennoc has been killed." this time corréjou lost all his composure: and his features expressed that sort of insane terror which véronique had repeatedly observed in honorine. he made the sign of the cross and said, in a low whisper: "then . . . then . . . it's happening, ma'me honorine? . . . maguennoc said it would . . . . only the other day, in my boat, he was saying, 'it won't be long now . . . . everybody ought to get away.'" and suddenly the sailor turned on his heel and made for the staircase. "stay where you are, corréjou," said honorine, in a voice of command. "we must get away. maguennoc said so. everybody has got to go." "stay where you are," honorine repeated. corréjou stopped, undecidedly. and honorine continued: "we are agreed. we must go. we shall start to-morrow, towards the evening. but first we must attend to monsieur antoine and to marie le goff. look here, you go to the sisters archignat and send them to keep watch by the dead. they are bad women, but they are used to doing that. say that two of the three must come. each of them shall have double the ordinary fee." "and after that, ma'me honorine?" "you and all the old men will see to the coffins; and at daybreak we will bury the bodies in consecrated ground, in the cemetery of the chapel." "and after that, ma'me honorine?" "after that, you will be free and the others too. you can pack up and be off." "but you, ma'me honorine?" "i have the boat. that's enough talking. are we agreed?" "yes, we're agreed. it means one more night to spend here. but i suppose that nothing fresh will happen between this and to-morrow? . . ." "why no, why no . . . go, corréjou. hurry. and above all don't tell the others that maguennoc is dead . . . or we shall never keep them here." "that's a promise, ma'me honorine." the man hastened away. an hour later, two of the sisters archignat appeared, two skinny, shrivelled old hags, looking like witches in their dirty, greasy caps with the black-velvet bows. honorine was taken to her own room on the same floor, at the end of the left wing. and the vigil of the dead began. * * * * * véronique spent the first part of the night beside her father's body and then went and sat with honorine, whose condition seemed to grow worse. she ended by dozing off and was wakened by the breton woman, who said to her, in one of those accesses of fever in which the brain still retains a certain lucidity: "françois must be hiding . . . and m. stéphane too . . . the island has safe hiding-places, which maguennoc showed them. we shan't see them, therefore; and no one will know anything about them." "are you sure?" "quite. so listen to me. to-morrow, when everybody has left sarek and when we two are alone, i shall blow the signal with my horn and he will come here." véronique was horrified: "but i don't want to see him!" she exclaimed, indignantly. "i loathe him! . . . like my father, i curse him! . . . have you forgotten? he killed my father, before our eyes! he killed marie le goff! he tried to kill you! . . . no, what i feel for him is hatred and disgust! the monster!" the breton woman took her hand, as she had formed a habit of doing, and murmured: "don't condemn him yet . . . . he did not know what he was doing." "what do you mean? he didn't know? why, i saw his eyes, vorski's eyes!" "he did not know . . . he was mad." "mad? nonsense!" "yes, madame véronique. i know the boy. he's the kindest creature on earth. if he did all this, it was because he went mad suddenly . . . he and m. stéphane. they must both be weeping in despair now." "it's impossible. i can't believe it." "you can't believe it because you know nothing of what is happening . . . and of what is going to happen . . . . but, if you did know . . . oh, there are things . . . there are things!" her voice was no longer audible. she was silent, but her eyes remained wide open and her lips moved without uttering a sound. nothing occurred until the morning. at five o'clock véronique heard them nailing down the coffins; and almost immediately afterwards the door of the room in which she sat was opened and the sisters archignat entered like a whirlwind, both greatly excited. they had heard the truth from corréjou, who, to give himself courage, had taken a drop too much to drink and was talking at random: "maguennoc is dead!" they screamed. "maguennoc is dead and you never told us! give us our money, quick! we're going!" the moment they were paid, they ran away as fast as their legs would carry them; and, an hour later, some other women, informed by them, came hurrying to drag their men from their work. they all used the same words: "we must go! we must get ready to start! . . . it'll be too late afterwards. the two boats can take us all." honorine had to intervene with all her authority and véronique was obliged to distribute money. and the funeral was hurriedly conducted. not far away was an old chapel, carefully restored by m. d'hergemont, where a priest came once a month from pont-l'abbé to say mass. beside it was the ancient cemetery of the abbots of sarek. the two bodies were buried here; and an old man, who in ordinary times acted as sacristan, mumbled the blessing. all the people seemed smitten with madness. their voices and movements were spasmodic. they were obsessed with the fixed idea of leaving the island and paid no attention to véronique, who knelt a little way off, praying and weeping. it was all over before eight o'clock. men and women made their way down across the island. véronique, who felt as though she were living in a nightmare world where events followed upon one another without logic and with no connected sequence, went back to honorine, whose feeble condition had prevented her from attending her master's funeral. "i'm feeling better," said the breton woman. "we shall go to-day or to-morrow and we shall go with françois." véronique protested angrily; but honorine repeated: "with françois, i tell you, and with m. stéphane. and as soon as possible. i also want to go . . . and to take you with me . . . and françois too. there is death in the island. death is the master here. we must leave sarek. we shall all go." véronique did not wish to thwart her. but at nine o'clock hurried steps were heard outside. it was corréjou, coming from the village. on reaching the door he shouted: "they've stolen your motor-boat, ma'me honorine! she's disappeared!" "impossible!" said honorine. but the sailor, all out of breath, declared: "she's disappeared. i suspected something this morning early. but i expect i had had a glass too much; i did not give it another thought. others have since seen what i did. the painter has been cut . . . . it happened during the night. and they've made off. no one saw or heard them." the two women exchanged glances; and the same thought occurred to both of them: françois and stéphane maroux had taken to flight. honorine muttered between her teeth: "yes, yes, that's it: he understands how to work the boat." véronique perhaps felt a certain relief at knowing that the boy had gone and that she would not see him again. but honorine, seized with a renewed fear, exclaimed: "then . . . then what are we to do?" "you must leave at once, ma'me honorine. the boats are ready . . . everybody's packing up. there'll be no one in the village by eleven o'clock." véronique interposed: "honorine's not in a condition to travel." "yes, i am; i'm better," the breton woman declared. "no, it would be ridiculous. let us wait a day or two . . . . come back in two days, corréjou." she pushed the sailor towards the door. he, for that matter, was only too anxious to go: "very well," he said, "that'll do: i'll come back the day after to-morrow. besides, we can't take everything with us. we shall have to come back now and again to fetch our things . . . . good-bye, ma'me honorine; take care of yourself." and he ran outside. "corréjou! corréjou!" honorine was sitting up in bed and calling to him in despair: "no, no, don't go away, corréjou! . . . wait for me and carry me to your boat." she listened; and, as the man did not return, she tried to get up: "i'm frightened," she said. "i don't want to be left alone." véronique held her down: "you're not going to be left alone, honorine. i shan't leave you." there was an actual struggle between the two women; and honorine, pushed back on her bed by main force, moaned, helplessly: "i'm frightened . . . . i'm frightened . . . . the island is accursed . . . . it's tempting providence to remain behind . . . . maguennoc's death was a warning . . . . i'm frightened . . . ." she was more or less delirious, but still retained a half-lucidity which enabled her to intersperse a few intelligible and reasonable remarks among the incoherent phrases which revealed her superstitious breton soul. she gripped véronique by her two shoulders and declared: "i tell you, the island's cursed. maguennoc confessed as much himself one day: 'sarek is one of the gates of hell,' he said. 'the gate is closed now, but, on the day when it opens, every misfortune you can think of will be upon it like a squall.'" she calmed herself a little, at véronique's entreaty, and continued, in a lower voice, which grew fainter as she spoke: "he loved the island, though . . . as we all do. at such times he would speak of it in a way which i did not understand: 'the gate is a double one, honorine, and it also opens on paradise.' yes, yes, the island was good to live in . . . . we loved it . . . . maguennoc made flowers grow on it . . . . oh, those flowers! they were enormous: three times as tall . . . and as beautiful . . ." the minutes passed slowly. the bedroom was at the extreme left of the house, just above the rocks which overhung the sea and separated from them only by the width of the road. véronique sat down at the window, with her eyes fixed on the white waves which grew still more troubled as the wind blew more strongly. the sun was rising. in the direction of the village she saw nothing except a steep headland. but, beyond the belt of foam studded with the black points of the reefs, the view embraced the deserted plains of the atlantic. honorine murmured, drowsily: "they say that the gate is a stone . . . and that it comes from very far away, from a foreign country. it's the god-stone. they also say that it's a precious stone . . . the colour of gold and silver mixed . . . . the god-stone . . . . the stone that gives life or death . . . . maguennoc saw it . . . . he opened the gate and put his arm through . . . . and his hand . . . his hand was burnt to a cinder." véronique felt oppressed. fear was gradually overcoming her also, like the oozing and soaking of stagnant water. the horrible events of the last few days, of which she had been a terrified witness, seemed to evoke others yet more dreadful, which she anticipated like an inevitable hurricane that is bound to carry off everything in its headlong course. she expected them. she had no doubt that they would come, unloosed by the fatal power which was multiplying its terrible assaults upon her. "don't you see the boats?" asked honorine. "no," she said, "you can't see them from here." "yes, you can: they are sure to come this way. they are heavy boats: and there's a wider passage at the point." the next moment, véronique saw the bow of a boat project beyond the end of the headland. the boat lay low in the water, being very heavily laden, crammed with crates and parcels on which women and children were seated. four men were rowing lustily. "that's corréjou's," said honorine, who had left her bed, half-dressed. "and there's the other: look." the second boat came into view, equally burdened. only three men were rowing, with a woman to help them. both boats were too far away--perhaps seven or eight hundred yards--to allow the faces of the occupants to be seen. and no sound of voices rose from those heavy hulls with their cargoes of wretchedness, which were fleeing from death. "oh dear, oh dear!" moaned honorine. "if only they escape this hell!" "what can you be afraid of, honorine? they are in no danger." "yes, they are, as long as they have not left the island." "but they have left it." "it's still the island all around the island. it's there that the coffins lurk and lie in wait." "but the sea is not rough." "there's more than the sea. it's not the sea that's the enemy." "then what is?" "i don't know . . . . i don't know . . . ." the two boats veered round at the southern point. before them lay two channels, which honorine pointed out by the name of two reefs, the devil's rock and the sarek tooth. it at once became evident that corréjou had chosen the devil's channel. "they're touching it," said honorine. "they are there. another hundred yards and they are safe." she almost gave a chuckle: "ah, all the devil's machinations will be thwarted, madame véronique! i really believe that we shall be saved, you and i and all the people of sarek." véronique remained silent. her depression continued and was all the more overwhelming because she could attribute it only to vague presentiments which she was powerless to fight against. she had drawn an imaginary line up to which the danger threatened, would continue to threaten, and where it still persisted; and this line corréjou had not yet reached. honorine was shivering with fever. she mumbled: "i'm frightened . . . . i'm frightened . . . ." "nonsense," declared véronique, pulling herself together, "it's absurd! where can the danger come from?" "oh," cried the breton woman, "what's that? what does it mean?" "what? what is it?" they had both pressed their foreheads to the panes and were staring wildly before them. down below, something had so to speak shot out from the devil's rock. and they at once recognized the motor-boat which they had used the day before and which according to corréjou had disappeared. "françois! françois!" cried honorine, in stupefaction. "françois and monsieur stéphane!" véronique recognized the boy. he was standing in the bow of the motor-boat and making signs to the people in the two rowing-boats. the men answered by waving their oars, while the women gesticulated. in spite of véronique's opposition, honorine opened both halves of the window; and they could hear the sound of voices above the throbbing of the motor, though they could not catch a single word. "what does it mean?" repeated honorine. "françois and m. stéphane! . . . why did they not make for the mainland?" "perhaps," véronique explained, "they were afraid of being observed and questioned on landing." "no, they are known, especially françois, who often used to go with me. besides, the identity-papers are in the boat. no, they were waiting there, hidden behind the rock." "but, honorine, if they were hiding, why do they show themselves now?" "ah, that's just it, that's just it! . . . i don't understand . . . and it strikes me as odd . . . . what must corréjou and the others think?" the two boats, of which the second was now gliding in the wake of the first, had almost stopped. all the passengers seemed to be looking round at the motor-boat, which came rapidly in their direction and slackened speed when she was level with the second boat. in this way, she continued on a line parallel with that of the two boats and fifteen or twenty yards away. "i don't understand . . . . i don't understand," muttered honorine. the motor had been cut off and the motor-boat now very slowly reached the space that separated the two fish-boats. and suddenly the two women saw françois stoop and then stand up again and draw his right arm back, as though he were going to throw something. and at the same time stéphane maroux acted in the same way. then the unexpected, terrifying thing happened. "oh!" cried véronique. she hid her eyes for a second, but at once raised her head again and saw the hideous sight in all its horror. two things had been thrown across the little space, one from the bow, flung by françois, the other from the stern, flung by stéphane maroux. and two bursts of fire at once shot up from the two boats, followed by two whirls of smoke. the explosions re-echoed. for a moment, nothing of what happened amid that black cloud was visible. then the curtain parted, blown aside by the wind, and véronique and honorine saw the two boats swiftly sinking, while their occupants jumped into the sea. the sight, the infernal sight, did not last long. they saw, standing on one of the buoys that marked the channel, a woman holding a child in her arms, without moving: then some motionless bodies, no doubt killed by the explosion; then two men fighting, mad perhaps. and all this went down with the boats. a few eddies, some black specks floating on the surface; and that was all. honorine and véronique, struck dumb with terror, had not uttered a single word. the thing surpassed the worst that their anguished minds could have conceived. when it was all over, honorine put her hand to her head and, in a hollow voice which véronique was never to forget, said: "my head's bursting. oh, the poor people of sarek! they were my friends, the friends of my childhood; and i shall never see them again . . . . the sea never gives up its dead at sarek: it keeps them. it has its coffins all ready: thousands and thousands of hidden coffins . . . . oh, my head is bursting! . . . i shall go mad . . . mad like françois, my poor françois!" véronique did not answer. she was grey in the face. with clutching fingers she clung to the balcony, gazing downwards as one gazes into an abyss into which one is about to fling oneself. what would her son do? would he save those people, whose shouts of distress now reached her ears, would he save them without delay? one may have fits of madness; but the attacks pass away at the sight of certain things. the motor-boat had backed at first to avoid the eddies. françois and stéphane, whose red cap and white cap were still visible, were standing in the same positions at the bow and the stern; and they held in their hands . . . what? the two women could not see clearly, because of the distance, what they held in their hands. it looked like two rather long sticks. "poles, to help them," suggested véronique. "or guns," said honorine. the black specks were still floating. there were nine of them, the nine heads of the survivors, whose arms also the two women saw moving from time to time and whose cries for help they heard. some were hurriedly moving away from the motor-boat, but four were swimming towards it; and, of those four, two could not fail to reach it. suddenly françois and stéphane made the same movement, the movement of marksmen taking aim. there were two flashes, followed by the sound of a single report. the heads of the two swimmers disappeared. "oh, the monsters!" stammered véronique, almost swooning and falling on her knees. honorine, beside her, began screaming: "françois! françois!" her voice did not carry, first because it was too weak and then the wind was in her face. but she continued: "françois! françois!" she next stumbled across the room and into the corridor, in search of something, and returned to the window, still shouting: "françois! françois!" she had ended by finding the shell which she used as a signal. but, on lifting it to her mouth, she found that she could produce only dull and indistinct sounds from it: "oh, curse the thing!" she cried, flinging the shell away. "i have no strength left . . . . françois! françois!" she was terrible to look at, with her hair all in disorder and her face covered with the sweat of fever. véronique implored her: "please, honorine, please!" "but look at them, look at them!" the motor-boat was drifting forward down below, with the two marksmen at their posts, holding their guns ready for murder. the survivors fled. two of them hung back in the rear. these two were aimed at. their heads disappeared from view. "but look at them!" honorine said, explosively, in a hoarse voice. "they're hunting them down! they're killing them like game! . . . oh, the poor people of sarek! . . ." another shot. another black speck vanished. véronique was writhing in despair. she shook the rails of the balcony, as she might have shaken the bars of a cage in which she was imprisoned. "vorski! vorski!" she groaned, stricken by the recollection of her husband. "he's vorski's son!" suddenly she felt herself seized by the throat and saw, close to her own face, the distorted face of the breton woman. "he's your son!" spluttered honorine. "curse you! you are the monster's mother and you shall be punished for it!" and she burst out laughing and stamping her feet, in an overpowering fit of hilarity. "the cross, yes, the cross! you shall be crucified, with nails through your hands! . . . what a punishment, nails through your hands!" she was mad. véronique released herself and tried to hold the other motionless: but honorine, filled with malicious rage, threw her off, making her lose balance, and began to climb into the balcony. she remained standing outside the window, lifting up her arms and once more shouting: "françois! françois!" the first floor was not so high on this side of the house, owing to the slope of the ground. honorine jumped into the path below, crossed it, pushed her way through the shrubs that lined it and ran to the ridge of rocks which formed the cliff and overhung the sea. she stopped for a moment, thrice called out the name of the child whom she had reared and flung herself headlong into the deep. in the distance, the man-hunt drew to a finish. the heads sank one by one. the massacre was completed. then the motor-boat with françois and stéphane on board fled towards the coast of brittany, towards the beaches of beg-meil and concarneau. véronique was left alone on coffin island. chapter v "four women crucified" véronique was left alone on coffin island. until the sun sank among the clouds that seemed, on the horizon, to rest upon the sea, she did not move, but sat huddled against the window, with her head buried in her two arms resting on the sill. the dread reality passed through the darkness of her mind like pictures which she strove not to see, but which at times became so clearly defined that she imagined herself to be living through those atrocious scenes again. still she sought no explanation of all this and formed no theories as to all the motives which might have thrown a light upon the tragedy. she admitted the madness of françois and of stéphane maroux, being unable to suppose any other reasons for such actions as theirs. and, believing the two murderers to be mad, she did not even try to attribute to them any projects or definite wishes. moreover, honorine's madness, of which she had, so to speak, observed the outbreak, impelled her to look upon all that had happened as provoked by a sort of mental upset to which all the people of sarek had fallen victims. she herself at moments felt that her brain was reeling, that her ideas were fading away in a mist, that invisible ghosts were hovering around her. she dozed off into a sleep which was haunted by these images and in which she felt so wretched that she began to sob. also it seemed to her that she could hear a slight noise which, in her benumbed wits, assumed a hostile significance. enemies were approaching. she opened her eyes. a couple of yards in front of her, sitting upon its haunches, was a queer animal, covered with long mud-coloured hair and holding its fore-paws folded like a pair of arms. it was a dog; and she at once remembered françois' dog, of which honorine had spoken as a dear, devoted, comical creature. she even remembered his name, all's-well. as she uttered this name in an undertone, she felt an angry impulse and was almost driving away the animal endowed with such an ironical nickname. all's-well! and she thought of all the victims of the horrible nightmare, of all the dead people of sarek, of her murdered father, of honorine killing herself, of françois going mad. all's-well, forsooth! meanwhile the dog did not stir. he was sitting up as honorine had described, with his head a little on one side, one eye closed, the corners of his mouth drawn back to his ears and his arms crossed in front of him; and there was really something very like a smile flitting over his face. véronique now remembered: this was the manner in which all's-well displayed his sympathy for those in trouble. all's-well could not bear the sight of tears. when people wept, he sat up until they in their turn smiled and petted him. véronique did not smile, but she pressed him against her and said: "no, my poor dog, all's not well; on the contrary, all's as bad as it can be. no matter: we must live, mustn't we, and we mustn't go mad ourselves like the others?" the necessities of life obliged her to act. she went down to the kitchen, found some food and gave the dog a good share of it. then she went upstairs again. night had fallen. she opened, on the first floor, the door of a bedroom which at ordinary times must have been unoccupied. she was weighed down with an immense fatigue, caused by all the efforts and violent emotions which she had undergone. she fell asleep almost at once. all's well lay awake at the foot of her bed. next morning she woke late, with a curious feeling of peace and security. it seemed to her that her present life was somehow connected with her calm and placid life at besançon. the few days of horror which she had passed fell away from her like distant events whose return she had no need to fear. the men and women who had gone under in the great horror became to her mind almost like strangers whom one has met and does not expect to see again. her heart ceased bleeding. her sorrow for them did not reach the depths of her soul. it was due to the unforeseen and undisturbed rest, the consoling solitude. and all this seemed to her so pleasant that, when a steamer came and anchored on the spot of the disaster, she made no signal. no doubt yesterday, from the mainland, they had seen the flash of the explosions and heard the report of the shots. véronique remained motionless. she saw a boat put off from the steamer and supposed that they were going to land and explore the village. but not only did she dread an enquiry in which her son might be involved: she herself did not wish to be found, to be questioned, to have her name, her identity, her story discovered and to be brought back into the infernal circle from which she had escaped. she preferred to wait a week or two, to wait until chance brought within hailing-distance of the island some fishing-boat which could pick her up. but no one came to the priory. the steamer put off; and nothing disturbed her isolation. and so she remained for three days. fate seemed to have reconsidered its intention of making fresh assaults upon her. she was alone and her own mistress. all's well, whose company had done her a world of good, disappeared. the priory domain occupied the whole end of the island, on the site of a benedictine abbey, which had been abandoned in the fifteenth century and gradually fallen into ruin and decay. the house, built in the eighteenth century by a wealthy breton ship-owner out of the materials of the old abbey and the stones of the chapel, was in no way interesting either outside or in. véronique, for that matter, did not dare to enter any of the rooms. the memory of her father and son checked her before the closed doors. but, on the second day, in the bright spring sunshine, she explored the park. it extended to the point of the island and, like the sward in front of the house, was studded with ruins and covered with ivy. she noticed that all the paths ran towards a steep promontory crowned with a clump of enormous oaks. when she reached the spot, she found that these oaks stood round a crescent-shaped clearing which was open to the sea. in the centre of the clearing was a cromlech with a rather short, oval table upheld by two supports of rock, which were almost square. the spot possessed an impressive magnificence and commanded a boundless view. "the fairies' dolmen, of which honorine spoke," thought véronique. "i cannot be far from the calvary and maguennoc's flowers." she walked round the megalith. the inner surface of the two uprights bore a few illegible engraved signs. but the two outer surfaces facing the sea formed as it were two smooth slabs prepared to receive an inscription; and here she saw something that caused her to shudder with anguish. on the right, deeply encrusted, was an unskilful, primitive drawing of four crosses with four female figures writhing upon them. on the left was a column of lines of writing, whose characters, inadequately carved in the stone, had been almost obliterated by the weather, or perhaps even deliberately effaced by human hands. a few words remained, however, the very words which véronique had read on the drawing which she found beside maguennoc's corpse: "four women crucified . . . . thirty coffins . . . . the god-stone which gives life or death." véronique moved away, staggering. the mystery was once more before her, as everywhere in the island, and she was determined to escape from it until the moment when she could leave sarek altogether. she took a path which started from the clearing and led past the last oak on the right. this oak appeared to have been struck by lightning, for all that remained of it was the trunk and a few dead branches. farther on, she went down some stone steps, crossed a little meadow in which stood four rows of menhirs and stopped suddenly with a stifled cry, a cry of admiration and amazement, before the sight that presented itself to her eyes. "maguennoc's flowers," she whispered. the last two menhirs of the central alley which she was following stood like the posts of a door that opened upon the most glorious spectacle, a rectangular space, fifty yards long at most, which was reached by a short descending flight of steps and bordered by two rows of menhirs all of the same height and placed at accurately measured intervals, like the columns of a temple. the nave and side-aisles of this temple were paved with wide, irregular, broken granite flag-stones, which the grass, growing in the cracks, marked with patterns similar to those of the lead which frames the pieces of a stained-glass window. in the middle was a small bed of flowers thronging around an ancient stone crucifix. but such flowers! flowers which the wildest imagination or fancy never conceived, dream-flowers, miraculous flowers, flowers out of all proportion to ordinary flowers! véronique recognized all of them; and yet she stood dumbfounded at their size and splendour. there were flowers of many varieties, but few of each variety. it was like a nosegay made to contain every colour, every perfume and every beauty that flowers can possess. and the strangest thing was that these flowers, which do not usually bloom at the same time and which open in successive months, were all growing and blossoming together! on one and the same day, these flowers, all perennial flowers whose time does not last much more than two or three weeks, were blooming and multiplying, full and heavy, vivid, sumptuous, proudly borne on their sturdy stems. there were spiderworts, there were ranunculi, tiger-lilies, columbines, blood-red potentillas, irises of a brighter violet than a bishop's cassock. there were larkspurs, phlox, fuchsias, monk's-hoods, montbretias. and, above all this, to véronique's intense emotion, above the dazzling flower-bed, standing a little higher in a narrow border around the pedestal of the crucifix, with all their blue, white and violet clusters seeming to lift themselves so as to touch the saviour's very form, were veronicas! she was faint with emotion. as she came nearer, she had read on a little label fastened to the pedestal these two words. "mother's flowers." * * * * * véronique did not believe in miracles. she was obliged to admit that the flowers were wonderful, beyond all comparison with the flowers of our climes. but she refused to think that this anomaly was not to be explained except by supernatural causes or by magic recipes of which maguennoc held the secret. no, there was some reason, perhaps a very simple one, of which events would afford a full explanation. meanwhile, amid the beautiful pagan setting, in the very centre of the miracle which it seemed to have wrought by its presence, the figure of christ crucified rose from the mass of flowers which offered him their colours and their perfumes. véronique knelt and prayed. next day and the day after, she returned to the calvary of the flowers. here the mystery that surrounded her on every side had manifested itself in the most charming fashion; and her son played a part in it that enabled véronique to think of him, before her own flowers, without hatred or despair. but, on the fifth day, she perceived that her provisions were becoming exhausted; and in the middle of the afternoon she went down to the village. there she noticed that most of the houses had been left open, so certain had their owners been, on leaving, of coming back again and taking what they needed in a second trip. sick at heart, she dared not cross the thresholds. there were geraniums on the window-ledges. tall clocks with brass pendulums were ticking off the time in the empty rooms. she moved away. in a shed near the quay, however, she saw the sacks and boxes which honorine had brought with her in the motor-boat. "well," she thought, "i shan't starve. there's enough to last me for weeks; and by that time . . ." she filled a basket with chocolate, biscuits, a few tins of preserved meat, rice and matches; and she was on the point of returning to the priory, when it occurred to her that she would continue her walk to the other end of the island. she would fetch her basket on the way back. a shady road climbed upwards on the right. the landscape seemed to be the same: the same flat stretches of moorland, without ploughed fields or pastures; the same clumps of ancient oaks. the island also became narrower, with no obstacle to block the view of the sea on either side or of the penmarch headland in the distance. there was also a hedge which ran from one cliff to the other and which served to enclose a property, a shabby property, with a straggling, dilapidated, tumbledown house upon it, some out-houses with patched roofs and a dirty, badly-kept yard, full of scrap-iron and stacks of firewood. véronique was already retracing her steps, when she stopped in alarm and surprise. it seemed to her that she heard some one moan. she listened, striving to plumb the vast silence, and once again the same sound, but this time more distinctly, reached her ears; and there were others: cries of pain, cries for help, women's cries. then had not all the inhabitants taken to flight? she had a feeling of joy mingled with some sorrow, to know that she was not alone in sarek, and of fear also, at the thought that events would perhaps drag her back again into the fatal cycle of death and horror. so far as véronique was able to judge, the noise came not from the house, but from the buildings on the right of the yard. this yard was closed with a simple gate which she had only to push and which opened with the creaking sound of wood upon wood. the cries in the out-house at once increased in number. the people inside had no doubt heard véronique approach. she hastened her steps. though the roof of the out-buildings was gone in places, the walls were thick and solid, with old arched doors strengthened with iron bars. there was a knocking against one of these doors from the inside, while the cries became more urgent: "help! help!" but there was a dispute; and another, less strident voice grated: "be quiet, clémence, can't you? it may be them!" "no, no, gertrude, it's not! i don't hear them! . . . open the door, will you? the key ought to be there." véronique, who was seeking for some means of entering, now saw a big key in the lock. she turned it; and the door opened. she at once recognized the sisters archignat, half-dressed, gaunt, evil-looking, witch-like. they were in a wash-house filled with implements; and véronique saw at the back, lying on some straw, a third woman, who was bewailing her fate in an almost inaudible voice and who was obviously the third sister. at that moment, one of the first two collapsed from exhaustion; and the other, whose eyes were bright with fever, seized véronique by the arm and began to gasp: "did you see them, tell me? . . . are they there? . . . how is it they didn't kill you? . . . they are the masters of sarek since the others went off . . . . and it's our turn next . . . . we've been locked in here now for six days . . . . listen, it was on the day when everybody left. we three came here, to the wash-house, to fetch our linen, which was drying. and then _they_ came . . . . we didn't hear them . . . . one never does hear them . . . . and then, suddenly, the door was locked on us . . . . a slam, a turn of the key . . . and the thing was done . . . . we had bread, apples and best of all, brandy . . . . we didn't do so badly . . . . only, were they going to come back and kill us? was it our turn next? . . . oh, my dear good lady, how we strained our ears! and how we trembled with fear! . . . my eldest sister's gone crazy . . . . hark, you can hear her raving . . . . the other, clémence, has borne all she can . . . . and i . . . i . . . gertrude . . ." gertrude had plenty of strength left, for she was twisting véronique's arm: "and corréjou? he came back, didn't he, and went away again? why didn't anyone come to look for us? it would have been easy enough: everybody knew where we were; and we called out at the least sound. so what does it all mean?" véronique hesitated what to reply. still, why should she conceal the truth? she replied: "the two boats went down." "what?" "the two boats sank in view of sarek. all on board were drowned. it was opposite the priory . . . after leaving the devil's passage." véronique said no more, so as to avoid mentioning the names of françois and his tutor or speaking of the part which these two had played. but clémence now sat up, with distorted features. she had been leaning against the door and raised herself to her knees. gertrude murmured: "and honorine?" "honorine is dead." "dead!" the two sisters both cried out at once. then they were silent and looked at each other. the same thought struck them both. they seemed to be reflecting. gertrude was moving her fingers as though counting. and the terror on their two faces increased. speaking in a very low voice, as though choking with fear, gertrude, with her eyes fixed on véronique, said: "that's it . . . that's it . . . i've got the total . . . . do you know how many there were in the boats, without my sisters and me? do you know? twenty . . . . well, reckon it up: twenty . . . and maguennoc, who was the first to die . . . and m. antoine, who died afterwards . . . and little françois and m. stéphane, who vanished, but who are dead too . . . and honorine and marie le goff, both dead . . . . so reckon it up: that makes twenty-six, twenty-six . . . the total's correct, isn't it? . . . now take twenty-six from thirty . . . . you understand, don't you? the thirty coffins: they have to be filled . . . . so twenty-six from thirty . . . leaves four, doesn't it?" she could no longer speak; her tongue faltered. nevertheless the terrible syllables came from her mouth; and véronique heard her stammering: "eh? do you understand? . . . that leaves four . . . us four . . . the three sisters archignat, who were kept behind and locked up . . . and yourself . . . . so--do you follow me?--the three crosses--you know, the 'four women crucified'--the number's there . . . it's our four selves . . . there's no one besides us on the island . . . four women . . . ." véronique had listened in silence. she broke out into a slight perspiration. she shrugged her shoulders, however: "well? and then? if there's no one except ourselves on the island, what are you afraid of?" "_them_, of course! _them!_" véronique lost her patience: "but if everybody has gone!" she exclaimed. gertrude took fright: "speak low. suppose they heard you!" "but who?" "_they_: the people of old." "the people of old?" "yes, those who used to make sacrifices . . . the people who killed men and women . . . to please their gods." "but that's a thing of the past! the druids: is that what you mean? come, come; there are no druids nowadays." "speak quietly! speak quietly! there are still . . . there are evil spirits . . ." "then they're ghosts?" asked véronique, horror-stricken by these superstitions. "ghosts, yes, but ghosts of flesh and blood . . . with hands that lock doors and keep you imprisoned . . . creatures that sink boats, the same, i tell you, that killed m. antoine, marie le goff and the others . . . that killed twenty-six of us . . . ." véronique did not reply. there was no reply to make. she knew, she knew only too well who had killed m. d'hergemont, marie le goff and the others and sunk the two boats. "what time was it when the three of you were locked in?" she asked. "half-past ten . . . . we had arranged to meet corréjou in the village at eleven." véronique reflected. it was hardly possible that françois and stéphane should have had time to be at half-past ten in this place and an hour later to be behind the rock from which they had darted out upon the two boats. was it to be presumed that one or more of their accomplices were left on the island? "in any case," she said, "you must come to a decision. you can't remain in this state. you must rest yourselves, eat something . . . ." the second sister had risen to her feet. she said, in the same hollow and violent tones as her sister: "first of all, we must hide . . . and be able to defend ourselves against _them_." "what do you mean?" asked véronique. she too, in spite of herself, felt this need of a refuge against a possible enemy. "what do i mean? i'll tell you. the thing has been talked about a lot in the island, especially this year; and maguennoc decided that, at the first attack, everybody should take shelter in the priory." "why in the priory?" "because we could defend ourselves there. the cliffs are perpendicular. you're protected on every side." "what about the bridge?" "maguennoc and honorine thought of everything. there's a little hut fifteen yards to the left of the bridge. that's the place they hit on to keep their stock of petrol in. empty three or four cans over the bridge, strike a match . . . and the thing's done. you're just as in your own home. you can't be got at and you can't be attacked." "then why didn't they come to the priory instead of taking to flight in the boats?" "it was safer to escape in the boats. but we no longer have the choice." "and when shall we start?" "at once. it's daylight still; and that's better than the dark." "but your sister, the one on her back?" "we have a barrow. we've got to wheel her. there's a direct road to the priory, without passing through the village." véronique could not help looking with repugnance upon the prospect of living in close intimacy with the sisters archignat. she yielded, however, swayed by a fear which she was unable to overcome: "very well," she said. "let's go. i'll take you to the priory and come back to the village to fetch some provisions." "oh, you mustn't be away long!" protested one of the sisters. "as soon as the bridge is cut, we'll light a bonfire on fairies' dolmen hill and they'll send a steamer from the mainland. to-day the fog is coming up; but to-morrow . . ." véronique raised no objection. she now accepted the idea of leaving sarek, even at the cost of an enquiry which would reveal her name. they started, after the two sisters had swallowed a glass of brandy. the madwoman sat huddled in the wheel-barrow, laughing softly and uttering little sentences which she addressed to véronique as though she wanted her to laugh too: "we shan't meet them yet . . . . they're getting ready . . . ." "shut up, you old fool!" said gertrude. "you'll bring us bad luck." "yes, yes, we shall see some sport . . . . it'll be great fun . . . . i have a cross of gold hung round my neck . . . and another cut into the skin of my head . . . . look! . . . crosses everywhere . . . . one ought to be comfortable on the cross . . . . one ought to sleep well there . . . ." "shut up, will you, you old fool?" repeated gertrude, giving her a box on the ear. "all right, all right! . . . but it's they who'll hit you; i see them hiding! . . ." the path, which was pretty rough at first, reached the table-land formed by the west cliffs, which were loftier, but less rugged and worn away than the others. the woods were scarcer; and the oaks were all bent by the wind from the sea. "we are coming to the heath which they call the black heath," said clémence archignat. "_they_ live underneath." véronique once more shrugged her shoulders: "how do you know?" "we know more than other people," said gertrude. "they call us witches; and there's something in it. maguennoc himself, who knew a great deal, used to ask our advice about anything that had to do with healing, lucky stones, the herbs you gather on st. john's eve . . ." "mugwort and vervain," chuckled the madwoman. "they are picked at sunset." "or tradition too," continued gertrude. "we know what's been said in the island for hundreds of years; and it's always been said that there was a whole town underneath, with streets and all, in which _they_ used to live of old. and there are some left still, i've seen them myself." véronique did not reply. "yes, my sister and i saw one. twice, when the june moon was six days old. he was dressed in white . . . and he was climbing the great oak to gather the sacred mistletoe . . . with a golden sickle. the gold glittered in the moonlight. i saw it, i tell you, and others saw it too . . . . and he's not the only one. there are several of them left over from the old days to guard the treasure . . . . yes, as i say, the treasure . . . . they say it's a stone which works miracles, which can make you die if you touch it and which makes you live if you lie down on it. that's all true, maguennoc told us so, all perfectly true. _they_ of old guard the stone, the god-stone, and _they_ are to sacrifice all of us this year . . . . yes, all of us, thirty dead people for the thirty coffins . . . ." "four women crucified," crooned the madwoman. "and it will be soon. the sixth day of the moon is near at hand. we must be gone before _they_ climb the great oak to gather the mistletoe. look, you can see the great oak from here. it's in the wood on this side of the bridge. it stands out above the others." "_they_ are hiding behind it," said the madwoman, turning round in her wheel-barrow. "_they_ are waiting for us." "that'll do; and don't you stir . . . . as i was saying, you see the great oak . . . over there . . . beyond the end of the heath. it is . . . it is . . ." she dropped the wheel-barrow, without finishing her sentence. "well?" asked clémence. "what's the matter?" "i've seen something," stammered gertrude. "something white, moving about." "something? what do you mean? _they_ don't show themselves in broad daylight! you've gone cross-eyed." they both looked for a moment and then went on again. soon the great oak was out of sight. the heath which they were now crossing was wild and rough, covered with stones lying flat like tombstones and all pointing in the same direction. "it's _their_ burying-ground," whispered gertrude. they said nothing more. gertrude repeatedly had to stop and rest. clémence had not the strength to push the wheel-barrow. they were both of them tottering on their legs; and they gazed into the distance with anxious eyes. they went down a dip in the ground and up again. the path joined that which véronique had taken with honorine on the first day; and they entered the wood which preceded the bridge. presently the growing excitement of the sisters archignat made véronique understand that they were approaching the great oak; and she saw it standing on a mound of earth and roots, bigger than the others and separated from them by wider intervals. she could not help thinking that it was possible for several men to hide behind that massive trunk and that perhaps several were hiding there now. notwithstanding their fears, the sisters had quickened their pace; and they kept their eyes turned from the fatal tree. they left it behind. véronique breathed more freely. all danger was passed; and she was just about to laugh at the sisters archignat, when one of them, clémence, spun on her heels and dropped with a moan. at the same time something fell to the ground, something that had struck clémence in the back. it was an axe, a stone axe. "oh, the thunder-stone, the thunder-stone!" cried gertrude. she looked up for a second, as if, in accordance with the inveterate popular belief, she believed that the axe came from the sky and was an emanation of the thunder. but, at that moment, the madwoman, who had got out of her barrow, leapt from the ground and fell head forward. something else had whizzed through the air. the madwoman was writhing with pain. gertrude and véronique saw an arrow which had been driven through her shoulder and was still vibrating. then gertrude fled screaming. véronique hesitated. clémence and the madwoman were rolling about on the ground. the madwoman giggled: "behind the oak! they're hiding . . . i see them." clémence stammered: "help! . . . lift me up . . . carry me . . . i'm terrified!" but another arrow whizzed past them and fell some distance farther. véronique now also took to her heels, urged not so much by panic, though this would have been excusable, as by the eager longing to find a weapon and defend herself. she remembered that in her father's study there was a glass case filled with guns and revolvers, all bearing the word "loaded," no doubt as a warning to françois; and it was one of these that she wished to seize in order to face the enemy. she did not even turn round. she was not interested to know whether she was being pursued. she ran for the goal, the only profitable goal. being lighter and swifter of foot, she overtook gertrude, who panted: "the bridge . . . . we must burn it . . . . the petrol's there . . . ." véronique did not reply. breaking down the bridge was a secondary matter and would even have been an obstacle to her plan of taking a gun and attacking the enemy. but, when she reached the bridge, gertrude whirled about in such a way that she almost fell down the precipice. an arrow had struck her in the back. "help! help!" she screamed. "don't leave me!" "i'm coming back," replied véronique, who had not seen the arrow and thought that gertrude had merely caught her foot in running. "i'm coming back, with two guns. you join me." she imagined in her mind that, once they were both armed, they would go back to the wood and rescue the other sisters. redoubling her efforts, therefore, she reached the wall of the estate, ran across the grass and went up to her father's study. here she stopped to recover her breath; and, after she had taken the two guns, her heart beat so fast that she had to go back at a slower pace. she was astonished at not meeting gertrude, at not seeing her. she called her. no reply. and it was not till then that the thought occurred to her that gertrude had been wounded like her sisters. she once more broke into a run. but, when she came within sight of the bridge, she heard shrill cries pierce through the buzzing in her ears and, on coming into the open opposite the sharp ascent that led to the wood of the great oak, she saw . . . what she saw rivetted her to the entrance to the bridge. on the other side, gertrude was sprawling upon the ground, struggling, clutching at the roots, digging her nails into the grass and slowly, slowly, with an imperceptible and uninterrupted movement, moving along the slope. and véronique became aware that the unfortunate woman was fastened under the arms and round the waist by a cord which was hoisting her up, like a bound and helpless prey, and which was pulled by invisible hands above. véronique raised one of the guns to her shoulder. but at what enemy was she to take aim? what enemy was she to fight? who was hiding behind the trees and stones that crowned the hill like a rampart? gertrude slipped between those stones, between those trees. she had ceased screaming, no doubt she was exhausted and swooning. she disappeared from sight. véronique had not moved. she realized the futility of any venture or enterprise. by rushing into a contest in which she was beaten beforehand she would not be able to rescue the sisters archignat and would merely offer herself to the conqueror as a new and final victim. besides, she was overcome with fear. everything was happening in accordance with the ruthless logic of facts of which she did not grasp the meaning but which all seemed connected like the links of a chain. she was afraid, afraid of those beings, afraid of those ghosts, instinctively and unconsciously afraid, afraid like the sisters archignat, like honorine, like all the victims of the terrible scourge. she stooped, so as not to be seen from the great oak, and, bending forward and taking the shelter offered by some bramble-bushes, she reached the little hut of which the sisters archignat had spoken, a sort of summer-house with a pointed roof and coloured tiles. half the summer-house was filled with cans of petrol. from here she overlooked the bridge, on which no one could step without being seen by her. but no one came down from the wood. night fell, a night of thick fog silvered by the moon which just allowed véronique to see the opposite side. after an hour, feeling a little reassured, she made a first trip with two cans which she emptied on the outer beams of the bridge. ten times, with her ears pricked up, carrying her gun slung over her shoulder and prepared at any moment to defend herself, she repeated the journey. she poured the petrol a little at random, groping her way and yet as far as possible selecting the places where her sense of touch seemed to tell her that the wood was most rotten. she had a box of matches, the only one that she had found in the house. she took out a match and hesitated a moment, frightened at the thought of the great light it would make: "even so," she reflected, "if it could be seen from the mainland . . . but, with this fog . . ." suddenly she struck the match and at once lit a paper torch which she had prepared by soaking it in petrol. a great flame blazed and burnt her fingers. then she threw the paper in a pool of petrol which had formed in a hollow and fled back to the summer-house. the fire flared up immediately and, at one flash, spread over the whole part which she had sprinkled. the cliffs on the two islands, the strip of granite that united them, the big trees around, the hill, the wood of the great oak and the sea at the bottom of the ravine: these were all lit up. "_they_ know where i am . . . . _they_ are looking at the summer-house where i am hiding," thought véronique, keeping her eyes fixed on the great oak. but not a shadow passed through the wood. not a sound of voices reached her ears. those concealed above did not leave their impenetrable retreat. in a few minutes, half the bridge collapsed, with a great crash and a gush of sparks. but the other half went on burning; and at every moment a piece of timber tumbled into the precipice, lighting up the depths of the night. each time that this happened, véronique had a sense of relief and her overstrung nerves grew relaxed. a feeling of security crept over her and became more and more justified as the gulf between her and her enemies widened. nevertheless she remained inside the summer-house and resolved to wait for the dawn in order to make sure that no communication was henceforth possible. the fog increased. everything was shrouded in darkness. about the middle of the night, she heard a sound on the other side, at the top of the hill, so far as she could judge. it was the sound of wood-cutters felling trees, the regular sound of an axe biting into branches which were finally removed by breaking. véronique had an idea, absurd though she knew it to be, that they were perhaps building a foot-bridge; and she clutched her gun resolutely. about an hour later, she seemed to hear moans and even a stifled cry, followed, for some time, by the rustle of leaves and the sound of steps coming and going. this ceased. once more there was a great silence which seemed to absorb in space every stirring, every restless, every quivering, every living thing. the numbness produced by the fatigue and hunger from which she was beginning to suffer left véronique little power of thought. she remembered above all that, having failed to bring any provisions from the village, she had nothing to eat. she did not distress herself, for she was determined, as soon as the fog lifted--and this was bound to happen before long--to light bonfires with the cans of petrol. she reflected that the best place would be at the end of the island, at the spot where the dolmen stood. but suddenly a dreadful thought struck her: had she not left her box of matches on the bridge? she felt in her pockets but could not find it. all search was in vain. this also did not perturb her unduly. for the time being, the feeling that she had escaped the attacks of the enemy filled her with such delight that it seemed to her that all the difficulties would disappear of their own accord. the hours passed in this way, endlessly long hours, which the penetrating fog and the cold made more painful as the morning approached. then a faint gleam overspread the sky. things emerged from the gloom and assumed their actual forms. and véronique now saw that the bridge had collapsed throughout its length. an interval of fifty yards separated the two islands, which were only joined below by the sharp, pointed, inaccessible ridge of the cliff. she was saved. but, on raising her eyes to the hill opposite, she saw, right at the top of the slope, a sight that made her utter a cry of horror. three of the nearest trees of those which crowned the hill and belonged to the wood of the great oak had been stripped of their lower branches. and, on the three bare trunks, with their arms strained backward, with their legs bound, under the tatters of their skirts, and with ropes drawn tight beneath their livid faces, half-hidden by the black bows of their caps, hung the three sisters archignat. they were crucified. chapter vi all's well walking erect, with a stiff and mechanical gait, without turning round to look at the abominable spectacle, without recking of what might happen if she were seen, véronique went back to the priory. a single aim, a single hope sustained her: that of leaving the isle of sarek. she had had her fill of horror. had she seen three corpses, three women who had had their throats cut, or been shot, or even hanged, she would not have felt, as she did now, that her whole being was in revolt. but this, this torture, was too much. it involved an ignominy, it was an act of sacrilege, a damnable performance which surpassed the bounds of wickedness. and then she was thinking of herself, the fourth and last victim. fate seemed to be leading her towards that catastrophe as a person condemned to death is pushed on to the scaffold. how could she do other than tremble with fear? how could she fail to read a warning in the choice of the hill of the great oak for the torture of the three sisters archignat? she tried to find comfort in words: "everything will be explained. at the bottom of these hideous mysteries are quite simple causes, actions apparently fantastic but in reality performed by beings of the same species as myself, who behave as they do from criminal motives and in accordance with a determined plan. no doubt all this is only possible because of the war; the war brings about a peculiar state of affairs in which events of this kind are able to take place. but, all the same, there is nothing miraculous about it nor anything inconsistent with the rules of ordinary life." useless phrases! vain attempts at argument which her brain found difficulty in following! in reality, upset as she was by violent nervous shocks, she came to think and feel like all those people of sarek whose death she had witnessed. she shared their weakness, she was shaken by the same terrors, besieged by the same nightmares, unbalanced by the persistence within her of the instincts of bygone ages and lingering superstitions ever ready to rise to the surface. who were these invisible beings who persecuted her? whose mission was it to fill the thirty coffins of sarek? who was it that was wiping out all the inhabitants of the luckless island? who was it that lived in caverns, gathering at the fateful hours the sacred mistletoe and the herbs of st. john, using axes and arrows and crucifying women? and in view of what horrible task, of what monstrous duty? in accordance with what inconceivable plans? were they spirits of darkness, malevolent genii, priests of a dead religion, sacrificing men, women and children to their blood-thirsty gods? "enough, enough, or i shall go mad!" she said, aloud. "i must go! that must be my only thought: to get away from this hell!" but it was as though destiny were taking special pains to torture her! on beginning her search for a little food, she suddenly noticed, in her father's study, at the back of a cupboard, a drawing pinned to the wall, representing the same scene as the roll of paper which she had found near maguennoc's body in the deserted cabin. a portfolio full of drawings lay on one of the shelves in the cupboard. she opened it. it contained a number of sketches of the same scene, likewise in red chalk. each of them bore above the head of the first woman the inscription, "v. d'h." one of them was signed, "antoine d'hergemont." so it was her father who had made the drawing on maguennoc's paper! it was her father who had tried in all these sketches to give the tortured woman a closer and closer resemblance to his own daughter! "enough, enough!" repeated véronique. "i won't think, i won't reflect!" feeling very faint, she pursued her search but found nothing with which to stay her hunger. nor did she find anything that would allow her to light a fire at the point of the island, though the fog had lifted and the signals would certainly have been observed. she tried rubbing two flints against each other, but she did not understand how to go to work and she did not succeed. for three days she kept herself alive with water and wild grapes gathered among the ruins. feverish and utterly exhausted, she had fits of weeping which nearly every time produced the sudden appearance of all's well; and her physical suffering was such that she felt angry with the poor dog for having that ridiculous name and drove him away. all's well, greatly surprised, squatted on his haunches farther off and began to sit up again. she felt exasperated with him, as though he could help being françois' dog! the least sound made her shake from head to foot and covered her with perspiration. what were the creatures in the great oak doing? from which side were they preparing to attack her? she hugged herself nervously, shuddering at the thought of falling into those monsters' hands, and could not keep herself from remembering that she was a beautiful woman and that they might be tempted by her good looks and her youth. but, on the fourth day, a great hope uplifted her. she had found in a drawer a powerful reading-glass. taking advantage of the bright sunshine, she focussed the rays upon a piece of paper which ended by catching fire and enabling her to light a candle. she believed that she was saved. she had discovered quite a stock of candles, which allowed her, to begin with, to keep the precious flame alive until the evening. at eleven o'clock, she took a lantern and went towards the summer-house, intending to set fire to it. it was a fine night and the signal would be perceived from the coast. fearing to be seen with her light, fearing above all the tragic vision of the sisters archignat, whose tragic calvary was flooded by the moonlight, she took, on leaving the priory, another road, more to the left and bordered with thickets. she walked anxiously, taking care not to rustle the leaves or stumble over the roots. when she reached open country, not far from the summer-house, she felt so tired that she had to sit down. her head was buzzing. her heart almost refused to beat. she could not see the place of execution from here either. but, on turning her eyes, despite herself, in the direction of the hill, she received the impression that something resembling a white figure had moved. it was in the very heart of the wood, at the end of an avenue which intersected the thick mass of trees on that side. the figure appeared again, in the full moonlight; and véronique saw, notwithstanding the considerable distance, that it was the figure of a person clad in a robe and perched amid the branches of a tree which stood alone and higher than the others. she remembered what the sisters archignat had said: "the sixth day of the moon is near at hand. _they_ will climb the great oak and gather the sacred mistletoe." and she now remembered certain descriptions which she had read in books and different stories which her father had told her; and she felt as if she were present at one of those druid ceremonies which had appealed to her imagination as a child. but at the same time she felt so weak that she was not convinced that she was awake or that the strange sight before her eyes was real. four other figures formed a group at the foot of the tree and raised their arms as though to catch the bough ready to fall. a light flashed above. the high-priest's golden sickle had cut off the bunch of mistletoe. then the high-priest climbed down from the oak; and all five figures glided along the avenue, skirted the wood and reached the top of the knoll. véronique, who was unable to take her haggard eyes from those creatures, bent forward and saw the three corpses hanging each from its tree of torment. at the distance where she stood, the black bows of the caps looked like crows. the figures stopped opposite the victims as though to perform some incomprehensible rite. at last the high-priest separated himself from the group and, holding the bunch of mistletoe in his hand, came down the hill and went towards the spot where the first arch of the bridge was anchored. véronique was almost fainting. her wavering eyes, before which everything seemed to dance, fastened on to the glittering sickle which swung from side to side on the priest's chest, below his long white beard. what was he going to do? though the bridge no longer existed, véronique was convulsed with anguish. her legs refused to carry her. she lay down on the ground, keeping her eyes fixed upon the terrifying sight. on reaching the edge of the chasm, the priest again stopped for a few seconds. then he stretched out the arm in which he carried the mistletoe and, preceded by the sacred plant as by a talisman which altered the laws of nature in his favour, he took a step forward above the yawning gulf. and he walked thus in space, all white in the moonlight. what happened véronique did not know, nor was she quite sure what had been happening, if she had not been the sport of an hallucination, nor at what stage of the strange ceremony this hallucination had originated in her enfeebled brain. she waited with closed eyes for events which did not take place and which, for that matter, she did not even try to foresee. but other, more real things preoccupied her mind. her candle was going out inside the lantern. she was aware of this; and yet she had not the strength to pull herself together and return to the priory. and she said to herself that, if the sun should not shine again within the next few days, she would not be able to light the flame and that she was lost. she resigned herself, weary of fighting and realizing that she was defeated beforehand in this unequal contest. the only ending that was not to be endured was that of being captured. but why not abandon herself to the death that offered, death from starvation, from exhaustion? if you suffer long enough, there must come a moment when the suffering decreases and when you pass, almost unconsciously, from life, which has grown too cruel, to death, which véronique was gradually beginning to desire. "that's it, that's it," she murmured. "to go from sarek or to die: it's all the same. what i want is to get away." a sound of leaves made her open her eyes. the flame of the candle was expiring. but behind the lantern all's well was sitting, beating the air with his fore-paws. and véronique saw that he carried a packet of biscuits, fastened round his neck by a string. * * * * * "tell me your story, you dear old all's well," said véronique, next morning, after a good night's rest in her bedroom at the priory. "for, after all, i can't believe that you came to look for me and bring me food of your own accord. it was an accident, wasn't it? you were wandering in that direction, you heard me crying and you came to me. but who tied that little box of biscuits round your neck? does it mean that we have a friend in the island, a friend who takes an interest in us? why doesn't he show himself? speak and tell me, all's well." she kissed the dog and went on: "and whom were those biscuits intended for? for your master, for françois? or for honorine? no? then for monsieur stéphane perhaps?" the dog wagged his tail and moved towards the door. he really seemed to understand. véronique followed him to stéphane maroux's room. all's well slipped under the tutor's bed. there were three more cardboard boxes of biscuits, two packets of chocolate and two tins of preserved meat. and each parcel was supplied with a string ending in a wide loop, from which all's well must have released his head. "what does it mean?" asked véronique, bewildered. "did you put them under there? but who gave them to you? have we actually a friend in the island, who knows us and knows stéphane maroux? can you take me to him? he must live on this side of the island, because there is no means of communicating with the other and you can't have been there." véronique stopped to think. but, in addition to the provisions stowed away by all's well, she also noticed a small canvas-covered satchel under the bed; and she wondered why stéphane maroux had hidden it. she thought that she had the right to open it and to look for some clue to the part played by the tutor, to his character, to his past perhaps, to his relations with m. d'hergemont and françois: "yes," she said, "it is my right and even my duty." without hesitation, she took a pair of big scissors and forced the frail lock. the satchel contained nothing but a manuscript-book, with a rubber band round it. but, the moment she opened the book, she stood amazed. on the first page was her own portrait, her photograph as a girl, with her signature in full and the inscription: "to my friend stéphane." "i don't understand, i don't understand," she murmured. "i remember the photograph: i must have been sixteen. but how did i come to give it to him? i must have known him!" eager to learn more, she read the next page, a sort of preface worded as follows: "véronique, i wish to lead my life under your eyes. in undertaking the education of your son, of that son whom i ought to loathe, because he is the son of another, but whom i love because he is your son, my intention is that my life shall be in full harmony with the secret feeling that has swayed it so long. one day, i have no doubt, you will resume your place as françois' mother. on that day you will be proud of him. i shall have effaced all that may survive in him of his father and i shall have exalted all the fine and noble qualities which he inherits from you. the aim is great enough for me to devote myself to it body and soul. i do so with gladness. your smile shall be my reward." véronique's heart was flooded with a singular emotion. her life was lit with a calmer radiance; and this new mystery, which she was unable to fathom any more than the others, was at least, like that of maguennoc's flowers, gentle and comforting. as she continued to turn the pages, she followed her son's education from day to day. she beheld the pupil's progress and the master's methods. the pupil was engaging, intelligent, studious, zealous loving, sensitive, impulsive and at the same time thoughtful. the master was affectionate, patient and borne up by some profound feeling which showed through every line of the manuscript. and, little by little, there was a growing enthusiasm in the daily confession, which expressed itself in terms less and less restrained: "françois, my dearly-beloved son--for i may call you so, may i not?--françois, your mother lives once again in you. your eyes are pure and limpid as hers. your soul is grave and simple as her soul. you are unacquainted with evil; and one might almost say that you are unacquainted with good, so closely is it blended with your beautiful nature." some of the child's exercises were copied into the book, exercises in which he spoke of his mother with passionate affection and with the persistent hope that he would soon see her again. "we shall see her again, françois," stéphane added, "and you will then understand better what beauty means and light and the charm of life and the delight of beholding and admiring." next came anecdotes about véronique, minor details which she herself did not remember or which she thought that she alone knew: "one day, at the tuileries--she was only sixteen--a circle was formed round her . . . by people who looked at her and wondered at her loveliness. her girl friends laughed, happy at seeing her admired . . . . "open her right hand, françois. you will see a long, white scar in the middle of the palm. when she was quite a little girl, she ran the point of an iron railing into her hand . . . ." but the last pages were not written for the boy and had certainly not been read by him. the writer's love was no longer disguised beneath admiring phrases. it displayed itself without reserve, ardent, exalted, suffering, quivering with hope, though always respectful. véronique closed the book. she could read no more. "yes, i confess, all's well," she said to the dog, who was already sitting up, "my eyes are wet with tears. devoid of feminine weaknesses as i am, i will tell you what i would say to nobody else: that really touches me. yes, i must try to recall the unknown features of the man who loves me like this . . . some friend of my childhood whose affection i never suspected and whose name has not left even a trace in my memory." she drew the dog to her: "two kind hearts, are they not, all's well? neither the master nor the pupil is capable of the crimes which i saw them commit. if they are the accomplices of our enemies here, they are so in spite of themselves and without knowing it. i cannot believe in philtres and incantations and plants which deprive you of your reason. but, all the same, there is something, isn't there, you dear little dog? the boy who planted veronicas round the calvary of flowers and who wrote, 'mother's flowers,' is not guilty, is he? and honorine was right, when she spoke of a fit of madness, and he will come back to look for me, won't he? stéphane and he are sure to come back." the hours that went by were full of soothing quiet. véronique was no longer lonely. the present had no terrors for her; and she had faith in the future. next morning, she said to all's well, whom she had locked up to prevent his running away: "will you take me there now my man? where? why, to the friend, of course, who sent provisions to stéphane maroux. come along." all's well was only waiting for véronique's permission. he dashed off in the direction of the grassy sward that led to the dolmen; and he stopped half way. véronique came up with him. he turned to the right and took a path which brought them to a huddle of ruins near the edge of the cliffs. then he stopped again. "is it here?" asked véronique. the dog lay down flat. in front of him, at the foot of two blocks of stones leaning against each other and covered with the same growth of ivy, was a tangle of brambles with under it a little passage like the entrance to a rabbit-warren. all's well slipped in, disappeared and then returned in search of véronique, who had to go back to the priory and fetch a bill-hook to cut down the brambles. she managed in half an hour to uncover the top step of a staircase, which she descended, feeling her way and preceded by all's well, and which took her to a long tunnel, cut in the body of the rock and lighted on the left by little openings. she raised herself on tip-toe and saw that these openings overlooked the sea. she walked on the level for ten minutes and then went down some more steps. the tunnel grew narrower. the openings, which all looked towards the sky, no doubt so as not to be seen from below, now gave light from both the right and the left. véronique began to understand how all's well was able to communicate with the other part of the island. the tunnel followed the narrow strip of cliff which joined the priory estate to sarek. the waves lapped the rocks on either side. they next climbed by steps under the knoll of the great oak. two tunnels opened at the top. all's well chose the one on the left, which continued to skirt the sea. then on the right there were two more passages, both quite dark. the island appeared to be riddled in this way with invisible communications; and véronique felt something clutch at her heart as she reflected that she was making for the part which the sisters archignat had described as the enemy's subterranean domains, under the black heath. all's well trotted in front of her, turning round from time to time to see if she was following. "yes, yes, dear, i'm coming," she whispered, "and i am not a bit afraid: i am sure that you are leading me to a friend . . . a friend who has taken shelter down here. but why has he not left his shelter? why did you not show him the way?" the passage had been chipped smooth throughout, with a rounded ceiling and a very dry granite floor, which was amply ventilated by the openings. there was not a mark, not a scratch of any kind on the walls. sometimes the point of a black flint projected. "is it here?" asked véronique, when all's well stopped. the tunnel went no farther and widened into a chamber into which the light filtered more thinly through a narrower window. all's well seemed undecided. he listened, with his ears pricked up, standing on his hind-legs and resting his fore-paws against the end wall of the tunnel. véronique noticed that the wall, at this spot, was not formed throughout its length of the bare granite but consisted of an accumulation of stones of unequal size set in cement. the work evidently belonged to a different, doubtless more recent period. a regular partition-wall had been built, closing the underground passage, which was probably continued on the other side. she repeated: "it's here, isn't it?" but she said nothing more. she had heard the stifled sound of a voice. she went up to the wall and presently gave a start. the voice was raised higher. the sounds became more distinct. some one, a child, was singing, and she caught the words: "and the mother said, rocking her child abed: 'weep not. if you do, the virgin mary weeps with you.'" véronique murmured: "the song . . . the song . . ." it was the same that honorine had hummed at beg-meil. who could be singing it now? a child, imprisoned in the island? a boy friend of françois'? and the voice went on: "'babes that laugh and sing smiles to the blessed virgin bring. fold your hands this way and to sweet mary pray.'" the last verse was followed by a silence that lasted for a few minutes. all's well appeared to be listening with increasing attention, as though something, which he knew of, was about to take place. thereupon, just where he stood, there was a slight noise of stones carefully moved. all's well wagged his tail frantically and barked, so to speak, in a whisper, like an animal that understands the danger of breaking the silence. and suddenly, about his head, one of the stones was drawn inward, leaving a fairly large aperture. all's well leapt into the hole at a bound, stretched himself out and, helping himself with his hind-legs, twisting and crawling, disappeared inside. "ah, there's master all's well!" said the young voice. "how are we, master all's well? and why didn't we come and pay our master a visit yesterday? serious business, was it? a walk with honorine? oh, if you could talk, my dear old chap, what stories you would have to tell! and, first of all, look here . . ." véronique, thrilled with excitement, had knelt down against the wall. was it her son's voice that she heard? was she to believe that he was back and in hiding? she tried in vain to see. the wall was thick; and there was a bend in the opening. but how clearly each syllable uttered, how plainly each intonation reached her ears! "look here," repeated the boy, "why doesn't honorine come to set me free? why don't you bring her here? you managed to find me all right. and grandfather must be worried about me . . . . but _what_ an adventure! . . . so you're still of the same mind, eh, old chap? all's well, isn't it? all's as well as well can be!" véronique could not understand. her son--for there was no doubt that it was françois--her son was speaking as if he knew nothing of what had happened. had he forgotten? had his memory lost every trace of the deeds done during his fit of madness? "yes, a fit of madness," thought véronique, obstinately. "he was mad. honorine was quite right: he was undoubtedly mad. and his reason has returned. oh, françois, françois! . . ." she listened, with all her tense being and all her trembling soul, to the words that might bring her so much gladness or such an added load of despair. either the darkness would close in upon her more thickly and heavily than ever, or daylight was to pierce that endless night in which she had been struggling for fifteen years. "why, yes," continued the boy, "i agree with you, all's well. but all the same, i should be jolly glad if you could bring me some real proof of it. on the one hand, there's no news of grandfather or honorine, though i've given you lots of messages for them; on the other hand, there's no news of stéphane. and that's what alarms me. where is he? where have they locked him up? won't he be starving by now? come, all's well, tell me: where did you take the biscuits yesterday? . . . but, look here, what's the matter with you? you seem to have something on your mind. what are you looking at over there? do you want to go away? no? then what is it?" the boy stopped. then, after a moment, in a much lower voice: "did you come with some one?" he asked. "is there anybody behind the wall?" the dog gave a dull bark. then there was a long pause, during which françois also must have been listening. véronique's emotion was so great that it seemed to her that françois must hear the beating of her heart. he whispered: "is that you, honorine?" there was a fresh pause; and he continued: "yes, i'm sure it's you . . . . i can hear you breathing . . . . why don't you answer?" véronique was carried away by a sudden impulse. certain gleams of light had flashed upon her mind since she had understood that stéphane was a prisoner, no doubt like françois, therefore a victim of the enemy; and all sorts of vague suppositions flitted through her brain. besides, how could she resist the appeal of that voice? her son was asking her a question . . . her son! "françois . . . françois!" she stammered. "ah," he said, "there's an answer! i knew it! is it you, honorine?" "no, françois," she said. "then who is it?" "a friend of honorine's." "i don't know you, do i?" "no . . . but i am your friend." he hesitated. was he on his guard? "why didn't honorine come with you?" véronique was not prepared for this question, but she at once realized that, if the involuntary suppositions that were forcing themselves upon her were correct, the boy must not yet be told the truth. she therefore said: "honorine came back from her journey, but has gone away again." "gone to look for me?" "that's it, that's it," she said, quickly. "she thought that you had been carried away from sarek and your tutor with you." "but grandfather?" "he's gone too: so have all the inhabitants of the island." "ah! the old story of the coffins and the crosses, i suppose?" "just so. they thought that your disappearance meant the beginning of the disasters; and their fear made them take to flight." "but you, madame?" "i have known honorine for a long time. i came from paris with her to take a holiday at sarek. i have no reason to go away. all these superstitions have no terrors for me." the child was silent. the improbability and inadequacy of the replies must have been apparent to him: and his suspicions increased in consequence. he confessed as much, frankly: "listen, madame, there's something i must tell you. it's ten days since i was imprisoned in this cell. during the first part of that time, i saw and heard nobody. but, since the day before yesterday, every morning a little wicket opens in the middle of my door and a woman's hand comes through and gives a fresh supply of water. a woman's hand . . . so . . . you see?" "so you want to know if that woman is myself?" "yes, i am obliged to ask you." "would you recognize that woman's hand?" "yes, it is lean and bony, with a yellow arm." "here's mine," said véronique. "it can pass where all's well did." she pulled up her sleeve; and by flexing her bare arm she easily passed it through. "oh," said françois, at once, "that's not the hand i saw!" and he added, in a lower voice: "how pretty this one is!" suddenly véronique felt him take it in his own with a quick movement; and he exclaimed: "oh, it can't be true, it can't be true!" he had turned her hand over and was separating the fingers so as to uncover the palm entirely. and he whispered: "the scar! . . . it's there! . . . the white scar! . . ." then véronique became greatly agitated. she remembered stéphane maroux's diary and certain details set down by him which françois must have heard. one of these details was this scar, which recalled an old and rather serious injury. she felt the boy's lips pressed to her hand, first gently and then with passionate ardour and a great flow of tears, and heard him stammering: "oh, mother, mother darling! . . . my dear, dear mother! . . ." chapter vii franÇois and stÉphane long the mother and son remained thus, kneeling against the wall that divided them, yet as close together as though they were able to see each other with their frenzied eyes and to mingle their tears and kisses. they spoke both at once, asking each other questions and answering them at random. they were in a transport of delight. the life of each flowed over into the other's life and became swallowed up in it. no power on earth could now dissolve their union or break the bonds of love and confidence which unite mothers and sons. "yes, all's well, old man," said françois, "you may sit up as much and as long as you like. we are really crying this time . . . and you will be the first to get tired, for one doesn't mind shedding such tears as these, does one, mother?" as for véronique, her mind retained not a vestige of the terrible visions which had dismayed it. her son a murderer, her son killing and massacring people: she no longer admitted any of that. she did not even admit the excuse of madness. everything would be explained in some other way which she was not even in a hurry to understand. she thought only of her son. he was there. his eyes saw her through the wall. his heart beat against hers. he lived; and he was the same gentle, affectionate, pure and charming child that her maternal dreams had pictured. "my son, my son!" she kept on repeating, as though she could not utter those marvellous words often enough. "my son, it's you, it's you! i believed you dead, a thousand times dead, more dead than it is possible to be . . . . and you are alive! and you are here! and i am touching you! o heaven, can it be true! i have a son . . . and my son is alive! . . ." and he, on his side, took up the refrain with the same passionate fervour: "mother! mother! i have waited for you so long! . . . to me you were not dead, but it was so sad to be a child and to have no mother . . . to see the years go by and to waste them in waiting for you." for an hour they talked at random, of the past, of the present, of a hundred subjects which at first appeared to them the most interesting things in the world and which they forthwith dropped to ask each other more questions and to try to know each other a little better and to enter more deeply into the secret of their lives and the privacy of their souls. it was françois who first attempted to impart some little method to their conversation: "listen, mother; we have so much to say to each other that we must give up trying to say it all to-day and even for days and days. let us speak now of what is essential and in the fewest possible words, for we have perhaps not much time before us." "what do you mean?" said véronique, instantly alarmed. "i have no intention of leaving you!" "but, mother, if we are not to leave each other, we must first be united. now there are many obstacles to be overcome, even if it were only the wall that separates us. besides, i am very closely watched; and i may be obliged at any moment to send you away, as i do all's well, at the first sound of footsteps approaching." "watched by whom?" "by those who fell upon stéphane and me on the day when we discovered the entrance to these caves, under the heath on the table-land, the black heath." "did you see them?" "no, it was too dark." "but who are they? who are those enemies?" "i don't know." "you suspect, of course?" "the druids?" he said, laughing. "the people of old of whom the legends speak? rather not! ghosts? not that either. they were just simply creatures of to-day, creatures of flesh and blood." "they live down here, though?" "most likely." "and you took them by surprise?" "no, on the contrary. they seemed even to be expecting us and to be lying in wait for us. we had gone down a stone staircase and a very long passage, lined with perhaps eighty caves, or rather eighty cells. the doors, which were of wood, were open; and the cells overlooked the sea. it was on the way back, as we were going up the staircase again in the dark, that we were seized from one side, knocked down, bound, blindfolded and gagged. the whole thing did not take a minute. i suspect that we were carried back to the end of the long passage. when i succeeded in removing my bonds and my bandage, i found that i was locked in one of the cells, probably the last in the passage; and i have been here ten days." "my poor darling, how you must have suffered!" "no, mother, and in any case not from hunger. there was a whole stack of provisions in one corner and a truss of straw in another to lie on. so i waited quietly." "for whom?" "you promise not to laugh, mother?" "laugh at what, dear?" "at what i'm going to tell you?" "how can you think . . . ?" "well, i was waiting for some one who had heard of all the stories of sarek and who promised grandfather to come." "but who was it?" the boy hesitated: "no, i am sure you will make fun of me, mother, i'll tell you later. besides, he never came . . . though i thought for a moment . . . yes, fancy, i had managed to remove two stones from the wall and to open this hole of which my gaolers evidently didn't know. all of a sudden, i heard a noise, someone scratching . . ." "it was all's well?" "it was master all's well coming by the other road. you can imagine the welcome he received! only what astonished me was that nobody followed him this way, neither honorine nor grandfather. i had no pencil or paper to write to them; but, after all, they had only to follow all's well." "that was impossible," said véronique, "because they believed you to be far away from sarek, carried off no doubt, and because your grandfather had left." "just so: why believe anything of the sort? grandfather knew, from a lately discovered document, where we were, for it was he who told us of the possible entrance to the underground passage. didn't he speak to you about it?" véronique had been very happy in listening to her son's story. as he had been carried off and imprisoned, he was not the atrocious monster who had killed m. d'hergemont, marie le goff, honorine and corréjou and his companions. the truth which she had already vaguely surmised now assumed a more definite form and, though still thickly shrouded, was visible in its essential part. françois was not guilty. some one had put on his clothes and impersonated him, even as some one else, in the semblance of stéphane, had pretended to be stéphane. ah, what did all the rest matter, the improbabilities and inconsistencies, the proofs and certainties! véronique did not even think about it. the only thing that counted was the innocence of her beloved son. and so she still refused to tell him anything that would sadden him and spoil his happiness; and she said: "no, i have not seen your grandfather. honorine wanted to prepare him for my visit, but things happened so hurriedly . . ." "and you were left alone on the island, poor mother? so you hoped to find me here?" "yes," she said, after a moment's hesitation. "alone, but with all's well, of course." "yes. i hardly paid any attention to him during the first days. it was not until this morning that i thought of following him." "and where does the road start from that brought you here?" "it's an underground passage the outlet of which is concealed between two stones near maguennoc's garden." "what! then the two islands communicate?" "yes, by the cliff underneath the bridge." "how strange! that's what neither stéphane not i guessed, nor anybody else, for that matter . . . except our dear all's well, when it came to finding his master." he interrupted himself and then whispered: "hark!" but, the next moment, he said: "no, it's not that yet. still, we must hurry." "what am i to do?" "it's quite simple, mother. when i made this hole, i saw that it could be widened easily enough, if it were possible also to take out the three or four stones next to it. but these are firmly fixed; and we should need an implement of some kind." "well, i'll go and . . ." "yes, do, mother. go back to the priory. to the left of the house, in a basement, is a sort of workshop where maguennoc kept his garden-tools. you will find a small pick-axe there, with a very short handle. bring it me in the evening. i will work during the night; and to-morrow morning i shall give you a kiss, mother." "oh, it sounds too good to be true!" "i promise you i shall. then all that we shall have to do will be to release stéphane." "your tutor? do you know where he is shut up?" "i do almost know. according to the particulars which grandfather gave us, the underground passages consist of two floors one above the other; and the last cell of each is fitted as a prison. i occupy one of them. stéphane should occupy the other, below mine. what worries me . . ." "what is it?" "well, it's this: according to grandfather again, these two cells were once torture-chambers . . . 'death chambers' was the word grandfather used." "oh, but how alarming!" "why alarm yourself, mother? you see that they are not thinking of torturing me. only, on the off chance and not knowing what sort of fate was in store for stéphane, i sent him something to eat by all's well, who is sure to have found a way of getting to him." "no," she said, "all's well did not understand." "how do you know, mother?" "he thought you were sending him to stéphane maroux's room and he heaped it all under the bed." "oh!" said the boy, anxiously. "what can have become of stéphane?" and he at once added, "you see, mother, that we must hurry, if we would save stéphane and save ourselves." "what are you afraid of?" "nothing, if you act quickly." "but still . . ." "nothing, i assure you. i feel certain that we shall get the better of every obstacle." "and, if any others present themselves . . . dangers which we cannot foresee? . . ." "it is then," said françois, laughing, "that the man whom i am expecting will come and protect us." "you see, my darling, you yourself admit the need of assistance . . . ." "why, no, mother, i am trying to ease your mind, but nothing will happen. come, how would you have a son who has just found his mother lose her again at once? it isn't possible. in real life, may be . . . but we are not living in real life. we are absolutely living in a romance; and in romances things always come right. you ask all's well. it's so, old chap, isn't it: we shall win and be united and live happy ever after? that's what you think, all's well? then be off, old chap, and take mother with you. i'm going to fill up the hole, in case they come and inspect my cell. and be sure not to try and come in when the hole is stopped, eh, all's well? that's when the danger is. go, mother, and don't make a noise when you come back." véronique was not long away. she found the pick-axe; and, forty minutes after, brought it and managed to slip it into the cell. "no one has been yet," said françois, "but they are certain to come soon and you had better not stay. i may have a night's work before me, especially as i shall have to stop because of likely visits. so i shall expect you at seven o'clock to-morrow . . . . by the way, talking of stéphane: i have been thinking it over. some noises which i heard just now confirmed my notion that he is shut up more or less underneath me. the opening that lights my cell is too narrow for me to pass through. is there a fairly wide window at the place where you are now?" "no, but it can be widened by removing the little stones round it." "capital. you will find in maguennoc's workshop a bamboo ladder, with iron hooks to it, which you can easily bring with you to-morrow morning. next, take some provisions and some rugs and leave them in a thicket at the entrance to the tunnel." "what for, darling?" "you'll see. i have a plan. good-bye, mother. have a good night's rest and pick up your strength. we may have a hard day before us." véronique followed her son's advice. the next morning, full of hope, she once more took the road to the cell. this time, all's well, reverting to his instincts of independence, did not come with her. "keep quite still, mother," said françois, in so low a whisper that she could scarcely hear him. "i am very closely watched; and i think there's some one walking up and down in the passage. however, my work is nearly done; the stones are all loosened. i shall have finished in two hours. have you the ladder?" "yes." "remove the stones from the window . . . that will save time . . . for really i am frightened about stéphane . . . . and be sure not to make a noise . . . ." véronique moved away. the window was not much more than three feet from the floor: and the small stones, as she had supposed, were kept in place only by their own weight and the way in which they were arranged. the opening which she thus contrived to make was very wide; and she easily passed the ladder which she had brought with her through and secured it by its iron hooks to the lower ledge. she was some hundred feet or so above the sea, which lay all white before her, guarded by the thousand reefs of sarek. but she could not see the foot of the cliff, for there was under the window a slight projection of granite which jutted forward and on which the ladder rested instead of hanging perpendicularly. "that will help françois," she thought. nevertheless, the danger of the undertaking seemed great; and she wondered whether she herself ought not to take the risk, instead of her son, all the more so as françois might be mistaken, as stéphane's cell was perhaps not there at all and as perhaps there was no means of entering it by a similar opening. if so, what a waste of time! and what a useless danger for the boy to run! at that moment she felt so great a need of self-devotion, so intense a wish to prove her love for him by direct action, that she formed her resolution without pausing to reflect, even as one performs immediately a duty which there is no question of not performing. nothing deterred her: neither her inspection of the ladder, whose hooks were not wide enough to grip the whole thickness of the ledge, nor the sight of the precipice, which gave an impression that everything was about to fall away from under her. she had to act; and she acted. pinning up her skirt, she stepped across the wall, turned round, supported herself on the ledge, groped with her foot in space and found one of the rungs. her whole body was trembling. her heart was beating furiously, like the clapper of a bell. nevertheless she had the mad courage to catch hold of the two uprights and go down. it did not take long. she knew that there were twenty rungs in all. she counted them. when she reached the twentieth, she looked to the left and murmured, with unspeakable joy: "oh, françois . . . my darling!" she had seen, three feet away at most, a recess, a hollow which appeared to be the entrance to a cavity cut in the rock itself. "stéphane . . . stéphane," she called, but in so faint a voice that stéphane maroux, if he were there, could not hear her. she hesitated a few seconds, but her legs were giving way and she no longer had the strength either to climb up again or to remain hanging where she was. taking advantage of a few irregularities in the rock and thus shifting the ladder, at the risk of unhooking it, she succeeded, by a sort of miracle of which she was quite aware, in catching hold of a flint which projected from the granite and setting foot in the cave. then, with fierce energy, she made one supreme effort and, recovering her balance with a jerk, she entered. she at once saw some one, fastened with cords, lying on a truss of straw. the cave was small and not very deep, especially in the upper portion, which pointed towards the sky rather than the sea and which must have looked, from a distance, like a mere fold in the cliff. there was no projection to bound it at the edge. the light entered freely. véronique went nearer. the man did not move. he was asleep. she bent over him; though she did not recognize him for certain, it seemed to her that a memory was emerging from that dim past in which all the faces of our childhood gradually fade away. this one was surely not unknown to her: a gentle visage, with regular features, fair hair flung well back, a broad, white forehead and a slightly feminine countenance, which reminded véronique of the charming face of a convent friend who had died before the war. she deftly unfastened the bonds with which the wrists were fastened together. the man, without waking immediately, stretched his arms, as though submitting himself to a familiar operation, not effected for the first time, which did not necessarily interfere with his sleep. presumably he was released like this at intervals, perhaps in order to eat and at night, for he ended by muttering: "so early? . . . but i'm not hungry . . . and it's still light!" this last reflection astonished the man himself. he opened his eyes and at once sat up where he lay, so that he might see the person who was standing in front of him, no doubt for the first time in broad daylight. he was not greatly surprised, for the reason that the reality could not have been manifest to him at once. he probably thought that he was the sport of a dream or an hallucination; and he said, in an undertone: "véronique . . . véronique . . ." she felt a little embarrassed by his gaze, but finished releasing his bonds; and, when he distinctly felt her hand on his own hands and on his imprisoned limbs, he understood the wonderful event which her presence implied and he said, in a faltering voice: "you! you! . . . can it be? . . . oh, speak just one word, just one! . . . can it possibly be you?" he continued, almost to himself, "yes, it is she . . . it is certainly she . . . . she is here!" and, anxiously, aloud, "you . . . at night . . . on the other nights . . . it wasn't you who came then? it was another woman, wasn't it? an enemy? . . . oh, forgive me for asking you! . . . it's because . . . because i don't understand . . . . how did you come here?" "i came this way," she said, pointing to the sea. "oh," he said, "how wonderful!" he stared at her with dazed eyes, as he might have stared at some vision descended from heaven; and the circumstances were so unusual that he did not think of suppressing the eagerness of his gaze. she repeated, utterly confused: "yes, this way . . . . françois suggested it." "i did not mention him," he said, "because, with you here, i felt sure that he was free." "not yet," she said, "but he will be in an hour." a long pause ensued. she interrupted it to conceal her agitation: "he will be free . . . . you shall see him . . . . but we must not frighten him: there are things which he doesn't know." she perceived that he was listening not to the words uttered but to the voice that uttered them and that this voice seemed to plunge him into a sort of ecstasy, for he was silent and smiled. she thereupon smiled too and questioned him, thus obliging him to answer: "you called me by my name at once. so you knew me? i also seem to . . . yes, you remind me of a friend of mine who died." "madeleine ferrand?" "yes, madeleine ferrand." "perhaps i also remind you of her brother, a shy schoolboy who used often to visit the parlour at the convent and who used to look at you from a distance." "yes, yes," she declared. "i remember. we even spoke to each other sometimes; you used to blush. yes, that's it: your name was stéphane. but how do you come to be called maroux?" "madeleine and i were not children of the same father." "ah," she said, "that was what misled me!" she gave him her hand: "well, stéphane," she said, "as we are old friends and have renewed our acquaintance, let us put off all our remembrances until later. for the moment, the most urgent matter is to get away. have you the strength?" "the strength, yes: i have not had such a very bad time. but how are we to go from here?" "by the same road by which i came, a ladder communicating with the upper passage of cells." he was now standing up: "you had the courage, the pluck?" he asked, at last realizing what she had dared to do. "oh, it was not very difficult!" she declared. "françois was so anxious! he maintained that you were both occupying old torture-chambers . . . death-chambers . . . ." it was as though these words aroused him violently from a dream and made him suddenly see that it was madness to converse in such circumstances. "go away!" he cried. "françois is right! oh, if you knew the risk you are running. please, please go!" he was beside himself, as though convulsed by the thought of an immediate peril. she tried to calm him, but he entreated her: "another second may be your undoing. don't stay here . . . . i am condemned to death and to the most terrible death. look at the ground on which we are standing, this sort of floor . . . . but it's no use talking about it. oh, please do go!" "with you," she said. "yes, with me. but save yourself first." she resisted and said, firmly: "for us both to be saved, stéphane, we must above all things remain calm. what i did just now we can do again only by calculating all our actions and controlling our excitement. are you ready?" "yes," he said, overcome by her magnificent confidence. "then follow me." she stepped to the very edge of the precipice and leant forward: "give me your hand," she said, "to help me keep my balance." she turned round, flattened herself against the cliff and felt the surface with her free hand. not finding the ladder, she leant outward slightly. the ladder had become displaced. no doubt, when véronique, perhaps with too abrupt a movement, had set foot in the cave, the iron hook of the right-hand upright had slipped and the ladder, hanging only by the other hook, had swung like a pendulum. the bottom rungs were now out of reach. chapter viii anguish had véronique been alone, she would have yielded to one of those moods of despondency which her nature, brave though it was, could not escape in the face of the unrelenting animosity of fate. but in the presence of stéphane, who she felt to be the weaker and who was certainly exhausted by his captivity, she had the strength to restrain herself and announce, as though mentioning quite an ordinary incident: "the ladder has swung out of our reach." stéphane looked at her in dismay: "then . . . then we are lost!" "why should we be lost?" she asked, with a smile. "there is no longer any hope of getting away." "what do you mean? of course there is. what about françois?" "françois?" "certainly. in an hour at most, françois will have made his escape; and, when he sees the ladder and the way i came, he will call to us. we shall hear him easily. we have only to be patient." "to be patient!" he said, in terror. "to wait for an hour! but they are sure to be here in less than that. they keep a constant watch." "well, we will manage somehow." he pointed to the wicket in the door: "do you see that wicket?" he said. "they open it each time. they will see us through the grating." "there's a shutter to it. let's close it." "they will come in." "then we won't close it and we'll keep up our confidence, stéphane." "i'm frightened for you, not for myself." "you mustn't be frightened either for me or for yourself . . . . if the worst comes to the worst, we are able to defend ourselves," she added, showing him a revolver which she had taken from her father's rack of arms and carried on her ever since. "ah," he said, "what i fear is that we shall not even be called upon to defend ourselves! they have other means." "what means?" he did not answer. he had flung a quick glance at the floor; and véronique for a moment examined its curious structure. all around, following the circumference of the walls, was the granite itself, rugged and uneven. but outlined in the granite was a large square. they could see, on each of the four sides, the deep crevice that divided it from the rest. the timbers of which it consisted were worn and grooved, full of cracks and gashes, but nevertheless massive and powerful. the fourth side almost skirted the edge of the precipice, from which it was divided by eight inches at most. "a trap-door?" she asked, with a shudder. "no, not that," he said. "it would be too heavy." "then what?" "i don't know. very likely it is nothing but a remnant of some past contrivance which no longer works. still . . ." "still what?" "last night . . . or rather this morning there was a creaking sound down below there. it seemed to suggest attempts, but they stopped at once . . . it's such a long time since! . . . no, the thing no longer works and they can't make use of it." "who's _they_?" without waiting for his answer, she continued: "listen, stéphane, we have a few minutes before us, perhaps fewer than we think. françois will be free at any moment now and will come to our rescue. let us make the most of the interval and tell each other the things which both of us ought to know. let us discuss matters quietly. we are threatened with no immediate danger; and the time will be well employed." véronique was pretending a sense of security which she did not feel. that françois would make his escape she refused to doubt; but who could tell that the boy would go to the window and notice the hook of the hanging ladder? on failing to see his mother, would he not rather think of following the underground tunnel and running to the priory? however, she mastered herself, feeling the need of the explanation for which she had asked, and, sitting down on a granite projection which formed a sort of bench, she at once began to tell stéphane the events which she had witnessed and in which she had played a leading part, from the moment when her investigations led her to the deserted cabin containing maguennoc's dead body. stéphane listened to the terrifying narrative without attempting to interrupt her but with an alarm marked by his gestures of abhorrence and the despairing expression of his face. m. d'hergemont's death in particular seemed to crush him, as did honorine's. he had been greatly attached to both of them. "there, stéphane," said véronique, when she had described the anguish which she suffered after the execution of the sisters archignat, the discovery of the underground passage and her interview with françois. "that is all that i need absolutely tell you. i thought that you ought to know what i have kept from françois, so that we may fight our enemies together." he shook his head: "which enemies?" he said. "i, too, in spite of your explanations, am asking the very question which you asked me. i have a feeling that we are flung into the midst of a great tragedy which has continued for years, for centuries, and in which we have begun to play our parts only at the moment of the crisis, at the moment of the terrific cataclysm prepared by generations of men. i may be wrong. perhaps there is nothing more than a disconnected series of sinister, weird and horrible coincidences amid which we are tossed from side to side, without being able to appeal to any other reasons than the whim of chance. in reality i know no more than you do. i am surrounded by the same obscurity, stricken by the same sorrows and the same losses. it's all just insanity, extravagant convulsions, unprecedent shocks, the crimes of savages, the fury of the barbaric ages." véronique agreed: "yes, of the barbaric ages; and that is what baffles me most and impresses me so much! what is the connection between the present and the past, between our persecutors of to-day and the men who lived in these caves in days of old and whose actions are prolonged into our own time, in a manner so impossible to understand? to what do they all refer, those legends of which i know nothing except from honorine's delirium and the distress of the sisters archignat?" they spoke low, with their ears always on the alert. stéphane listened for sounds in the corridor, véronique concentrated her attention on the cliff, in the hope of hearing françois' signal. "they are very complicated legends," said stéphane, "very obscure traditions in which we must abandon any attempt to distinguish between what is superstition and what might be truth. out of this jumble of old wives' tales, the very most that we can disentangle is two sets of ideas, those referring to the prophecy of the thirty coffins and those relating to the existence of a treasure, or rather of a miraculous stone." "then they take as a prophecy," said véronique, "the words which i read on maguennoc's drawing and again on the fairies' dolmen?" "yes, a prophecy which dates back to an indeterminate period and which for centuries has governed the whole history and the whole life of sarek. the belief has always prevailed that a day would come when, within a space of twelve months, the thirty principal reefs which surround the island and which are called the thirty coffins would receive their thirty victims, who were to die a violent death, and that those thirty victims would include four women who were to die crucified. it is an established and undisputed tradition, handed down from father to son: and everybody believes in it. it is expressed in the line and part of a line inscribed on the fairies' dolmen: 'four women crucified,' and 'for thirty coffins victims thirty times!'" "very well; but people have gone on living all the same, normally and peaceably. why did the outburst of terror suddenly take place this year?" "maguennoc was largely responsible. maguennoc was a fantastic and rather mysterious person, a mixture of the wizard and the bone-setter, the healer and the charlatan, who had studied the stars in their courses and whom people liked to consult about the most remote events of the past as well as the future. now maguennoc announced not long ago that would be the fateful year." "why?" "intuition perhaps, presentiment, divination, or subconscious knowledge: you can choose any explanation that you please. as for maguennoc, who did not despise the practices of the most antiquated magic, _he_ would tell you that he knew it from the flight of a bird or the entrails of a fowl. however, his prophecy was based on something more serious. he pretended, quoting evidence collected in his childhood among the old people of sarek, that, at the beginning of the last century, the first line of the inscription on the fairies' dolmen was not yet obliterated and that it formed this, which would rhyme with 'four women shall be crucified on tree:' 'in sarek's isle, in year fourteen and three.' the year fourteen and three is the year seventeen; and the prediction became more impressive for maguennoc and his friends of late years, because the total number was divided into two numbers and the war broke out in . from that day, maguennoc grew more and more important and more and more sure of the truth of his previsions. for that matter, he also grew more and more anxious; and he even announced that his death, followed by the death of m. d'hergemont, would give the signal for the catastrophe. then the year arrived and produced a genuine terror in the island. the events were close at hand." "and still," said véronique, "and still it was all absurd." "absurd, yes; but it all acquired a curiously disturbing significance on the day when maguennoc was able to compare the scraps of prophecy engraved on the dolmen with the complete prophecy." "then he succeeded in doing so?" "yes. he discovered under the abbey ruins, in a heap of stones which had formed a sort of protecting chamber round it, an old worn and tattered missal, which had a few of its pages in good condition, however, and one in particular, the one which you saw, or rather of which you saw a copy in the deserted cabin." "a copy made by my father?" "by your father, as were all those in the cupboard in his study. m. d'hergemont, you must remember, was fond of drawing, of painting water-colours. he copied the illuminated page, but of the prophecy that accompanied the drawing he reproduced only the words inscribed on the fairies' dolmen." "how do you account for the resemblance between the crucified woman and myself?" "i never saw the original, which maguennoc gave to m. d'hergemont and which your father kept jealously in his room. but m. d'hergemont maintained that the resemblance was there. in any case, he accentuated it in his drawing, in spite of himself, remembering all that you had suffered . . . and through his fault, he said." "perhaps," murmured véronique, "he was also thinking of the other prophecy that was once made to vorski: 'you will perish by the hand of a friend and your wife will be crucified.' so i suppose the strange coincidence struck him . . . and even made him write the initials of my maiden name, 'v. d'h.', at the top." and she added, "and all this happened in accordance with the wording of the inscription . . . ." they were both silent. how could they do other than think of that inscription, of the words written ages ago on the pages of the missal and on the stone of the dolmen? if destiny had as yet provided only twenty-seven victims for the thirty coffins of sarek, were the last three not there, ready to complete the sacrifice, all three imprisoned, all three captive and in the power of the sacrificial murderers? and if, at the top of the knoll, near the grand oak, there were as yet but three crosses, would the fourth not soon be prepared, to receive a fourth victim? "françois is a very long time," said véronique, presently. she went to the edge and looked over. the ladder had not moved and was still out of reach. "the others will soon be coming to my door," said stéphane. "i am surprised that they haven't been yet." but they did not wish to confess their mutual anxiety; and véronique put a further question, in a calm voice: "and the treasure? the god-stone?" "that riddle is hardly less obscure," said stéphane, "and also depends entirely on the last line of the inscription: 'the god-stone which gives life or death.' what is this god-stone? tradition says that it is a miraculous stone; and, according to m. d'hergemont, this belief dates back to the remotest periods. people at sarek have always had faith in the existence of a stone capable of working wonders. in the middle ages they used to bring puny and deformed children and lay them on the stone for days and nights together, after which the children got up strong and healthy. barren women resorted to this remedy with good results, as did old men, wounded men and all sorts of degenerates. only it came about that the place of pilgrimage underwent changes, the stone, still according to tradition, having been moved and even, according to some, having disappeared. in the eighteenth century, people venerated the fairies' dolmen and used still sometimes to expose scrofulous children there." "but," said véronique, "the stone also had harmful properties, for it gave death as well as life?" "yes, if you touched it without the knowledge of those whose business it was to guard it and keep it sacred. but in this respect the mystery becomes still more complicated, for there is the question also of a precious stone, a sort of fantastic gem which shoots out flames, burns those who wear it and makes them suffer the tortures of the damned." "that's what happened to maguennoc, by honorine's account," said véronique. "yes," replied stéphane, "but here we are entering upon the present. so far i have been speaking of the fabled past, the two legends, the prophecy and the god-stone. maguennoc's adventure opens up the period of the present day, which for that matter is hardly less obscure than the ancient period. what happened to maguennoc? we shall probably never know. he had been keeping in the background for a week, gloomy and doing no work, when suddenly he burst into m. d'hergemont's study roaring, 'i've touched it! i'm done for! i've touched it! . . . i took it in my hand . . . . it burnt me like fire, but i wanted to keep it . . . . oh, it's been gnawing into my bones for days! it's hell, it's hell!' and he showed us the palm of his hand. it was all burnt, as though eaten up with cancer. we tried to dress it for him, but he seemed quite mad and kept rambling on, 'i'm the first victim . . . . the fire will go to my heart . . . . and after me the others' turn will come . . . .' that same evening, he cut off his hand with a hatchet. and a week later, after infecting the whole island with terror, he went away." "where did he go to?" "to the village of le faouet, on a pilgrimage to the chapel of st. barbe, near the place where you found his dead body." "who killed him, do you think?" "undoubtedly one of the creatures who used to correspond by means of signs written along the road, one of the creatures who live hidden in the cells and who are pursuing some purpose which i don't understand." "those who attacked you and françois, therefore?" "yes; and immediately afterwards, having stolen and put on our clothes, played the parts of françois and myself." "with what object?" "to enter the priory more easily and then, if their attempt failed, to balk enquiry." "but haven't you seen them since they have kept you here?" "i have seen only a woman, or rather caught a glimpse of her. she comes at night. she brings me food and drink, unties my hands, loosens the fastenings round my legs a little and comes back two hours after." "has she spoken to you?" "once only, on the first night, in a low voice, to tell me that, if i called out or uttered a sound or tried to escape, françois would pay the penalty." "but, when they attacked you, couldn't you then make out . . . ?" "no, i saw no more than françois did." "and the attack was quite unexpected?" "yes, quite. m. d'hergemont had that morning received two important letters on the subject of the investigation which he was making into all these facts. one of the letters, written by an old breton nobleman well-known for his royalist leanings, was accompanied by a curious document which he had found among his great-grandfather's papers, a plan of some underground cells which the chouans used to occupy in sarek. it was evidently the same druid dwellings of which the legends tell us. the plan showed the entrance on the black heath and marked two stories, each ending in a torture-chamber. françois and i went out exploring together; and we were attacked on our way back." "and you have made no discovery since?" "no, none at all." "but françois spoke of a rescue which he was expecting, some one who had promised his assistance." "oh, a piece of boyish nonsense, an idea of françois', which, as it happened, was connected with the second letter which m. d'hergemont received that morning!" "and what was it about?" stéphane did not reply at once. something made him think that they were being spied on through the door. but, on going to the wicket, he saw no one in the passage outside. "ah," he said, "if we are to be rescued, the sooner it happens the better. _they_ may come at any moment now." "is any help really possible?" asked véronique. "well," stéphane answered, "we must not attach too much importance to it, but it's rather curious all the same. you know, sarek has often been visited by officers or inspectors with a view to exploring the rocks and beaches around the island, which were quite capable of concealing a submarine base. last time, the special delegate sent from paris, a wounded officer, captain patrice belval,[ ] became friendly with m. d'hergemont, who told him the legend of sarek and the apprehension which we were beginning to feel in spite of everything; it was the day after maguennoc went away. the story interested captain belval so much that he promised to speak of it to one of his friends in paris, a spanish or portuguese nobleman, don luis perenna,[ ] an extraordinary person, it would seem, capable of solving the most complicated mysteries and of succeeding in the most reckless enterprises. a few days after captain belval's departure, m. d'hergemont received from don luis perenna the letter of which i spoke to you and of which he read us only the beginning. 'sir,' it said, 'i look upon the maguennoc incident as more than a little serious; and i beg you, at the least fresh alarm, to telegraph to patrice belval. if i can rely upon certain indications, you are standing on the brink of an abyss. but, even if you were at the bottom of that abyss, you would have nothing to fear, if only i hear from you in time. from that moment, i make myself responsible, whatever happens, even though everything may seem lost and though everything may be lost. as for the riddle of the god-stone, it is simply childish and i am astonished that, with the very ample data which you gave belval, it should for an instant be regarded as impossible of explanation. i will tell you in a few words what has puzzled so many generations of mankind . . . .'" [footnote : see _the golden triangle_, by maurice leblanc.] "well?" said véronique, eager to know more. "as i said, m. d'hergemont did not tell us the end of the letter. he read it in front of us, saying, with an air of amazement, 'can that be it? . . . why, of course, of course it is . . . . how wonderful!' and, when we asked him, he said, 'i'll tell you all about it this evening, when you come back from the black heath. meanwhile you may like to know that this most extraordinary man--it's the only word for him--discloses to me, without more ado or further particulars, the secret of the god-stone and the exact spot where it is to be found. and he does it so logically as to leave no room for doubt.'" "and in the evening?" "in the evening, françois and i were carried off and m. d'hergemont was murdered." véronique paused to think: "i should not be surprised," she said, "if they wanted to steal that important letter from him. for, after all, the theft of the god-stone seems to me the only motive that can explain all the machinations of which we are the victims." "i think so too: but m. d'hergemont, on don luis perenna's recommendation, tore up the letter before our eyes." "so, after all, don luis perenna has not been informed?" "no." "yet françois . . ." "françois does not know of his grandfather's death and does not suspect that m. d'hergemont never heard of our disappearance and therefore never sent a message to don luis perenna. if he had done so, don luis, to françois' mind, must be on his way. besides, françois has another reason for expecting something . . . ." "a serious reason?" "no. françois is still very much of a child. he has read a lot of books of adventure, which have worked upon his imagination. now captain belval told him such fantastic stories about his friend perenna and painted perenna in such strange colours that françois firmly believes perenna to be none other than arsène lupin. hence his absolute confidence and his certainty that, in case of danger, the miraculous intervention will take place at the very minute when it becomes necessary." véronique could not help smiling: "he is a child, of course; but children sometimes have intuitions which we have to take into account. besides, it keeps up his courage and his spirits. how could he have endured this ordeal, at his age, if he had not had that hope?" her anguish returned. in a very low voice, she said: "no matter where the rescue comes from, so long as it comes in time and so long as my son is not the victim of those dreadful creatures!" they were silent for a long time. the enemy, present, though invisible, oppressed them with his formidable weight. he was everywhere; he was master of the island, master of the subterranean dwellings, master of the heaths and woods, master of the sea around them, master of the dolmens and the coffins. he linked together the monstrous ages of the past and the no less monstrous hours of the present. he was continuing history according to the ancient rites and striking blows which had been foretold a thousand times. "but why? with what object? what does it all mean?" asked véronique, in a disheartened tone. "what connection can there be between the people of to-day and those of long ago? what is the explanation of the work resumed by such barbarous methods?" and, after a further pause, she said, for in her heart of hearts, behind every question and reply and every insoluble problem, the obsession never ceased to torment her: "ah, if françois were here! if we were all three fighting together! what has happened to him? what keeps him in his cell? some obstacle which he did not foresee?" it was stéphane's turn to comfort her: "an obstacle? why should you suppose so? there is no obstacle. but it's a long job . . . ." "yes, yes, you are right; a long, difficult job. oh, i'm sure that he won't lose heart! he has such high spirits! and such confidence! 'a mother and son who have been brought together cannot be parted again,' he said. 'they may still persecute us, but separate us, never! we shall win in the end.' he was speaking truly, wasn't he, stéphane? i've not found my son again, have i, only to lose him? no, no, it would be too unjust and it would be impossible . . ." stéphane looked at her, surprised to hear her interrupt herself. véronique was listening to something. "what is it?" asked stéphane. "i hear sounds," she said. he also listened: "yes, yes, you're right." "perhaps it's françois," she said. "perhaps it's up there." she moved to rise. he held her back: "no, it's the sound of footsteps in the passage." "in that case . . . in that case . . . ?" said véronique. they exchanged distraught glances, forming no decision, not knowing what to do. the sound came nearer. the enemy could not be suspecting anything, for the steps were those of one who is not afraid of being heard. stéphane said, slowly: "they must not see me standing up. i will go back to my place. you must fasten me again as best you can." they remained hesitating, as though cherishing the absurd hope that the danger would pass of its own accord. then, suddenly, releasing herself from the sort of stupor that seemed to paralyse her, véronique made up her mind: "quick! . . . here they come! . . . lie down!" he obeyed. in a few seconds, she had replaced the cords on and around him as she had found them, but without tying them. "turn your face to the rock," she said. "hide your hands. your hands might betray you." "and you?" "i shall be all right." she stooped and stretched herself at full length against the door, in which the spy-hole, barred with strips of iron, projected inwardly in such a way as to hide her from sight. at the same moment, the enemy stopped outside. notwithstanding the thickness of the door, véronique heard the rustle of a dress. and, above her, some one looked in. it was a terrible moment. the least indication would give the alarm. "oh, why does she stay?" thought véronique. "is there anything to betray my presence? my clothes? . . ." she thought that it was more likely stéphane, whose attitude did not appear natural and whose bonds did not wear their usual aspect. suddenly there was a movement outside, followed by a whistle and a second whistle. then from the far end of the passage came another sound of steps, which increased in the solemn silence and stopped, like the first, behind the door. words were spoken. those outside seemed to be concerting measures. véronique managed to reach her pocket. she took out her revolver and put her finger on the trigger. if any one entered, she would stand up and fire shot after shot, without hesitating. would not the least hesitation have meant françois' death? chapter ix the death-chamber véronique's estimate was correct, provided that the door opened outwards and that her enemies were at once revealed to view. she therefore examined the door and suddenly observed that, against all logical expectation, it had a large strong bolt at the bottom. should she make use of it? she had no time to weigh the advantages or drawbacks of this plan. she had heard a jingle of keys and, almost at the same time, the sound of a key grating in the lock. véronique received a very clear vision of what was likely to happen. when the assailants burst in, she would be thrust aside, she would be hampered in her movements, her aim would be inaccurate and her shots would miss, whereupon _they_ would shut the door again and promptly hurry off to françois' cell. the thought of it made her lose her head; and her action was instinctive and immediate. first, she pushed the bolt at the foot of the door. next, half rising, she slammed the iron shutter over the wicket. a latch clicked. it was no longer possible either to enter or to look in. then at once she realized the absurdity of her action, which had not opposed any obstacle to the menace of the enemy. stéphane, leaping to her side, said: "good heavens, what have you done? why, they saw that i was not moving and they now know that i am not alone!" "exactly," she answered, striving to defend herself. "they will try to break down the door, which will give us the time we want." "the time we want for what?" "to make our escape." "which way?" "françois will call out to us. françois will . . ." she did not complete her sentence. they now heard the sound of footsteps moving swiftly down the passage. there was no doubt about it; the enemy, without troubling about stéphane, whose flight appeared impossible, was making for the upper floor of cells. moreover, might he not suppose that the two friends were acting in agreement and that it was the boy who was in stéphane's cell and who had barred the door? véronique therefore had precipitated events and given them a turn which she had so many reasons to dread; and françois, up above, would be caught at the very moment when he was preparing to escape. she was utterly overwhelmed: "why did i come here?" she muttered. "it would have been so simple to wait! the two of us would have saved you to a certainty." one idea flashed through the confusion of her mind: had she not sought to hasten stéphane's release because of what she knew of this man's love for her? and was it not an unworthy curiosity that had prompted her to make the attempt? a horrible idea, which she at once rejected, saying: "no, i had to come. it is fate which is persecuting us." "don't believe it," said stéphane. "everything will come right." "too late!" said she, shaking her head. "why? how do we know that françois has not left his cell? you yourself thought so just now . . . ." she did not reply. her face became drawn and very pale. by virtue of her sufferings she had acquired a kind of intuition of the evil that threatened her. this evil now surrounded her on every hand. a second series of ordeals was before her, more terrible than the first. "there's death all about us," she said. he tried to smile: "you are talking like the people of sarek. you have the same fears . . ." "they were right to be afraid. and you yourself feel the horror of it all." she rushed to the door, drew the bolt, tried to open it; but what could she do against that massive, iron-clad door? stéphane seized her by the arm: "one moment . . . . listen . . . . it sounds as if . . ." "yes," she said, "it's up there that they are knocking . . . above our heads . . . in françois' cell . . . ." "not at all, not at all: listen . . . ." there was a long silence; and then blows were heard in the thickness of the cliff. the sound came from below them. "the same blows that i heard this morning," said stéphane, in dismay. "the same attempt of which i spoke to you . . . . ah, i understand! . . ." "what? what do you mean?" the blows were repeated, at regular intervals, and then ceased, to be followed by a dull, continuous sound, pierced by shriller creakings and sudden cracks, like the straining of machinery newly started, or of one of those capstans which are used for hoisting boats up a beach. véronique listened, desperately expectant of what was coming, trying to guess, seeking to find some clue in stéphane's eyes. he stood in front of her, looking at her as a man, in the hour of danger, looks at the woman he loves. and suddenly she staggered and had to press her hand against the wall. it was as though the cave and indeed the whole cliff were bodily moving from its place. "oh," she murmured, "is it i who am trembling like this? is it from fear that i am shaking from head to foot?" seizing stéphane's hands, she said: "tell me! i want to know! . . ." he did not answer. there was no fear in his eyes bedewed with tears, there was nothing but immense love and unbounded despair. he was thinking only of her. besides, was it necessary for him to explain what was happening? did not the reality itself become more and more apparent as the seconds passed? a strange reality indeed, having no connection with commonplace facts, a reality quite beyond anything that the imagination might invent in the domain of evil, a strange reality which véronique, who was beginning to grasp its indication, still refused to believe. acting like a trap-door, but like a trap-door working the reverse way, the square of enormous joists which was set in the middle of the cave rose, pivoting on the fixed axis by which it was hinged parallel with the cliff. the almost imperceptible movement was that of an enormous lid opening; and the thing already formed a sort of spring-board reaching from the edge to the back of the cave, a spring-board with as yet a very slight slope, on which it was easy enough to keep one's balance. at the first moment, véronique thought that the enemy's object was to crush them between the implacable floor and the granite of the ceiling. but, almost immediately afterwards, she understood that the hateful mechanism, by standing erect like a draw-bridge when hoisted up, was intended to hurl them over the precipice. and it would carry out that intention inexorably. the result was fatal and inevitable. whatever they might try, whatever efforts they might make to hold on, a minute would come when the floor of that draw-bridge would be absolutely vertical, forming an integral part of the perpendicular cliff. "it's horrible, it's horrible," she muttered. their hands were still clasped. stéphane was weeping silent tears. presently she moaned: "there's nothing to be done, is there?" "nothing," he replied. "still, there is room beyond that wooden floor. the cave is round. we might . . ." "the space is too small. if we tried to stand between the sides of the square and the wall, we should be crushed to death. that has all been planned. i have often thought about it." "then . . . ?" "we must wait." "for what? for whom?" "for françois." "oh, françois!" she said, with a sob. "perhaps he too is doomed . . . . or perhaps he is looking for us and will fall into some trap. in any case, i shall not see him . . . . and he will know nothing . . . . and he will not even have seen his mother before dying . . . ." she pressed stéphane's hands and said: "stéphane, if one of us escapes death--and i hope it may be you . . ." "it will be you," he said, in a tone of conviction. "i am even surprised that the enemy should condemn you to the same torture as myself. but no doubt he doesn't know that it's you who are here with me." "it surprises me too!" said véronique. "a different torture is set aside for me. but what does it matter, if i am not to see my son again! . . . stéphane, i can safely leave him in your charge, can't i? i know all that you have already done for him." the floor continued to rise very slowly, with an uneven vibration and sudden jerks. the slope became more accentuated. a few minutes more and they would no longer be able to speak freely and quietly. stéphane replied: "if i survive, i swear to fulfil my task to the end. i swear it in memory . . ." "in memory of me," she said, in a firm voice, "in memory of the véronique whom you knew . . . and loved." he looked at her passionately: "so you know?" "yes; and i tell you frankly, i have read your diary. i know your love for me . . . and i accept it." she gave a sad smile. "that poor love which you offered to the woman who was absent . . . and which you are now offering to the woman who is about to die." "no, no," he said, eagerly, "don't believe that . . . . salvation may be near at hand . . . . i feel it. my love does not belong to the past but to the future." he stooped to put his lips to her hands. "kiss me," she said, offering him her forehead. each of them had been obliged to place one foot on the brink of the precipice, on the straight edge of granite which ran parallel with the fourth side of the spring-board. they kissed gravely. "hold me firmly," said véronique. she leant back as far as she could, raising her head, and called in a muffled voice: "françois . . . . françois . . . ." but there was no one at the upper opening, from which the ladder was still hanging by one of its hooks, well out of reach. véronique bent over the sea. at this spot, the swell of the cliff did not project as much as elsewhere; and she saw, in between the foam-topped reefs, a little pool of still water, very calm and so deep that she could not see the bottom. she thought that death would be gentler there than on the sharp-pointed rocks and, yielding to a sudden longing to have done with it all and to avoid a lingering agony, she said to stéphane: "why wait for the end? better die than suffer this torture." "no, no!" he exclaimed, horrified at the thought that véronique might disappear from his sight. "then you are still hoping?" "until the last second, since it's your life that's at stake." "i have no longer any hope." nor was he borne up by hope; but he would have given anything to lull véronique's sufferings and to bear the whole weight of the supreme ordeal himself. the floor continued to rise. the vibration had ceased and the slope became much more marked, already reaching the bottom of the wicket, half way up the door. then there was a sound like a sudden stoppage of machinery, followed by a violent jolt, and the whole wicket was covered. it was becoming impossible for them to stand erect. they lay down on the slanting floor, bracing their feet against the granite edge. two more jerks occurred, each time pushing the upper end still higher. the top of the inner wall was reached; and the enormous mechanism moved slowly forward, along the ceiling, towards the opening of the cave. they could see very plainly that it would fit this opening exactly and close it hermetically, like a draw-bridge. the rock had been hewn in such a way that the deadly task might be accomplished without leaving any loophole for chance. they did not utter a word. with hands tight-clasped, they resigned themselves to the inevitable. their death was assuming the aspect of an event decreed by destiny. the machine had been constructed far back in the centuries and had no doubt been reconstructed, repaired and put in order at a more recent date; and during those centuries, worked by invisible executioners, it had caused the death of culprits, of guilty men and innocent, of men of armorica, gaul, france or foreign lands. prisoners of war, sacrilegious monks, persecuted peasants, renegade chouans and soldiers of the revolution; one by one the monster had hurled them over the cliff. to-day it was their turn. they had not even the bitter solace of rage and hatred. whom were they to hate? they were dying in the deepest obscurity, with no hostile face emerging from that implacable night. they were dying in the accomplishment of a task unknown to themselves, to make up a total, so to speak, and for the fulfilment of absurd prophecies, of imbecile intentions, such as the orders given by the barbarian gods and formulated by fanatical priests. they were--it was a thing unheard of--the victims of some expiatory sacrifice, of some holocaust offered to the divinities of a blood-thirsty creed! the wall stood behind them. in a few more minutes it would be perpendicular. the end was approaching. time after time stéphane had to hold véronique back. an increasing terror distracted her mind. she yearned to fling herself down. "please, please," she stammered, "do let me . . . . i am suffering more than i can bear." had she not found her son again, she would have retained her self-control to the end. but the thought of françois was unsettling her. the boy must also be a prisoner, they must be torturing him too and immolating him, like his mother, on the altars of the execrable gods. "no, no, he will come," stéphane declared. "you will be saved . . . . i will have it so . . . . i know it." she replied, wildly: "he is imprisoned as we are . . . . they are burning him with torches, driving arrows into him, tearing his flesh . . . . oh, my poor little son! . . ." "he will come, dear, he told you he would. nothing can separate a mother and son who have been brought together again." "we have found each other in death; we shall be united in death. i wish it might be at once! i don't want him to suffer!" the agony was too great. with an effort she released her hands from stéphane's and made a movement to fling herself down. but she immediately threw herself back against the draw-bridge, with a cry of amazement which was echoed by stéphane. something had passed before their eyes and disappeared again. it came from the left. "the ladder!" exclaimed stéphane. "it's the ladder, isn't it?" "yes, it's françois," said véronique, catching her breath with joy and hope. "he is saved. he is coming to rescue us." at that moment, the wall of torment was almost upright, vibrating implacably beneath their shoulders. the cave no longer existed behind them. the depths had already claimed them; at most they were clinging to a narrow ledge. véronique leant outwards again. the ladder swung back and then became stationary, fixed by its two hooks. above them, at the opening in the cliff, was a boy's face; and the boy was smiling and making gestures: "mother, mother . . . quick!" the call was eager and urgent. the two arms were outstretched towards the pair below. véronique moaned: "oh, it's you, it's you, my darling!" "quick, mother, i'm holding the ladder! . . . quick! . . . it's quite safe!" "i'm coming, darling, i'm coming." she had seized the nearest upright. this time, with stéphane's assistance, she had no difficulty in placing her foot on the bottom rung. but she said: "and you, stéphane? you're coming with me, aren't you?" "i have plenty of time," he said. "hurry." "no, you must promise." "i swear. hurry." she climbed four rungs and stopped: "are you coming, stéphane?" he had already turned towards the cliff and slipped his left hand into a narrow fissure which remained between the draw-bridge and the rock. his right hand reached the ladder and he was able to set foot on the lowest rung. he too was saved. with what delight véronique covered the rest of the distance! what mattered the void below her, now that her son was there, waiting for her to clasp him to her breast at last! "here i am, here i am," she said. "here i am, my darling." she swiftly put her head and shoulders in the window. he pulled her through; and she climbed over the ledge. at last she was with her son. they flung themselves into each other's arms: "oh, mother, mother, is it really true? mother!" but she had no sooner closed her arms about him than she drew back a little, she did not know why. an inexplicable discomfort checked her first outburst. "come here," she said, dragging him to the light of the window. "come and let me look at you." the boy did as she wished. she examined him for two or three seconds, no longer, and suddenly, giving a start of terror, ejaculated: "then it's you? it's you, the murderer?" oh, horror! she was once more looking on the face of the monster who had killed her father and honorine before her eyes! "so you know me?" he chuckled. véronique realised her mistake from the boy's very tone. this was not françois but the other, the one who had played his devilish part in the clothes which françois usually wore. he gave another chuckle: "ah, you're beginning to see things as they are, ma'am! you know me now, don't you?" the hateful face contracted, became wicked and cruel, animated by the vilest expression. "vorski! vorski!" stammered véronique. "it's vorski i recognise in you." he burst out laughing: "why not? do you think i'm going to disown my father as you did?" "vorski's son! his son!" véronique repeated. "lord bless me, yes, his son: why shouldn't i be? surely the good fellow had the right to have two sons! me first and dear françois next!" "vorski's son!" véronique exclaimed once more. "and one of the best, i tell you, ma'am, a worthy son of his father and brought up on the highest principles. i've shown you as much already, haven't i? but it's not finished, we're only at the beginning . . . . here, would you like me to give you a fresh proof? just take a squint at that stick-in-the-mud of a tutor! . . . no, but look how things go when i take a hand in them." he sprang to the window. stéphane's head appeared. the boy picked up a stone and struck with all his might, throwing him backwards. véronique, who at the first moment had hesitated, not realising the danger, now rushed and seized the boy's arm. it was too late. the head vanished. the hooks of the ladder slipped off the ledge. there was a loud cry, followed by the sound of a body falling into the water below. véronique ran to the window. the ladder was floating on the part of the little pool which she was able to see, lying motionless in its frame of rocks. there was nothing to point to the place where stéphane had fallen, not an eddy, not a ripple. she called out: "stéphane! stéphane! . . ." no reply, nothing but the great silence of space in which the winds are still and the sea asleep. "you villain, what have you done?" she cried. "don't take on, missus," he said. "master stéphane brought up your kid to be a duffer. come it's a laughing matter, it is, really. give us a kiss, won't you, daddy's missus? but, i say, what a face you're pulling! surely you don't hate me as much as all that?" he went up to her, with his arms outstretched. véronique swiftly covered him with her revolver: "be off, be off, or i'll kill you as i would a mad dog! be off!" the boy's face became more inhuman than ever. he fell back step by step, snarling: "oh, i'll make you pay for this, my pretty lady! . . . what do you mean by it? i come up to give you a kiss . . . i'm full of kindly feelings . . . and you want to shoot me! you shall pay for it in blood . . . in nice red flowing blood . . . blood . . . blood . . . ." he seemed to love the sound of the word. he repeated it time after time, then once more gave a burst of evil laughter and fled down the tunnel which led to the priory, shouting: "the blood of your son, mother véronique! . . . the blood of your darling françois!" chapter x the escape shuddering, uncertain how to act next, véronique listened till she no longer heard the sound of his footsteps. what should she do? the murder of stéphane had for a moment turned her thoughts from françois; but she now once more fell a prey to anguish. what had become of her son? should she go to him at the priory and defend him against the dangers that threatened him? "come, come," she said, "i'm losing my head . . . . let me think things out . . . . a few hours ago, françois was speaking to me through the wall of his prison . . . for it was certainly he then, it was certainly françois who yesterday took my hand and covered it with his kisses . . . . a mother cannot be deceived; and i was quivering with love and tenderness . . . . but since . . . since this morning has he not left his prison?" she stopped to think and then said, slowly: "that's it . . . that's what happened . . . . stéphane and i were discovered below, on the floor underneath. the alarm was given at once. the monster, vorski's son, had gone up expressly to watch françois. he found the cell empty and, seeing the opening which had been made, crawled out here. yes, that's it . . . . if not, by what way did he come? . . . when he got here, it occurred to him to run to the window, knowing that it overlooked the sea and suspecting that françois had chosen it to make his escape. he at once saw the hooks of the ladder. then, on leaning over, he saw me, knew who i was and called out to me . . . . and now . . . now he is on his way to the priory, where he is bound to meet françois . . . ." nevertheless véronique did not stir. she had an instinct that the danger lay not at the priory but here, by the cells. and she wondered whether françois had really succeeded in escaping and whether, before his task was done, he had not been surprised by the other and attacked by him. it was a horrible doubt! she stooped quickly and, perceiving that the hole had been widened, tried to pass through it herself. but the outlet, at most large enough for a child, was too narrow for her; and her shoulders became fixed. she persisted in the attempt, however, tearing her bodice and bruising her skin against the rock, and at last, by dint of patience and wriggling, succeeded in slipping through. the cell was empty. but the door was open on the passages facing her; and véronique had an impression--merely an impression, for the window admitted only a faint light--that some one was just leaving the cell through the open door. and from this confused impression of something that she had not absolutely seen she retained the certainty that it was a woman who was hiding there, in the passage, a woman surprised by her unexpected entrance. "it's their accomplice," thought véronique. "she came up with the boy who killed stéphane, and she has no doubt taken françois away . . . . perhaps françois is even there still, quite near me, while she's watching me . . . ." meanwhile véronique's eyes were growing accustomed to the semidarkness and she distinctly saw a woman's hand upon the door, which opened inwardly. the hand was slowly pulling. "why doesn't she shut it at once," véronique wondered, "since she obviously wants to put a barrier between us?" véronique received her answer when she heard a pebble grating under the door and interfering with its movement. if the pebble were not there, the door would be closed. without hesitating, véronique went up, took hold of a great iron handle and pulled it towards her. the hand disappeared, but the opposition continued. there was evidently a handle on the other side as well. suddenly she heard a whistle. the woman was summoning assistance. and almost at the same time, in the passage, at some distance from the woman, there was a cry: "mother! mother!" ah, with what deep emotion véronique heard that cry! her son, her real son was calling to her, her son, still a captive but alive! oh, the superhuman delight of it! "i'm here, darling!" "quick, mother! i'm tied up; and the whistle is their signal . . . they'll be coming." "i'm here . . . . i shall save you before they come!" she had no doubt of the result. it seemed to her as though her strength knew no limits and as though nothing could resist the exasperated tension of her whole being. her adversary was in fact weakening and giving ground by inches. the opening became wider; and suddenly the contest was over. véronique walked through. the woman had already fled down the passage and was dragging the boy by a rope in order to make him walk despite the cords with which he was bound. it was a vain attempt and she abandoned it forthwith. véronique was close to her, with her revolver in her hand. the woman let go the boy and stood up in the light from the open cells. she was dressed in white serge, with a knotted girdle round her waist. her arms were half bare. her face was still young, but faded, thin and wrinkled. her hair was fair, interspersed with strands of white. her eyes gleamed with a feverish hatred. the two women looked at each other without a word, like two adversaries who have met before and are about to fight again. véronique almost smiled, with a smile of mingled triumph and defiance. in the end she said: "if you dare to lay a finger on my child, i'll kill you. go! be off!" the woman was not frightened. she seemed to be reflecting and to be listening in the expectation of assistance. none come. then she lowered her eyes to françois and made a movement as though to seize upon her prey again. "don't touch him!" véronique exclaimed, violently. "don't touch him, or i fire!" the woman shrugged her shoulders and said, in measured accents: "no threats, please! if i had wanted to kill that child of yours, i should have done so by now. but his hour has not come; and it is not by my hand that he is to die." véronique, trembling all over, could not help asking: "by whose hand is he to die?" "by my son's: you know . . . the one you've seen." "is he your son, the murderer, the monster?" "he's the son of . . ." "silence! silence!" véronique commanded. she understood that the woman had been vorski's mistress and feared that she would make some disclosure in françois' presence. "silence: that name is not to be spoken." "it will be when it has to be," said the woman. "ah, i've suffered enough through you, véronique: it's your turn now; and you're only at the beginning of it!" "go!" cried véronique, pointing her revolver. "once more, no threats, please." "go, or i fire! i swear it on the head of my son." the woman retreated, betraying a certain anxiety in spite of herself. but she was seized with a fresh access of rage. impotently she raised her clenched fists and shouted, in a raucous, broken voice: "i will be revenged . . . you shall see. véronique . . . . the cross--do you understand?--the cross is ready . . . . you are the fourth . . . . what, oh, what a revenge!" she shook her gnarled, bony fists. and she continued: "oh, how i hate you! fifteen years of hatred! but the cross will avenge me . . . . i shall string you up on it myself . . . . the cross is ready . . . you'll see . . . the cross is ready for you! . . ." she walked away slowly, holding herself erect under the threat of the revolver. "don't kill her, mother, will you?" whispered françois, suspecting the contest in his mother's mind. véronique seemed to wake from a dream: "no, no," she replied, "don't be afraid . . . . and yet perhaps i ought to . . ." "oh, please let her be, mother, and let us go away." she lifted him in her arms, even before the woman was out of sight, pressed him to her and carried him to the cell as though he weighed no more than a little child. "mother, mother," he said. "yes, darling, your own mother; and no one shall take you from me again, that i swear to you." without troubling about the wounds inflicted by the stone she slipped, this time almost at the first attempt, through the gap made by françois, drew him after her and then, but not before, released him from his bonds. "there is no danger here," she said, "at least for the moment, because they can hardly get at us except by the cell and i shall be able to defend the entrance." mother and son exchanged the fondest of embraces. there was now no barrier to part their lips and their arms. they could see each other, could gaze into each other's eyes. "how handsome you are, my darling!" said véronique. she saw no resemblance between him and the boy murderer and was astonished that honorine could have taken one for the other. and she felt as if she would never weary of admiring the breeding, the frankness and the sweetness which she read in his face. "and you, mother," he said, "do you think that i ever pictured a mother as beautiful as you? no, not even in my dreams, when you seemed as lovely as a fairy. and yet stéphane often used to tell me . . ." she interrupted him: "we must hurry, dearest, and take refuge from their pursuit. we must go." "yes," he said, "and above all we must leave sarek. i have invented a plan of escape which is bound to succeed. but, first of all, stéphane: what has become of him? i heard the sound of which i spoke to you underneath my cell and i fear . . ." she dragged him along by the hand, without answering his question: "i have many things to tell you, darling, painful things which i must no longer keep from you. but presently will do . . . . for the moment we must take refuge in the priory. that woman will go in search of help and come after us." "but she was not alone, mother, when she entered my cell suddenly and caught me in the act of digging at the wall. there was some one with her." "a boy, wasn't it? a boy of your own size?" "i could hardly see. he and the woman fell upon me, bound me and carried me into the passage. then the woman left me for a moment and he went back to the cell. he therefore knows about this tunnel by now and about the exit in the priory grounds." "yes, i know. but we shall easily get the better of him; and we'll block up the exit." "but there remains the bridge which joins the two islands," françois objected. "no," she said, "i burnt it down and the priory is absolutely cut off." they were walking very quickly, véronique pressing her pace, françois a little anxious at the words spoken by his mother. "yes, yes," he said, "i see that there is a good deal which i don't know and which you have kept from me, mother, in order not to frighten me. for instance, when you burnt down the bridge . . . . it was with the petrol set aside for the purpose, wasn't it, and as arranged with maguennoc in case of danger? so you were threatened too; and the first attack was made on you, mother? . . . and then there was something that woman said with such a hateful look on her face! . . . and then . . . and then, above all, what has become of stéphane? they were whispering about him just now in my cell . . . . all this worries me . . . . then again i don't see the ladder which you brought . . . ." "please, dearest, don't let us wait a moment. the woman will have found assistance . . . ." the boy stopped short: "mother." "what? do you hear anything?" "some one walking." "are you sure?" "some one coming this way." "oh," she said, in a hollow voice, "it's the murderer coming back from the priory!" she felt her revolver and prepared herself for anything that might happen. but suddenly she pushed françois towards a dark corner on her left, formed by the entry to one of those tunnels, probably blocked, which she had noticed when she came. "get in there," she said. "we shall be all right here: he will not see us." the sound approached. "stand well back," she said, "and don't stir." the boy whispered: "what's that in your hand? a revolver? mother, you're not going to fire?" "i ought to, i ought to," said véronique. "he's such a monster! . . . it's as with his mother . . . i ought to have . . . we shall perhaps regret it." and she added, almost unconsciously, "he killed your grandfather." "oh, mother, mother!" she supported him, to prevent his falling, and amid the silence she heard the boy sobbing on her breast and stammering: "never mind . . . don't fire, mother . . . ." "here he comes, darling, here he comes; look at him." the other passed. he was walking slowly, a little bent, listening for the least sound. he appeared to véronique to be the exact same size as her son; and this time, when she looked at him with more attention, she was not so much surprised that honorine and m. d'hergemont had been taken in, for there were really some points of resemblance, which would have been accentuated by the fact that he was wearing the red cap stolen from françois. he walked on. "do you know him?" asked véronique. "no, mother." "are you sure that you never saw him?" "sure." "and it was he who fell upon you, with the woman, in your cell?" "i haven't a doubt of it, mother. he even hit me in the face, for no reason, with absolute hatred." "oh," she said, "this is all incomprehensible! when shall we escape this awful nightmare?" "quick, mother, the road's clear. let's make the most of it." on returning to the light, she saw that he was very pale and felt his hand in hers like a lump of ice. nevertheless he looked up at her with a smile of happiness. they set out again; and soon, after passing the strip of cliff that joined the two islands and climbing the staircases, they emerged in the open air, to the right of maguennoc's garden. the daylight was beginning to wane. "we are saved," said véronique. "yes," replied the boy, "but only on condition that they cannot reach us by the same road. we shall have to bar it, therefore." "how?" "wait for me here; i'll go and fetch some tools at the priory." "oh, don't let us leave each other, françois!" "you can come with me, mother." "and suppose the enemy arrives in the meantime? no, we must defend this outlet." "then help me, mother." a rapid inspection showed them that one of the two stones which formed a roof above the entrance was not very firmly rooted in its place. they found no difficulty in first shifting and then clearing it. the stone fell across the staircase and was at once covered by an avalanche of earth and pebbles which made the passage, if not impracticable, at least very hard to manage. "all the more so," said françois, "as we shall stay here until we are able to carry out my plan. and be easy, mother; it's a sound scheme and we have nearly managed it." for that matter, they recognized above all, that rest was essential. they were both of them worn out. "lie down, mother . . . look, just here: there's a bed of moss under this overhanging rock which makes a regular nest. you'll be as cosy as a queen there and sheltered from the cold." "oh, my darling, my darling!" murmured véronique, overcome with happiness. it was now the time for explanations; and véronique did not hesitate to give them. the boy's grief at hearing of the death of all those whom he had known would be mitigated by the great joy which he felt at recovering his mother. she therefore spoke without reserve, cradling him in her lap, wiping away his tears, feeling plainly that she was enough to make up for all the lost affections and friendships. he was particularly afflicted by stéphane's death. "but is it quite certain?" he asked. "for, after all, there is nothing to tell us that he is drowned. stéphane is a perfect swimmer; and so . . . yes, yes, mother, we must not despair . . . on the contrary . . . . look, here's a friend who always comes at the worst times, to declare that everything is not lost." all's well came trotting along. the sight of his master did not appear to surprise him. nothing unduly surprised all's well. events, to his mind, always followed one another in a natural order which did not disturb either his habits or his occupations. tears alone seemed to him worthy of special attention. and véronique and françois were not crying. "you see, mother? all's well agrees with me; nothing is lost . . . . but, upon my word, all's well, you're a sharp little fellow! what would you have said, eh, if we'd left the island without you?" véronique looked at her son: "left the island?" "certainly: and the sooner the better. that's my plan. what do you say to it?" "but how are we to get away?" "in a boat." "is there one here?" "yes, mine." "where?" "close by, at sarek point." "but how are we to get down? the cliff is perpendicular." "she's at the very place where the cliff is steepest, a place known as the postern. the name puzzled stéphane and myself. a postern suggests an entrance, a gate. well, we ended by learning that, in the middle ages, at the time of the monks, the little isle on which the priory stands was surrounded by ramparts. it was therefore to be presumed that there was a postern here which commanded an outlet on the sea. and in fact, after hunting about with maguennoc, we discovered, on the flat top of the cliff, a sort of gully, a sandy depression reinforced at intervals by regular walls made of big building-stones. a path winds down the middle, with steps and windows on the side of the sea, and leads to a little bay. that is the postern outlet. we repaired it: and my boat is hanging at the foot of the cliff." véronique's features underwent a transformation: "then we're safe now!" "there's no doubt of that." "and the enemy can't get there?" "how could he?" "he has the motor-boat at his disposal." "he has never been there, because he doesn't know of the bay nor of the way down to it either: you can't see them from the open sea. besides, they are protected by a thousand sharp-pointed rocks." "and what's to prevent us from leaving at once?" "the darkness, mother. i'm a good mariner and accustomed to navigate all the channels that lead away from sarek, but i should not be at all sure of not striking some reef or other. no, we must wait for daylight." "it seems so long!" "a few hours' patience, mother. and we are together, you and i! at break of dawn, we'll take the boat and begin by hugging the foot of the cliff till we are underneath the cells. then we'll pick up stéphane, who of course will be waiting for us on some strip of beach, and we'll all be off, won't we, all's well? we'll land at pont-l'abbé at twelve o'clock or so. that's my plan." véronique could not contain her delight and admiration. she was astonished to find so young a boy giving proofs of such self-possession. "it's splendid, darling, and you're right in everything. luck is decidedly coming our way." the evening passed without incidents. an alarm, however, a noise under the rubbish which blocked the underground passage and a ray of light trickling through a slit obliged them to mount guard until the minute of their departure. but it did not affect their spirits. "why, of course i'm easy in my mind," said françois. "from the moment when i found you again, i felt that it was for good. besides, if the worst came to the worst, have we not a last hope left? stéphane spoke to you about it, i expect. and it makes you laugh, my confidence in a rescuer whom i have never seen . . . . well, i tell you, mother, if i were to see a dagger about to strike me, i should be certain, absolutely certain, mind you, that a hand would come and ward off the blow." "alas," she said, "that providential hand did not prevent all the misfortunes of which i told you!" "it will keep off those which threaten my mother," declared the boy. "how? this unknown friend has not been warned." "he will come all the same. he doesn't need to be warned to know how great the danger is. he will come. and, mother, promise me one thing: whatever happens, you must have confidence." "i will have confidence, darling, i promise you." "and you will be right," he said, laughing, "for i shall be the leader. and what a leader, eh, mother? why, yesterday evening i foresaw that, to carry the enterprise through successfully and so that my mother should be neither cold nor hungry, in case we were not able to take the boat this afternoon, we must have food and rugs! well, they will be of use to us to-night, seeing that for prudence's sake we mustn't abandon our post here and sleep at the priory. where did you put the parcel, mother?" they ate gaily and with a good appetite. then françois wrapped his mother up and tucked her in: and they both fell asleep, lying close together, happy and unafraid. when the keen air of the morning woke véronique, a belt of rosy light streaked the sky. françois was sleeping the peaceful sleep of a child that feels itself protected and is untroubled by dreams. for a long time she just sat gazing at him without wearying: and she was still looking at him when the sun was high above the horizon. "to work, mother," he said, after he had opened his eyes and given her a kiss. "no one in the tunnel? no. then we have plenty of time to go on board." they took the rugs and provisions and, with brisk steps, went towards the descent leading to the postern, at the extreme end of the island. beyond this point the rocks were heaped up in formidable confusion: and the sea, though calm, lapped against them noisily. "i hope your boat's there still!" said véronique. "lean over a little, mother. you can see her down there, hanging in that crevice. we have only to work the pulley to get her afloat. oh, it's all very well thought out, mother darling! we have nothing to fear . . . . only . . . only . . ." he had interrupted himself and was thinking. "what? what is it?" asked véronique. "oh, nothing! a slight delay." "but . . ." he began to laugh: "really, for the leader of an expedition, it's rather humiliating, i admit. just fancy, i've forgotten one thing: the oars. they are at the priory." "but this is terrible!" cried véronique. "why? i'll run to the priory and i shall be back in ten minutes." all véronique's apprehensions returned: "and suppose they make their way out of the tunnel meanwhile?" "come, come, mother," he laughed, "you promised to have confidence. to get out of the tunnel would take them an hour's hard work; and we should hear them. besides, what's the use of talking, mother? i'll be back at once." he ran off. "françois! françois!" he did not reply. "oh," she thought, once more assailed by forebodings. "i had sworn not to leave him for a second!" she followed him at a distance and stopped on a hillock between the fairies' dolmen and the calvary of the flowers. from here she could see the entrance to the tunnel and also saw her son jogging along the grass. he first went into the basement of the priory. but the oars seemed not to be there, for he came out almost at once and went to the main door, which he opened and disappeared from sight. "one minute ought to be plenty for him," said véronique to herself. "the oars must be in the hall . . . or at any rate on the ground-floor . . . . say two minutes, at the outside." she counted the seconds while watching the entrance to the tunnel. but three minutes, four minutes, five minutes passed: and the front-door did not open again. all véronique's confidence vanished. she thought that it was mad of her not to have gone with her son and that she ought never to have submitted to a child's will. without troubling about the tunnel or the dangers from that side, she began to walk towards the priory. but she had the horrible feeling which people sometimes experience in dreams, when their legs seem paralysed and when they are unable to move, while the enemy advances to attack them. and suddenly, on reaching the dolmen, she beheld a sight the meaning of which was immediately clear to her. the ground at the foot of the oaks round the right-hand part of the semi-circle was littered with lately cut branches, which still bore their green leaves. she raised her eyes and stood stupefied and dismayed. one oak alone had been stripped. and on the huge trunk, bare to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, there was a paper, transfixed by an arrow and bearing the inscription, "v. d'h." "the fourth cross," véronique faltered, "the cross marked with my name!" she supposed that, as her father was dead, the initials of her maiden name must have been written by one of her enemies, the chief of them, no doubt; and for the first time, under the influence of recent events, remembering the woman and the boy who were persecuting her, she involuntarily attributed a definite set of features to that enemy. it was a fleeting impression, an improbable theory, of which she was not even conscious. she was overwhelmed by something much more terrible. she suddenly understood that the monsters, those creatures of the heath and the cells, the accomplices of the woman and the boy, must have been there, since the cross was prepared. no doubt they had built a foot-bridge and thrown it over the chasm to take the place of the bridge to which she had set fire. they were masters of the priory. and françois was once more in their hands! then she rushed straight along, collecting all her strength. she in her turn ran over the turf, dotted with ruins, that sloped towards the front of the house. "françois! françois! françois!" she called his name in a piercing voice. she announced her coming with loud cries. thus did she reach the priory. one half of the door stood ajar. she pushed it and darted into the hall, crying: "françois! françois!" the call rang from floor to attic and throughout the house, but remained unanswered: "françois! françois!" she went upstairs, opening doors at random, running into her son's room, into stéphane's, into honorine's. she found nobody. "françois! françois! . . . don't you hear me? are they hurting you? . . . oh, françois, do answer!" she went back to the landing. opposite her was m. d'hergemont's study. she flung herself upon the door and at once recoiled, as though stricken by a vision from hell. a man was standing there, with arms crossed and apparently waiting for her. and it was the man whom she had pictured for an instant when thinking of the woman and the boy. it was the third monster! she said, simply, but in a voice filled with inexpressible horror: "vorski! . . . vorski! . . ." chapter xi the scourge of god vorski! vorski! the unspeakable creature, the thought of whom filled her with shame and horror, the monstrous vorski, was not dead! the murder of the spy by one of his colleagues, his burial in the cemetery at fontainebleau; all this was a fable, a delusion! the only real fact was that vorski was alive! of all the visions that could have haunted véronique's brain, there was none so abominable as the sight before her; vorski standing erect, with his arms crossed and his head up, alive! vorski alive! she would have accepted anything with her usual courage, but not this. she had felt strong enough to face and defy no matter what enemy, but not this one. vorski stood for ignominious disgrace, for insatiable wickedness, for boundless ferocity, for method mingled with madness in crime. and this man loved her. she suddenly blushed. vorski was staring with greedy eyes at the bare flesh of her shoulders and arms, which showed through her tattered bodice, and looking upon this bare flesh as upon a prey which nothing could snatch from him. nevertheless véronique did not budge. she had no covering within reach. she pulled herself together under the insult of the man's desire and defied him with such a glance that he was embarrassed and for a moment turned away his eyes. then she cried, with an uncontrollable outburst of feeling: "my son! where's françois? i want to see him." "_our_ son is sacred, madame," he replied. "he has nothing to fear from his father." "i want to see him." he lifted his hand as one taking an oath: "you shall see him, i swear." "dead, perhaps!" she said, in a hollow voice. "as much alive as you and i, madame." there was a fresh pause. vorski was obviously seeking his words and preparing the speech with which the implacable conflict between them was to open. he was a man of athletic stature, with a powerful frame, legs slightly bowed, an enormous neck swollen by great bundles of muscles and a head unduly small, with fair hair plastered down and parted in the middle. that in him which at one time produced an impression of brute strength, combined with a certain distinction, had become with age the massive and vulgar aspect of a professional wrestler posturing on the hustings at a fair. the disquieting charm which once attracted the women had vanished; and all that remained was a harsh and cruel expression of which he tried to correct the hardness by means of an impassive smile. he unfolded his arms, drew up a chair and, bowing to véronique, said: "our conversation, madame, will be long and at times painful. won't you sit down?" he waited for a moment and, receiving no reply, without allowing himself to be disconcerted, continued: "perhaps you would rather first take some refreshment at the sideboard. would you care for a biscuit and a thimbleful of old claret or a glass of champagne?" he affected an exaggerated politeness, the essentially teutonic politeness of the semibarbarians who are anxious to prove that they are familiar with all the niceties of civilization and that they have been initiated into every refinement of courtesy, even towards a woman whom the right of conquest would permit them to treat more cavalierly. this was one of the points of detail which in the past had most vividly enlightened véronique as to her husband's probable origin. she shrugged her shoulders and remained silent. "very well," he said, "but you must then authorize me to stand, as behooves a man of breeding who prides himself on possessing a certain amount of _savoir faire_. also pray excuse me for appearing in your presence in this more than careless attire. internment-camps and the caves of sarek are hardly places in which it is easy to renew one's wardrobe." he was in fact wearing a pair of old patched trousers and a torn red-flannel waistcoat. but over these he had donned a white linen robe which was half-closed by a knotted girdle. it was a carefully studied costume; and he accentuated its eccentricity by adopting theatrical attitudes and an air of satisfied negligence. pleased with his preamble, he began to walk up and down, with his hands behind his back, like a man who is in no hurry and who is taking time for reflection in very serious circumstances. then he stopped and, in a leisurely tone: "i think, madame, that we shall gain time in the end by devoting a few indispensable minutes to a brief account of our past life together. don't you agree?" véronique did not reply. he therefore began, in the same deliberate tone: "in the days when you loved me . . ." she made a gesture of revolt. he insisted: "nevertheless, véronique . . ." "oh," she said, in an accent of disgust, "i forbid you! . . . that name from your lips! . . . i will not allow it . . . ." he smiled and continued, in a tone of condescension: "don't be annoyed with me, madame. whatever formula i employ, you may be assured of my respect. i therefore resume my remarks. in the days when you loved me, i was, i must admit, a heartless libertine, a debauchee, not perhaps without a certain style and charm, for i always made the most of my advantages, but possessing none of the qualities of a married man. these qualities i should easily have acquired under your influence, for i loved you to distraction. you had about you a purity that enraptured me, a charm and a simplicity which i have never met with in any woman. a little patience on your part, an effort of kindness would have been enough to transform me. unfortunately, from the very first moment, after a rather melancholy engagement, during which you thought of nothing but your father's grief and anger, from the first moment of our marriage there was a complete and irretrievable lack of harmony between us. you had accepted in spite of yourself the bridegroom who had thrust himself upon you. you entertained for your husband no feeling save hatred and repulsion. these are things which a man like vorski does not forgive. so many women and among them some of the proudest had given me proof of my perfect delicacy that i had no cause to reproach myself. that the little middle-class person that you were chose to be offended was not my business. vorski is one of those who obey their instincts and their passions. those instincts and passions failed to meet with your approval. that, madame, was your affair; it was purely a matter of taste. i was free; i resumed my own life. only . . ." he interrupted himself for a few seconds and then went on: "only, i loved you. and, when, a year later, certain events followed close upon one another, when the loss of your son drove you into a convent, i was left with my love unassuaged, burning and torturing me. what my existence was you can guess for yourself; a series of orgies and violent adventures in which i vainly strove to forget you, followed by sudden fits of hope, clues which were suggested to me, in the pursuit of which i flung myself headlong, only to relapse into everlasting discouragement and loneliness. that was how i discovered the whereabouts of your father and your son, that was how i came to know their retreat here, to watch them, to spy upon them, either personally or with the aid of people who were entirely devoted to me. in this way i was hoping to reach yourself, the sole object of my efforts and the ruling motive of all my actions, when war was declared. a week later, having failed in an attempt to cross the frontier, i was imprisoned in an internment-camp." he stopped. his face became still harder; and he growled: "oh, the hell that i went through there! vorski! vorski, the son of a king, mixed up with all the waiters and pickpockets of the fatherland! vorski a prisoner, scoffed at and loathed by all! vorski unwashed and eaten up with vermin! my god, how i suffered! . . . but let us pass on. what i did, to escape from death, i was entitled to do. if some one else was stabbed in my stead, if some one else was buried in my name in a corner of france, i do not regret it. the choice lay between him and myself; i made my choice. and it was perhaps not only my persistent love of life that inspired my action; it was also--and this above all is a new thing--an unexpected dawn which broke in the darkness and which was already dazzling me with its glory. but this is my secret. we will speak of it later, if you force me to. for the moment . . ." in the face of all this rhetoric delivered with the emphasis of an actor rejoicing in his eloquence and applauding his own periods, véronique had retained her impassive attitude. not one of those lying declarations was able to touch her. she seemed to be thinking of other things. he went up to her and, to compel her attention, continued, in a more aggressive tone: "you do not appear to suspect, madame, that my words are extremely serious. they are, however, and they will become even more so. but, before approaching more formidable matters and in the hope of avoiding them altogether, i should like to make an appeal, not to your spirit of conciliation, for there is no conciliation possible with you, but to your reason, to your sense of reality. after all, you cannot be ignorant of your present position, of the position of your son . . . ." she was not listening, he was absolutely convinced of it. doubtless absorbed by the thought of her son, she read not the least meaning into the words that reached her ears. nevertheless, irritated and unable to conceal his impatience, he continued: "my offer is a simple one; and i hope and trust that you will not reject it. in françois' name and because of my feelings of humanity and compassion, i ask you to link the present to the past of which i have sketched the main features. from the social point of view, the bond that unites us has never been shattered. you are still in name and in the eyes of the law . . ." he ceased, stared at véronique and then, clapping his hand violently on her shoulder, shouted: "listen, you baggage, can't you! it's vorski speaking!" véronique lost her balance, saved herself by catching at the back of a chair and once more stood erect before her adversary, with her arms folded and her eyes full of scorn. this time vorski again succeeded in controlling himself. he had acted under impulse and against his will. his voice retained an imperious and malevolent intonation: "i repeat that the past still exists. whether you like it or not, madame, you are vorski's wife. and it is because of this undeniable fact that i am asking you, if you please, to consider yourself so to-day. let us understand each other; if i do not aim at obtaining your love or even your friendship, i will not accept either that we should return to our former hostile relations. i do not want the scornful and distant wife that you have been. i want . . . i want a woman . . . a woman who will submit herself . . . who will be the devoted, attentive, faithful companion . . ." "the slave," murmured véronique. "yes," he exclaimed, "the slave; you have said it. i don't shrink from words any more than i do from deeds. the slave; and why not? a slave understands her duty, which is blindly to obey, bound hand and foot, _perinde ac cadaver_; does the part appeal to you? will you belong to me body and soul? as for your soul, i don't care a fig about that. what i want . . . what i want . . . you know well enough, don't you? what i want is what i have never had. your husband? ha, ha, have i ever been your husband? look back into my life as i will, amid all my seething emotions and delights, i do not find a single memory to remind me that there was ever between us anything but the pitiless struggle of two enemies. when i look at you, i see a stranger, a stranger in the past as in the present. well, since my luck has turned, since i once more have you in my clutches, it shall not be so in the future. it shall not be so to-morrow, nor even to-night, véronique. i am the master; you must accept the inevitable. do you accept?" he did not wait for her answer and, raising his voice still higher, roared: "do you accept? no subterfuges or false promises. do you accept? if so, go on your knees, make the sign of the cross and say, in a firm voice, 'i accept. i will be a consenting wife. i will submit to all your orders and to all your whims. you are the master.'" she shrugged her shoulders and made no reply. vorski gave a start. the veins in his forehead swelled up. however, he still contained himself: "very well. for that matter, i was expecting this. but the consequences of your refusal will be so serious for you that i propose to make one last attempt. perhaps, after all, your refusal is addressed to the fugitive that i am, to the poor beggar that i seem to be; and perhaps the truth will alter your ideas. that truth is dazzling and wonderful. as i told you, an unforeseen dawn has broken through my darkness; and vorski, son of a king, is bathed in radiant light." he had a trick of speaking of himself in the third person which véronique knew of old and which was the sign of his insupportable vanity. she also observed and recognized in his eyes a peculiar gleam which was always there at moments of exaltation, a gleam which was obviously due to his drinking habits but in which she seemed to see besides a sign of temporary aberration. was he not indeed a sort of madman and had his madness not increased as the years passed? he continued, and this time véronique listened. "i had therefore left here, at the time when the war broke out, a person who is attached to me and who continued the work of watching your father which i had begun. an accident revealed to us the existence of the caves dug under the heath and also one of the entrances to the caves. it was in this safe retreat that i took refuge after my last escape; and it was here that i learnt, through some intercepted letters, of your father's investigations into the secret of sarek and the discoveries which he had made. you can understand how my vigilance was redoubled! particularly because i found in all this story, as it became more and more clear to me, the strangest coincidences and an evident connection with certain details in my own life. presently doubt was no longer possible. fate had sent me here to accomplish a task which i alone was able to fulfil . . . and more, a task in which i alone had the right to assist. do you understand what i mean? long centuries ago, vorski was predestined. vorski was the man appointed by fate, vorski's name was written in the book of time. vorski had the necessary qualities, the indispensable means, the requisite titles . . . . i was ready, i set to work without delay, conforming ruthlessly to the decrees of destiny. there was no hesitation as to the road to be followed to the end; the beacon was lighted. i therefore followed the path marked out for me. vorski has now only to gather the reward of his efforts. vorski has only to put out his hand. within reach of his hand fortune, glory, unlimited power. in a few hours, vorski, son of a king, will be king of the world. it is this kingdom that he offers you." he was becoming more and more declamatory, more and more of the emphatic and pompous play-actor. he bent towards véronique: "will you be a queen, an empress, and soar above other women even as vorski will dominate other men? queen by right of gold and power even as you are already queen by right of beauty? will you? . . . vorski's slave, but mistress of all those over whom vorski holds sway? will you? . . . understand me clearly; it is not a question of your making a single decision; you have to choose between two. there is, mark you, the alternative to your refusal. either the kingdom which i am offering, or else . . ." he paused and then, in a grating tone, completed his sentence: "or else the cross!" véronique shuddered. the dreadful word, the dreadful thing appeared once more. and she now knew the name of the unknown executioner! "the cross!" he repeated, with an atrocious smile of content. "it is for you to choose. on the one hand all the joys and honours of life. on the other hand, death by the most barbarous torture. choose. there is nothing between the two alternatives. you must select one or the other. and observe that there is no unnecessary cruelty on my part, no vain ostentation of authority. i am only the instrument. the order comes from a higher power than mine, it comes from destiny. for the divine will to be accomplished, véronique d'hergemont must die and die on the cross. this is explicitly stated. there is no remedy against fate. there is no remedy unless one is vorski and, like vorski, is capable of every audacity, of every form of cunning. if vorski was able, in the forest of fontainebleau, to substitute a sham vorski for the real one, if vorski thus succeeded in escaping the fate which condemned him, from his childhood, to die by the knife of a friend, he can certainly discover some stratagem by which the divine will is accomplished, while the woman he loves is left alive. but in that case she will have to submit. i offer safety to my bride or death to my foe. which are you, my foe or my bride? which do you choose? life by my side, with all the joys and honours of life . . . or death?" "death," véronique replied, simply. he made a threatening gesture: "it is more than death. it is torture. which do you choose?" "torture." he insisted, malevolently: "but you are not alone! pause to reflect! there is your son. when you are gone, he will remain. in dying, you leave an orphan behind you. worse than that; in dying, you bequeath him to me. i am his father. i possess full rights. which do you choose?" "death," she said, once more. he became incensed: "death for you, very well. but suppose it means death for him? suppose i bring him here, before you, your françois, and put the knife to his throat and ask you for the last time, what will your answer be?" véronique closed her eyes. never before had she suffered so intensely, and vorski had certainly found the vulnerable spot. nevertheless she murmured: "i wish to die." vorski flew into a rage, and, resorting straightway to insults, throwing politeness and courtesy to the winds, he shouted: "oh, the hussy, how she must hate me! anything, anything, she accepts anything, even the death of her beloved son, rather than yield to me! a mother killing her son! for that's what it is; you're killing your son, so as not to belong to me. you are depriving him of his life, so as not to sacrifice yours to me. oh, what hatred! no, no, it is impossible. i don't believe in such hatred. hatred has its limits. a mother like you! no, no, there's something else . . . some love-affair, perhaps? no, no, véronique's not in love . . . what then? my pity, a weakness on my part? oh, how little you know me! vorski show pity! vorski show weakness! why, you've seen me at work! did i flinch in the performance of my terrible mission? was sarek not devastated as it was written? were the boats not sunk and the people not drowned? were the sisters archignat not nailed to the ancient oak-trees? i, i flinch! listen, when i was a child, with these two hands of mine i wrung the necks of dogs and birds, with these two hands i flayed goats alive and plucked the live chickens in the poultry-yard. pity indeed! do you know what my mother called me? attila! and, when she was mystically inspired and read the future in these hands of mine or on the tarot-cards, 'attila vorski,' that great seer would say, 'you shall be the instrument of providence. you shall be the sharp edge of the blade, the point of the dagger, the bullet in the rifle, the noose in the rope. scourge of god! scourge of god, your name is written at full length in the books of time! it blazes among the stars that shone at your birth. scourge of god! scourge of god!' and you, you hope that my eyes will be wet with tears? nonsense! does the hangman weep? it is the weak who weep, those who fear lest they be punished, lest their crimes be turned against themselves. but i, i! our ancestors feared but one thing, that the sky should fall upon their heads. what have _i_ to fear? i am god's accomplice! he has chosen me among all men. it is god that has inspired me, the god of the fatherland, the old german god, for whom good and evil do not count where the greatness of his sons is at stake. the spirit of evil is within me. i love evil, i thirst after evil. so you shall die, véronique, and i shall laugh when i see you suffering on the cross!" he was already laughing. he walked with great strides, stamping noisily on the floor. he lifted his arms to the ceiling; and véronique, quivering with anguish, saw the red frenzy in his bloodshot eyes. he took a few more steps and then came up to her and, in a restrained voice, snarling with menace: "on your knees, véronique, and beseech my love! it alone can save you. vorski knows neither pity nor fear. but he loves you; and his love will stop at nothing. take advantage of it, véronique. appeal to the past. become the child that you once were; and perhaps one day i shall drag myself at your feet. véronique, do not repel me; a man like me is not to be repelled. one who loves as i love you, véronique, as i love you, is not to be defied." she suppressed a cry. she felt his hated hands on her bare arms. she tried to release herself; but he, much stronger than she, did not let go and continued, in a panting voice: "do not repel me . . . it is absurd . . . it is madness . . . . you must know that i am capable of anything . . . well? . . . the cross is horrible . . . . to see your son dying before your eyes; is that what you want? . . . accept the inevitable. vorski will save you. vorski will give you the most beautiful life . . . . oh, how you hate me! but no matter: i accept your hatred, i love your hatred, i love your disdainful mouth . . . . i love it more than if it offered itself of its own accord . . . ." he ceased speaking. an implacable struggle took place between them. véronique's arms vainly resisted his closer and closer grip. her strength was failing her; she felt helpless, doomed to defeat. her knees gave way beneath her. opposite her and quite close, vorski's eyes seemed filled with blood; and she was breathing the monster's breath. then, in her terror, she bit him with all her might; and, profiting by a second of discomfiture, she released herself with one great effort, leapt back, drew her revolver, and fired once and again. the two bullets whistled past vorski's ears and sent fragments flying from the wall behind him. she had fired too quickly, at random. "oh, the jade!" he roared. "she nearly did for me." in a second he had his arms round her body and, with an irresistible effort, bent her backwards, turned her round and laid her on a sofa. then he took a cord from his pocket and bound her firmly and brutally. there was a moment's respite and silence. vorski wiped the perspiration from his forehead, filled himself a tumbler of wine and drank it down at a gulp. "that's better," he said, placing his foot on his victim, "and confess that this is best all round. each one in his place, my beauty; you trussed like a fowl and i treading on you at my pleasure. aha, we're no longer enjoying ourselves so much! we're beginning to understand that it's a serious matter. ah, you needn't be afraid, you baggage: vorski's not the man to take advantage of a woman! no, no, that would be to play with fire and to burn with a longing which this time would kill me. i'm not such a fool as that. how should i forget you afterwards? one thing only can make me forget and give me my peace of mind; your death. and, since we understand each other on that subject, all's well. for it's settled, isn't it; you want to die?" "yes," she said, as firmly as before. "and you want your son to die?" "yes," she said. he rubbed his hands: "excellent! we are agreed; and the time is past for words that mean nothing. the real words remain to be spoken, those which count; for you admit that, so far, all that i have said is mere verbiage, what? just as all the first part of the adventure, all that you saw happening at sarek, is only child's play. the real tragedy is beginning, since you are involved in it body and soul; and that's the most terrifying part, my pretty one. your beautiful eyes have wept, but it is tears of blood that are wanted, you poor darling! but what would you have? once again, vorski is not cruel. he obeys a higher power; and destiny is against you. your tears? nonsense! you've got to shed a thousand times as many as another. your death? fudge! you've got to die a thousand deaths before you die for good. your poor heart must bleed as never woman's and mother's poor heart bled before. are you ready, véronique? you shall hear really cruel words, to be followed perhaps by words more cruel still. oh, fate is not spoiling you, my pretty one! . . ." he poured himself out a second glass of wine and emptied it in the same gluttonous fashion; then he sat down beside her and, stooping, said, almost in her ear: "listen, dearest, i have a confession to make to you. i was already married when i met you. oh, don't be upset! there are greater catastrophes for a wife and greater crimes for a husband than bigamy. well, by my first wife i had a son . . . whom i think you know; you exchanged a few amicable remarks with him in the passage of the cells . . . . between ourselves, he's a regular bad lot, that excellent raynold, a rascal of the worst, in whom i enjoy the pride of discovering, raised to their highest degree, some of my best instincts and some of my chief qualities. he is a second edition to myself, but he already outstrips me and now and then alarms me. whew, what a devil! at his age, a little over fifteen, i was an angel compared with him. now it so happens that this fine fellow has to take the field against my other son, against our dear françois. yes, such is the whim of destiny, which, once again, gives orders and of which, once again, i am the clear-sighted and subtle interpreter. of course it is not a question of a protracted and daily struggle. on the contrary, something short, violent and decisive: a duel, for instance. that's it, a duel; you understand, a serious duel. not a turn with the fists, ending in a few bruises; no, what you call a duel to the death, because one of the two adversaries must be left, on the ground, because there must be a victor and a victim, in short, a living combatant and a dead one." véronique had turned her head a little and she saw that he was smiling. never before had she so plainly perceived the madness of that man, who smiled at the thought of a mortal contest between two children both of whom were his sons. the whole thing was so extravagant that véronique, so to speak, did not suffer. it was all outside the limits of suffering. "there is something better, véronique," he said, gloating over every syllable. "there's something better. yes, destiny has devised a refinement which i dislike, but to which, as a faithful servant, i have to give effect. it has devised that you should be present at the duel. capital; you, françois' mother, must see him fight. and, upon my word, i wonder whether that apparent malevolence is not a mercy in disguise. let us say that you owe it to me, shall we, and that i myself am granting you this unexpected, i will even say, this unjust favour? for, when all is said, though raynold is more powerful and experienced than françois and though, logically, françois ought to be beaten, how it must add to his courage and strength to know that he is fighting before his mother's eyes! he will feel like a knight errant who stakes all his pride on winning. he will be a son whose victory will save his mother . . . at least, so he will think. really the advantage is too great; and you can thank me, véronique, if this duel, as i am sure it will, does not--and i am sure that it will not--make your heart beat a little faster . . . . unless . . . unless i carry out the infernal programme to the end . . . . ah, in that case, you poor little thing! . . ." he gripped her once more and, lifting her to her feet in front of him, pressing his face against hers, he said, in a sudden fit of rage: "so you won't give in?" "no, no!" she cried. "you will never give in?" "never! never! never!" she repeated, with increasing vehemence. "you hate me more than everything?" "i hate you more than i love my son." "you lie, you lie!" he snarled. "you lie! nothing comes above your son!" "yes, my hatred for you." all véronique's passion of revolt, all the detestation which she had succeeded in restraining now burst forth; and, indifferent to what might come of it, she flung the words of hatred full in his face: "i hate you! i hate you! i would have my son die before my eyes, i would witness his agony, anything rather than the horror of your sight and presence. i hate you! you killed my father! you are an unclean murderer, a halfwitted, savage idiot, a criminal lunatic! i hate you!" he lifted her with an effort, carried her to the window and threw her on the ground, spluttering: "on your knees! on your knees! the punishment is beginning. you would scoff at me, you hussy, would you? well, you shall see!" he forced her to her knees and then, pushing her against the lower wall and opening the window, he fastened her head to the rail of the balcony by means of a cord round her neck and under her arms. he ended by gagging her with a scarf: "and now look!" he cried. "the curtain's going up! boy françois doing his exercises! . . . oh, you hate me, do you? oh, you would rather have hell than a kiss from vorski? well, my darling, you shall have hell; and i'm arranging a little performance for you, one of my own composing and a highly original one at that! . . . also, i may tell you, it's too late now to change your mind. the thing's irrevocable. you may beg and entreat for mercy as much as you like; it's too late! the duel, followed by the cross; that's the programme. say your prayers, véronique, and call on heaven. shout for assistance if it amuses you . . . . listen, i know that your brat is expecting a rescuer, a professor of clap-trap, a don quixote of adventure. let him come! vorski will give him the reception he deserves! the more the merrier! we shall see some fun! . . . and, if the very gods join in the game and take up your defence, i shan't care! it's no longer their business, it's my business. it's no longer a question of sarek and the treasure and the great secret and all the humbug of the god-stone! it's a question of yourself! you have spat in vorski's face and vorski is taking his revenge. he is taking his revenge! it is the glorious hour. what exquisite joy! . . . to do evil as others do good, lavishly and profusely! to do evil! to kill, torture, break, ruin and destroy! . . . oh, the fierce delight of being a vorski!" he stamped across the room, striking the floor at each step and hustling the furniture. his haggard eyes roamed in all directions. he would have liked to begin his work of destruction at once, strangling some victim, giving work to his greedy fingers, executing the incoherent orders of his insane imagination. suddenly, he drew a revolver and, brutishly, stupidly, fired bullets into the mirrors, the pictures, the window-panes. and, still gesticulating, still capering about, an ominous and sinister figure, he opened the door, bellowing: "vorski's having his revenge! vorski's having his revenge!" chapter xii the ascent of golgotha twenty or thirty minutes elapsed. véronique was still alone. the cords cut into her flesh; and the rails of the balcony bruised her forehead. the gag choked her. her knees, bent in two and doubled up beneath her, carried the whole weight of her body. it was an intolerable position, an unceasing torture . . . . still, though she suffered, she was not very clearly aware of it. she was unconscious of her physical suffering; and she had already undergone such mental suffering that this supreme ordeal did not awaken her drowsing senses. she hardly thought. sometimes she said to herself that she was about to die; and she already felt the repose of the after-life, as one sometimes, amidst a storm, feels in advance the wide peace of the harbour. hideous things were sure to happen between the present moment and the conclusion which would set her free; but her brain refused to dwell on them; and her son's fate in particular elicited only momentary thoughts, which were immediately dispersed. at heart, as there was nothing to enlighten her as to her frame of mind, she was hoping for a miracle. would the miracle occur in vorski? incapable of generosity though he was, would not the monster hesitate none the less in the presence of an utterly unnecessary crime? a father does not kill his son, or at least the act must be brought about by imperative reasons; and vorski had no such reasons to allege against a mere child whom he did not know and whom he could not hate except with an artificial hatred. her torpor was lulled by this hope of a miracle. all the sounds which reechoed through the house, sounds of discussions, sounds of hurrying footsteps, seemed to her to indicate not so much the preparations for the events foretold as the sign of interruptions which would ruin all vorski's plans. had not her dear françois said that nothing could any longer separate them from each other and that, at the moment when everything might seem lost and even when everything would be really lost, they must keep their faith intact? "my françois," she repeated, "my darling françois, you shall not die . . . we shall see each other again . . . you promised me!" out of doors, a blue sky, flecked with a few menacing clouds, hung outspread above the tall oaks. in front of her, beyond that same window at which her father had appeared to her, in the middle of the grass which she had crossed with honorine on the day of her arrival, a site had been recently cleared and covered with sand, like an arena. was it here that her son was to fight? she received the sudden intuition that it must be; and her heart contracted. "françois," she said, "françois, have no fear . . . . i shall save you . . . . oh, forgive me, françois darling, forgive me! . . . all this is a punishment for the wrong i once did . . . . it is the atonement . . . . the son is atoning for the mother . . . . forgive me, forgive me! . . ." at that moment a door opened on the ground-floor and voices ascended from the doorstep. she recognized vorski's voice among them. "so it's understood," he said. "we shall each go our own way; you two on the left, i on the right. you'll take this kid with you, i'll take the other and we'll meet in the lists. you'll be the seconds, so to speak, of yours and i'll be the second of mine, so that all the rules will be observed." véronique shut her eyes, for she did not wish to see her son, who would no doubt be maltreated, led out to fight like a slave. she could hear the creaking of two sets of footsteps following the two circular paths. vorski was laughing and speechifying. the groups turned and advanced in opposite directions. "don't come any nearer," vorski ordered. "let the two adversaries take their places. halt, both of you. good. and not a word, do you hear? if either of you speaks, i shall cut him down without mercy. are you ready? begin!" so the terrible thing was commencing. in accordance with vorski's will, the duel was about to take place before the mother, the son was about to fight before her face. how could she do other than look? she opened her eyes. she at once saw the two come to grips and hold each other off. but she did not at once understand what she saw, or at least she failed to understand its exact meaning. she saw the two boys, it was true; but which of them was françois and which was raynold? "oh," she stammered, "it's horrible! . . . and yet . . . no, i must be mistaken . . . . it's not possible . . ." she was not mistaken. the two boys were dressed alike, in the same velvet knickerbockers, the same white-flannel shirts, the same leather belts. but each had his head wrapped in a red-silk scarf, with two holes for the eyes, as in a highwayman's mask. which was françois? which was raynold? now she remembered vorski's inexplicable threat. this was what he meant by the programme drawn up by himself, this was to what he alluded when he spoke of a little play of his composing. not only was the son fighting before the mother, but she did not know which was her son. it was an infernal refinement of cruelty; vorski himself had said so. no agony could add to véronique's agony. the miracle which she had hoped for lay chiefly in herself and in the love which she bore her son. because her son was fighting before her eyes, she felt certain that her son could not die. she would protect him against the blows and against the ruses of the foe. she would make the dagger swerve, she would ward off death from the head which she adored. she would inspire her boy with dauntless energy, with the will to attack, with indefatigable strength, with the spirit that foretells and seizes the propitious moment. but now that both of them were veiled, on which was she to exercise her good influence, for which to pray, against which to rebel? she knew nothing. there was no clue to enlighten her. one of them was taller, slimmer and lither in his movements. was this françois? the other was more thick-set, stronger and stouter in appearance. was this raynold? she could not tell. nothing but a glimpse of a face, or even a fleeting expression, could have revealed the truth to her. but how was she to pierce the impenetrable mask? and the fight continued, more terrible for her than if she had seen her son with his face uncovered. "bravo!" cried vorski, applauding an attack. he seemed to be following the duel like a connoisseur, with the affectation of impartiality displayed by a good judge of fighting who above all things wants the best man to win. and yet it was one of his sons that he had condemned to death. facing her stood the two accomplices, both of them men with brutal faces, pointed skulls and big noses with spectacles. one of them was extremely thin; the other was also thin, but with a swollen paunch like a leather bottle. these two did not applaud and remained indifferent, or perhaps even hostile, to the sight before them. "capital!" cried vorski, approvingly. "well parried! oh, you're a couple of sturdy fellows and i'm wondering to whom to award the palm." he pranced around the adversaries, urging them on in a hoarse voice in which véronique, remembering certain scenes in the past, seemed to recognize the effects of drink. nevertheless the poor thing made an effort to stretch out her bound hands towards him; and she moaned under her gag: "mercy! mercy! i can't bear it. have pity!" it was impossible for her martyrdom to last. her heart was beating so violently that it shook her from head to foot; and she was on the point of fainting when an incident occurred that gave her fresh life. one of the boys, after a fairly stubborn tussle, had jumped back and was swiftly bandaging his right wrist, from which a few drops of blood were trickling. véronique seemed to remember seeing in her son's hand the small blue-and-white handkerchief which the boy was using. she was immediately and irresistibly convinced. the boy--it was the more slender and agile of the two--had more grace than the other, more distinction, greater elegance of movement. "it's françois," she murmured. "yes, yes, it's he . . . . it's you, isn't it, my darling? i recognize you now . . . . the other is common and heavy . . . . it's you, my darling! . . . oh, my françois, my dearest françois!" in fact, though both were fighting with equal fierceness, this one displayed less savage fury and blind rage in his efforts. it was as though he were trying not so much to kill his adversary as to wound him and as though his attacks were directed rather to preserving himself from the death that lay in wait for him. véronique felt alarmed and stammered, as though he could hear her: "don't spare him, my darling! he's a monster, too! . . . oh, dear, if you're generous, you're lost! . . . françois, françois, mind what you're doing!" the blade of the dagger had flashed over the head of the one whom she called her son; and she had cried out, under her gag, to warn him. françois having avoided the blow, she felt persuaded that her cry had reached his ears; and she continued instinctively to put him on his guard and advise him: "take a rest . . . . get your breath . . . . whatever you do, keep your eyes on him . . . . he's getting ready to do something . . . . he's going to rush at you . . . . here he comes! oh, my darling, another inch and he would have stabbed you in the neck! . . . be careful, darling, he's treacherous . . . there's no trick too mean for him to play . . . ." but the unhappy mother felt, however reluctant she might yet be to admit it, that the one whom she called her son was beginning to lose strength. certain signs proclaimed a reduced power of resistance, while the other, on the contrary, was gaining in eagerness and vigour. françois retreated until he reached the edge of the arena. "hi, you, boy!" grinned vorski. "you're not thinking of running away, are you? keep your nerve, damn it! show some pluck! remember the conditions!" the boy rushed forward with renewed zest; and it was the other's turn to fall back. vorski clapped his hands, while véronique murmured: "it's for me that he's risking his life. the monster must have told him, 'your mother's fate depends on you. if you win, she's saved.' and he has sworn to win. he knows that i am watching him. he guesses that i am here. he hears me. bless you, my darling!" it was the last phase of the duel. véronique trembled all over, exhausted by her emotion and by the too violent alternation of hope and anguish. once again her son lost ground and once again he leapt forward. but, in the final struggle that followed, he lost his balance and fell on his back, with his right arm caught under his body. his adversary at once stooped, pressed his knee on the other's chest and raised his arm. the dagger gleamed in the air. "help! help!" véronique gasped, choking under her gag. she flattened her breast against the wall, without thinking of the cords which tortured her. her forehead was bleeding, cut by the sharp corner of the rail, and she felt that she was about to die of the death of her son. vorski had approached and stood without moving, with a merciless look on his face. twenty seconds, thirty seconds passed. with his outstretched left hand, françois checked his adversary's attempt. but the victorious arm sank lower and lower, the dagger descended, the point was only an inch or two from the neck. vorski stooped. just then, he was behind raynold, so that neither raynold nor françois could see him; and he was watching most attentively, as though intending to intervene at some given moment. but in whose favor would he intervene? was it his plan to save françois? véronique no longer breathed; her eyes were enormously dilated; she hung between life and death. the point of the dagger touched the neck and must have pricked the flesh, but only very slightly, for it was still held back by françois' resistance. vorski bent lower. he stood over the fighters and did not take his eyes from the deadly point. suddenly he took a pen-knife from his pocket, opened it and waited. a few more seconds elapsed. the dagger continued to descend. then quickly he gashed raynold's shoulder with the blade of his knife. the boy uttered a cry of pain. his grip at once became relaxed; and, at the same time, françois, set free, his right arm released, half rose, resumed the offensive and, without seeing vorski or understanding what had happened, in an instinctive impulse of his whole being escaped from death and revolting against his adversary, struck him full in the face. raynold in his turn fell like a log. all this had certainly lasted no longer than ten seconds. but the incident was so unexpected and took véronique so greatly aback that, not realizing, not knowing that she ought to rejoice, believing rather that she was mistaken and that the real françois was dead, murdered by vorski, the poor thing sank into a huddled heap and lost consciousness. * * * * * a long, long time elapsed. then, gradually, véronique became aware of certain sensations. she heard the clock strike four; and she said: "it's two hours since françois died. for it was he who died." she had not a doubt that the duel had ended in this way. vorski would never have allowed françois to be the victor and his other son to be killed. and so it was against her own child that she had sent up wishes and for the monster that she had prayed! "françois is dead," she repeated. "vorski has killed him." the door opened and she heard vorski's voice. he entered, with an unsteady gait: "a thousand pardons, dear lady, but i think vorski must have fallen asleep. it's your father's fault, véronique! he had hidden away in his cellar some confounded saumur which conrad and otto discovered and which has fuddled me a bit! but don't cry; we shall make up for lost time . . . . besides everything must be settled by midnight. so . . ." he had come nearer; and he now exclaimed: "what! did that rascal of a vorski leave you tied up? what a brute that vorski is! and how uncomfortable you must be! . . . hang it all, how pale you are! i say, look here, you're not dead, are you? that would be a nasty trick to play us!" he took véronique's hand, which she promptly snatched away. "capital! we still loathe our little vorski! then that's all right and there's plenty of reserve strength. you'll hold out to the end, véronique." he listened: "what is it? who's calling me? is it you, otto? come up . . . . well, otto, what news? i've been asleep, you know. that damned saumur wine! . . ." otto, one of the two accomplices, entered the room at a run. he was the one whose paunch bulged so oddly. "what news?" he exclaimed. "why, this: i've seen some one on the island!" vorski began to laugh: "you're drunk, otto. that damned saumur wine . . ." "i'm not drunk. i saw . . . and so did conrad . . ." "oho," said vorski, more seriously, "if conrad was with you! well, what did you see?" "a white figure, which hid when we came along." "where?" "between the village and the heath, in a little wood of chestnut trees." "on the other side of the island then?" "yes." "all right. we'll take our precautions." "how? there may be several of them." "i don't care if there are ten of them; it would make no difference. where's conrad?" "by the foot-bridge which we put in the place of the bridge that was burnt down. he's keeping watch from there." "conrad is a clever one. when the bridge was burnt, we were kept on the other side; if the foot-bridge is burnt, it'll produce the same hindrance. véronique, i really believe they're coming to rescue you. it's the miracle you expected, the assistance you hoped for. but it's too late, my beauty." he untied the bonds that fastened her to the balcony, carried her to the sofa and loosened the gag slightly: "sleep, my wench," he said. "get what rest you can. you're only half-way to golgotha yet; and the last bit of the ascent will be the hardest." he went away jesting; and véronique heard the two men exchange a few sentences which proved to her that otto and conrad were only supers who knew nothing of the business in hand: "who's this wretched woman whom you're persecuting?" asked otto. "that doesn't concern you." "still, conrad and i would like to know something about it." "lord, why?" "oh, just because!" "conrad and you are a pair of fools," replied vorski. "when i took you into my service and helped you to escape with me, i told you all i could of my plans. you accepted my conditions. it was your look-out. you've got to see this thing through now." "and if we don't?" "if you don't, beware of the consequences. i don't like shirkers . . . ." more hours passed. nothing, it seemed to véronique, could any longer save her from the end for which she craved with all her heart. she no longer hoped for the intervention of which otto had spoken. in reality she was not thinking at all. her son was dead; and she had no other wish than to join him without delay, even at the cost of the most dreadful suffering. what did that suffering matter to her? there are limits to the strength of those who are tortured; and she was so near to reaching those limits that her agony would not last long. she began to pray. once more the memory of the past forced itself on her mind; and the fault which she had committed seemed to her the cause of all the misfortunes heaped upon her. and, while praying, exhausted, harassed, in a state of nervous extenuation which left her indifferent to anything that might happen, she fell asleep. vorski's return did not even rouse her. he had to shake her: "the hour is at hand, my girl. say your prayers." he spoke low, so that his assistants might not hear what he said; and, whispering in her ear, he told her things of long ago, insignificant trifles which he dribbled out in a thick tone. at last he called out: "it's still too light, otto. go and see what you can find in the larder, will you? i'm hungry." they sat down to table, but vorski stood up again at once: "don't look at me, my girl. your eyes worry me. what do you expect? my conscience doesn't worry me when i'm alone, but it gets worked up when a fine pair of eyes like yours go right through me. lower your lids, my pretty one." he bound véronique's eyes with a handkerchief which he knotted behind her head. but this did not satisfy him; and he unhooked a muslin curtain from the window, wrapped her whole head in it and wound it round her neck. then he sat down again to eat and drink. the three of them hardly spoke and said not a word of their trip across the island, nor of the duel of the afternoon. in any case, these were details which did not interest véronique and which, even if she had paid attention to them, would not have aroused her. everything had become indifferent to her. the words reached her ears but assumed no definite meaning. she thought of nothing but dying. when it was dark, vorski gave the signal for departure. "then you're still determined?" asked otto, in a voice betraying a certain hostility. "more so than ever. what's your reason for asking?" "nothing . . . . but, all the same . . ." "all the same what?" "well, i may as well out with it, we only half like the job." "you don't mean to say so! and you only discover it now, my man, after stringing up the sisters archignat and treating it as a lark!" "i was drunk that day. you made us drink." "well, get boozed if you want to, old cock. here, take the brandy-bottle. fill your flask and shut up . . . . conrad, is the stretcher ready?" he turned to his victim: "a polite attention for you, my dear . . . . two old stilts of your brat's, fastened together with straps . . . . it's very practical and comfortable." at half-past eight, the grim procession set out, with vorski at the head, carrying a lantern. the accomplices followed with the litter. the clouds which had been threatening all the afternoon had now gathered and were rolling, thick and black, over the island. the night was falling swiftly. a stormy wind was blowing and made the candle flicker in the lantern. "brrrr!" muttered vorski. "dismal work! a regular golgotha evening." he swerved and grunted at the sight of a little black shape bounding along by his side: "what's that? look. it's a dog, isn't it?" "it's the boy's mongrel," said otto. "oh, of course, the famous all's well! the brute's come in the nick of time. everything's going jolly well! just wait a bit, you mangy beast!" he aimed a kick at the dog. all's well avoided it and keeping out of reach, continued to accompany the procession, giving a muffled bark at intervals. it was a rough ascent; and every moment one of the three men, leaving the invisible path that skirted the grass in front of the house and led to the open space by the fairies' dolmen, tripped in the brambles or in the runners of ivy. "halt!" vorski commanded. "stop and take breath, my lads. otto, hand us your flask. my heart's turning upside down." he took a long pull: "your turn, otto . . . . what, don't you want to? what's the matter with you?" "i'm thinking that there are people on the island who are looking for us." "let them look!" "and suppose they come by boat and climb that path in the cliffs which the woman and the boy were trying to escape by this morning, the path we found?" "what we have to fear is an attack by land, not by sea. well, the foot-bridge is burnt. there's no means of communication." "unless they find the entrance to the cells, on the black heath, and follow the tunnel to this place." "have they found the entrance?" "i don't know." "well, granting that they do find it, haven't we just blocked the exit on this side, broken down the staircase, thrown everything topsy-turvy? to clear it will take them half a day and more. whereas at midnight the thing'll be done and by daybreak we shall be far away from sarek." "it'll be done, it'll be done; that is to say, we shall have one more murder on our conscience. but . . ." "but what?" "what about the treasure?" "ah, the treasure! you've got it out at last! well, make your mind easy: your shares of it are as good as in your pockets." "are you sure of that?" "rather! do you imagine that i'm staying here and doing all this dirty work for fun?" they resumed their progress. after a quarter of an hour, a few drops of rain began to fall. there was a clap of thunder. the storm still appeared to be some distance away. they had difficulty in completing the rough ascent: and vorski had to help his companions. "at last!" he said. "we're there. otto, hand me the flask. that's it. thanks." they had laid their victim at the foot of the oak which had had its lower branches removed. a flash of light revealed the inscription, "v. d'h." vorski picked up a rope, which had been left there in readiness, and set a ladder against the trunk of the tree: "we'll do as we did with the sisters archignat," he said. "i'll pass the cord over the big branch which we left intact. that will serve as a pulley." he interrupted himself and jumped to one side. something extraordinary had just happened. "what's that?" he whispered. "what was it? did you hear that whistling sound?" "yes," said conrad, "it grazed my ear. one would have said it was a bullet." "you're mad." "i heard it too," said otto, "and it seems to me that it hit the tree." "what tree?" "the oak, of course! it was as though somebody had fired at us." "there was no report." "a stone, then; a stone that must have hit the oak." "we'll soon see," said vorski. he turned his lantern and at once let fly an oath: "damn it! look, there, under the lettering." they looked. an arrow was fixed at the spot to which he pointed. its feathered end was still quivering. "an arrow!" gasped conrad. "how is it possible? an arrow!" and otto spluttered: "we're done for! it's us they were aiming at!" "the man who took aim at us can't be far off," vorski observed. "keep your eyes open. we'll have a look." he swung the light in a circle which penetrated the surrounding darkness. "stop," said conrad, eagerly. "a little more to the right. do you see?" "yes, yes, i see." thirty yards from where they stood, in the direction of the calvary of the flowers, just beyond the blasted oak, they saw something white, a figure which was trying, at least so it seemed, to hide behind a clump of bushes. "not a word, not a movement," vorski ordered. "do nothing to let him think that we've discovered him. conrad, come with me. you, otto, stay here, with your revolver in your hand, and keep a good watch. if they try to come near and to release her ladyship, fire two shots and we'll run back at once. is that understood?" "quite." vorski bent over véronique and loosened the veil slightly. her eyes and mouth were still concealed by their bandages. she was breathing with difficulty; the pulse was weak and slow. "we have time," he muttered, "but we must hurry if we want her to die according to plan. in any case she doesn't seem to be in pain. she has lost all consciousness." he put down the lantern and then softly, followed by his assistant, stole towards the white figure, both of them choosing the places where the shadow was densest. but he soon became aware, on the one hand, that the figure, which had seemed stationary, was moving as he himself moved forward, so that the space between them remained the same, and, on the other hand, that it was escorted by a small black figure frisking by its side. "it's that filthy mongrel!" growled vorski. he quickened his pace: the distance did not decrease. he ran: the figure in front of him ran likewise. and the strangest part of it was that they heard no sound of leaves disturbed or of ground trampled by the mysterious person running ahead of them. "damn it!" swore vorski. "he's laughing at us. suppose we fired at him, conrad?" "he's too far. the bullets wouldn't reach him." "all the same, we're not going to . . ." the unknown individual led them to the end of the island and then down to the entrance of the tunnel, passed close to the priory, skirted the west cliff and reached the foot-bridge, some of the planks of which were still smouldering. then he branched off, passed back by the other side of the house and went up the grassy slope. from time to time the dog barked gaily. vorski could not control his rage. however hard he tried, he was unable to gain an inch of ground: and the pursuit had lasted fifteen minutes. he ended by vituperating the enemy: "stop, can't you? show yourself a man! . . . what are you trying to do? lead us into a trap? what for? . . . is it her ladyship you're trying to save? it's not worth while, in the state she's in. oh, you damned, smart bounder, if i could only get hold of you!" suddenly conrad seized him by the skirt of his robe. "what is it, conrad?" "look. he seems to be stopping." as conrad suggested, the white figure for the first time was becoming more and more clearly visible in the darkness and they were able to distinguish, through the leaves of a thicket, its present attitude, with the arms slightly opened, the back bowed, the legs bent and apparently crossed on the ground. "he must have fallen," said conrad. vorski, after running forward, shouted: "am i to shoot, you scum? i've got the drop on you. hands up, or i fire." nothing stirred. "it's your own look-out! if you show fight, you're a dead man. i shall count three and fire." he walked to twenty yards of the figure and counted, with outstretched arm: "one . . . two . . . . are you ready, conrad? fire!" the two bullets were discharged at the same time. there was a cry of distress. the figure seemed to collapse. the two men rushed forward: "ah, now you've got it, you rascal! i'll show you the stuff that vorski's made of! you've given me a pretty run, you oaf! well, your account's settled!" after the first few steps, he slackened his speed, for fear of a surprise. the figure did not move; and vorski, on coming close, saw that it had the limp and misshapen look of a dead man, of a corpse. nothing remained but to fall upon it. this was what vorski did, laughing and jesting: "a good bag, conrad! let's pick up the game." but he was greatly surprised, on picking up the game, to feel in his hands nothing but an almost impalpable quarry, consisting, to tell the truth, of just a white robe, with no one inside it, the owner of the robe having taken flight in good time, after hooking it to the thorns of a thicket. as for the dog, he had disappeared. "damn and blast it!" roared vorski. "he's cheated us, the ruffian! but why, hang it, why?" venting his rage in the stupid fashion that was his habit, he was stamping on the piece of stuff, when a thought struck him: "why? because, damn it, as i said just now, it's a trap: a trap to get us away from her ladyship while his friends went for otto! oh, what an ass i've been!" he started to go back in the dark and, as soon as he was able to see the dolmen, he called out: "otto! otto!" "halt! who goes there?" answered otto, in a scared voice. "it's me . . . . damn you, don't fire!" "who's there? you?" "yes, yes, you fool." "but the two shots?" "nothing . . . . a mistake . . . . we'll tell you about it . . . ." he was now close to the oak and, at once, taking up the lantern, turned its rays upon his victim. she had not moved and lay stretched at the foot of the tree, with her head wrapped in the veil. "ah!" he said. "i breathe again! hang it, how frightened i was!" "frightened of what?" "of their taking her from us, of course!" "well, wasn't i here?" "oh, you! you've got no more pluck than a louse . . . and, if they had gone for you . . ." "i should have fired, at any rate. you'd have heard the signal." "may be. well, did nothing happen?" "nothing at all." "her ladyship didn't carry on too much?" "she did at first. she moaned and groaned under her hood, until i lost all patience." "and then?" "oh, then! it didn't last long: i stunned her with a good blow of my fist." "you brute!" exclaimed vorski. "if you've killed her, you're a dead man." he plumped down and glued his ear to his unfortunate victim's breast. "no," he said, presently, "her heart is still beating. but that may not last long. to work, lads. it must all be over in ten minutes." chapter xiii "eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani!" the preparations were soon made; and vorski himself took an active part in them. resting the ladder against the trunk of the tree, he passed one end of the rope round his victim and the other over one of the upper branches. then, standing on the bottom rung, he instructed his accomplices: "here, all you've got to do now is to pull. get her on her feet first and one of you keep her from falling." he waited a moment. but otto and conrad were whispering to each other; and he exclaimed: "look here, hurry up, will you? . . . remember i'm making a pretty easy target, if they took it into their heads to send a bullet or an arrow at me. are you ready?" the two assistants did not reply. "well, this is a bit thick! what's the matter with you? otto! conrad!" he leapt to the ground and shook them: "you're a pair of nice ones, you are! at this rate, we should still be at it to-morrow morning . . . and the whole thing will miscarry . . . . answer me, otto, can't you?" he turned the light full on otto's face. "look here, what's all this about? are you wriggling out of it? if so, you'd better say so! and you, conrad? are you both going on strike?" otto wagged his head: "on strike . . . that's saying a lot. but conrad and i would like a word or two of explanation?" "explanation? what about, you pudding-head? about the lady we're executing? about either of the two brats? it's no use taking that line, my man. i said to you, when i first mentioned the business, 'will you go to work blindfold? there'll be a tough job and plenty of bloodshed. but there's big money at the end of it.'" "that's the whole question," said otto. "say what you mean, you jackass!" "it's for you to say and repeat the terms of our agreement. what are they?" "you know as well as i do." "exactly, it's to remind you of them that i'm asking you to repeat them." "i remember them exactly. i get the treasure; and out of the treasure i pay you two hundred thousand francs between the two of you." "that's so and it's not quite so. we'll come back to that. let's begin by talking of this famous treasure. here have we been grinding away for weeks, wallowing in blood, living in a nightmare of every sort of crime . . . and not a thing in sight!" vorski shrugged his shoulders: "you're getting denser and denser, my poor otto! you know there were certain things to be done first. they're all done, except one. in a few minutes, this will be finished too and the treasure will be ours!" "how do we know?" "do you think i'd have done all that i have done, if i wasn't sure of the result . . . as sure as i am that i'm alive? everything has happened in a certain given order. it was all predetermined. the last thing will come at the hour foretold and will open the gate for me." "the gate of hell," sneered otto, "as i heard maguennoc call it." "call it by that name or another, it opens on the treasure which i shall have won." "very well," said otto, impressed by vorski's tone of conviction, "very well. i'm willing to believe you're right. but what's to tell us that we shall have our share?" "you shall have your share for the simple reason that the possession of the treasure will provide me with such indescribable wealth that i'm not likely to risk having trouble with you two fellows for the sake of a couple of hundred thousand francs." "so we have your word?" "of course." "your word that all the clauses of our agreement shall be respected." "of course. what are you driving at?" "this, that you've begun to trick us in the meanest way by breaking one of the clauses of the agreement." "what's that? what are you talking about? do you realize whom you're speaking to?" "i'm speaking to you, vorski." vorski laid violent hands on his accomplice: "what's this? you dare to insult me? to call me by my name, me, me?" "what of it, seeing that you've robbed me of what's mine by rights?" vorski controlled himself and, in a voice trembling with anger: "say what you have to say and be careful, my man, for you're playing a dangerous game. speak out." "it's this," said otto. "apart from the treasure, apart from the two hundred thousand francs, it was arranged between us--you held up your hand and took your oath on it--that any loose cash found by either of us in the course of the business would be divided in equal shares: half for you, half for conrad and myself. is that so?" "that's so." "then pay up," said otto, holding out his hand. "pay up what? i haven't found anything." "that's a lie. while we were settling the sisters archignat, you discovered on one of them, tucked away in her bodice, the hoard which we couldn't find in their house." "well, that's a likely story!" said vorski, in a tone which betrayed his embarrassment. "it's absolutely the truth." "prove it." "just fish out that little parcel, tied up with string, which you've got pinned inside your shirt, just there," said otto, touching vorski's chest with his finger. "fish it out and let's have a look at those fifty thousand-franc notes." vorski made no reply. he was dazed, like a man who does not understand what is happening to him and who is trying to guess how his adversary procured a weapon against him. "do you admit it?" asked otto. "why not?" he rejoined. "i meant to square up later, in the lump." "square up now. we'd rather have it that way." "and suppose i refuse?" "you won't refuse." "suppose i do?" "in that case, look out for yourself!" "i have nothing to fear. there's only two of you." "there's three of us, at least." "where's the third?" "the third is a gentleman who seems cleverer than most, from what conrad tells me: brrr! . . . the one who fooled you just now, the one with the arrow and the white robe!" "you propose to call him?" "rather!" vorski felt that the game was not equal. the two assistants were standing on either side of him and pressing him hard. he had to yield: "here, you thief! here, you robber!" he shouted, taking out the parcel and unfolding the notes. "it's not worth while counting," said otto, snatching the bundle from him unawares. "hi! . . ." "we'll do it this way: half for conrad, half for me." "oh, you blackguard! oh, you double-dyed thief! i'll make you pay for this. i don't care a button about the money. but to rob me as though you'd decoyed me into a wood, so to speak! i shouldn't like to be in your skin, my lad!" he continued to insult the other and then, suddenly, burst into a laugh, a forced, malicious laugh: "after all, otto, upon my word, well played! but where and how did you come to know it? you'll tell me that, won't you? . . . meanwhile, we've not a minute to lose. we're agreed all round, aren't we? and you'll get on with the work?" "willingly, since you're taking the thing so well," said otto. and he added, obsequiously, "after all . . . you have a style about you, sir! you're a fine gentleman, you are!" "and you, you're a varlet whom i pay. you've had your money, so hurry up. the business is urgent." * * * * * the "business," as the frightful creatures called it, was soon done. climbing on his ladder, vorski repeated his orders, which were executed in docile fashion by conrad and otto. they raised the victim to her feet and then, keeping her upright, hauled at the rope. vorski seized the poor woman and, as her knees were bent, violently forced them straight. thus flattened against the trunk of the tree, with her skirt tightened round her legs, her arms hanging to right and left at no great distance from her body, she was bound round the waist and under the arms. she seemed not to have recovered from her blow and uttered no sound of complaint. vorski tried to speak a few words, but spluttered them, incapable of utterance. then he tried to raise her head, but abandoned the attempt, lacking the courage to touch her who was about to die: and the head dropped low on the breast. he at once got down and stammered: "the brandy, otto. have you the flask? oh, damn it, what a beastly business!" "there's time yet," conrad suggested. vorski took a few sips and cried: "time . . . for what? to let her off? listen to me, conrad. rather than let her off, i'd sooner . . . yes, i'd sooner die in her stead. give up my task? ah, you don't know what my task or what my object is! besides . . ." he drank some more: "it's excellent brandy, but, to settle my heart, i'd rather have rum. have you any, conrad?" "a drain at the bottom of a flask." "hand it over." they had screened the lantern lest they should be seen; and they sat close up to the tree, determined to keep silence. but this fresh drink went to their heads. vorski began to hold forth very excitedly: "you've no need of any explanations. the woman who's dying up there, it's no use your knowing her name. it's enough if you know that she's the fourth of the women who were to die on the cross and was specially appointed by fate. but there's one thing i can say to you, now that vorski's triumph is about to shine forth before your eyes. in fact i take a certain pride in telling you, for, while all that's happened so far has depended on me and my will, the thing that's going to happen directly depends on the mightiest of will, wills working for vorski!" he repeated several times, as though smacking his lips over the name: "for vorski . . . for vorski!" and he stood up, impelled by the exuberance of his thoughts to walk up and down and wave his arms: "vorski, son of a king, vorski, the elect of destiny, prepare yourself! your time has come! either you are the lowest of adventurers and the guiltiest of all the great criminals dyed in the blood of their fellow-men, or else you are really the inspired prophet whom the gods crown with glory. a superman or a highwayman: that is fate's decree. the last heart-beats of the sacred victim sacrificed to the gods are marking the supreme seconds. listen to them, you two!" climbing the ladder, he tried to hear those poor beats of an exhausted heart. but the head, drooping to the left, prevented him from putting his ear to the breast; and he dared not touch it. the silence was broken only by a hoarse and irregular breath. he said, in a low whisper: "véronique, do you hear me? véronique . . . . véronique . . . ." after a moment's hesitation: "i want you to know it . . . yes, i myself am terrified at what i'm doing. but it's fate . . . . you remember the prophecy? 'your wife shall die on the cross.' why, your very name, véronique, demands it! . . . remember st. veronica wiping christ's face with a handkerchief and the saviour's sacred image remaining on the handkerchief . . . . véronique, you can hear me, surely? véronique . . ." he ran down hurriedly, snatched the flask of rum from conrad's hands and emptied it at a draught. he was now seized with a sort of delirium which made him rave for a few moments in a language which his accomplices did not understand. then he began to challenge the invisible enemy, to challenge the gods, to hurl forth imprecations and blasphemies: "vorski is the mightiest of all men, vorski governs fate. the elements and the mysterious powers of nature are compelled to obey him. everything will fall out as he has determined; and the great secret will be declared to him in the mystic forms and according to the rules of the kabala. vorski is awaited as the prophet. vorski will be welcomed with cries of joy and ecstasy; and one whom i know not, one whom i can only half see, will come to meet him with palms and benedictions. let the unknown make ready! let him arise from the darkness and ascend from hell! here stands vorski. to the sound of bells, to the singing of alleluias, let the fateful sign be revealed upon the face of the heavens, while the earth opens and sends forth whirling flames!" he fell silent, as though he had descried in the air the signs which he foretold. the hopeless death-rattle of the dying woman sounded from overhead. the storm growled in the distance; and the black clouds were rent by lightning. all nature seemed to be responding to the ruffian's appeal. his grandiloquent speech and his play-acting made a great impression on the two accomplices. "he frightens me," otto muttered. "it's the rum," conrad replied. "but all the same he's foretelling terrible things." "things which prowl round us," shouted vorski, whose ears noticed the least sound, "things which make part of the present moment and have been bequeathed to us by the pageant of the centuries. it's like a prodigious childbirth. and i tell the two of you, you will be the amazed witnesses of these things! otto and conrad, be prepared as i am: the earth will shake; and, at the very spot where vorski is to win the god-stone, a column of fire will rise up to the sky." "he doesn't know what he's saying," mumbled conrad. "and there he is on the ladder again," whispered otto. "it'll serve him right if he gets an arrow through him." but vorski's exaltation knew no bounds. the end was at hand. extenuated by pain, the victim was in her death-agony. beginning very low, so as to be heard by none save her, but raising his voice gradually, vorski said: "véronique . . . . véronique . . . . you are fulfilling your mission . . . . you are nearing the top of the ascent . . . . all honour to you! you deserve a share in my triumph . . . . all honour to you! listen! you hear it already, don't you? the artillery of the heavens is drawing near. my enemies are vanquished; you can no longer hope for rescue! here is the last beat of your heart . . . . here is your last cry: '_eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?_ my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?'" he screamed with laughter, like a man laughing at the most riotous adventure. then came silence. the roars of thunder ceased. vorski bent forward and suddenly, from the top of the ladder, shouted: "_eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani!_ the gods have forsaken her. death has done its work. the last of the four women is dead. véronique is dead!" he was silent once again and then roared twice over: "véronique is dead! véronique is dead!" once again there was a great, deep silence. and all of a sudden the earth shook, not with a vibration produced by the thunder, but with a deep inner convulsion, which came from the very bowels of the earth and was repeated several times, like a noise reechoing through the woods and hills. and almost at the same time, close by, at the other end of the semicircle of oaks, a fountain of fire shot forth and rose to the sky, in a whirl of smoke in which flared red, yellow and violet flames. vorski did not speak a word. his companions stood aghast. one of them stammered: "it's the old rotten oak, the one which has already been struck by lightning." though the fire had disappeared almost instantly, the three men retained the fantastic vision of the old oak, all aglow, vomiting flames and smoke of many colours. "this is the entrance leading to the god-stone," said vorski, solemnly. "destiny has spoken, as i said it would: and it has spoken at the bidding of me who was once its servant and who am now its master." he advanced, carrying the lantern. they were surprised to see that the tree showed no trace of fire and that the mass of dry leaves, held as in a bowl where a few lower branches were outspread, had not caught fire. "yet another miracle," said vorski. "it is all an inconceivable miracle." "what are we going to do?" asked conrad. "go in by the entrance revealed to us . . . . take the ladder, conrad, and feel with your hand in that heap of leaves. the tree is hollow and we shall soon see . . ." "a tree can be as hollow as you please," said otto, "but there are always roots to it; and i can hardly believe in a passage through the roots." "i repeat, we shall see. move the leaves, conrad, clear them away." "no, i won't," said conrad, bluntly. "what do you mean, you won't? why not?" "have you forgotten maguennoc? have you forgotten that he tried to touch the god-stone and had to cut his hand off?" "but this isn't the god-stone!" vorski snarled. "how do you know? maguennoc was always speaking of the gate of hell. isn't this what he meant when he talked like that?" vorski shrugged his shoulders: "and you, otto, are you afraid too?" otto did not reply: and vorski himself did not seem eager to risk the attempt, for he ended by saying: "after all, there's no hurry. let's wait till daylight comes. we will cut down the tree with an axe: and that will show us better than anything how things stand and how to go to work." they agreed accordingly. but, as the signal had been seen by others besides themselves and as they must not allow themselves to be forestalled, they resolved to sit down opposite the tree, under the shelter offered by the huge table of the fairies' dolmen. "otto," said vorski, "go to the priory, fetch us something to drink and also bring an axe, some ropes and anything else that we're likely to want." the rain was beginning to pour in torrents. they settled themselves under the dolmen and each in turn kept watch while the other slept. nothing happened during the night. the storm was very violent. they could hear the waves roaring. then gradually everything grew quiet. at daybreak they attacked the oak-tree, which they soon overthrew by pulling upon the ropes. they now saw that, inside the tree itself, amid the rubbish and the dry rot, a sort of trench had been dug, which extended through the mass of sand and stones packed about the roots. they cleared the ground with a pick-axe. some steps at once came into sight: there was a sudden drop of earth: and they saw a staircase which followed a perpendicular wall and led down into the darkness. they threw the light of their lantern before them. a cavern opened beneath their feet. vorski was the first to venture down. the others followed him cautiously. the steps, which at first consisted of earthen stairs reinforced by flints, were presently hewn out of the rock. the cave which they entered was in no way peculiar and seemed rather to be a vestibule. it communicated, in fact, with a sort of crypt, which had a vaulted ceiling and walls of rough masonry of unmortared stones. all around, like shapeless statues, stood twelve small menhirs, each of which was surmounted by a horse's skull. vorski touched one of these skulls; it crumbled into dust. "no one has been to this crypt," he said, "for twenty centuries. we are the first men to tread the floor of it, the first to behold the traces of the past which it contains." he added, with increasing emphasis: "it is the mortuary-chamber of a great chieftain. they used to bury his favourite horses with him . . . and his weapons too. look, here are axes . . . and a flint knife; and we also find the remains of certain funeral rites, as this piece of charcoal shows and, over there, those charred bones . . . ." his voice was husky with emotion. he muttered: "i am the first to enter here. i was expected. a whole world awakens at my coming." conrad interrupted him: "there are other doorways, another passage; and there's a sort of light showing in the distance." a narrow corridor brought them to a second chamber, through which they reached yet a third. the three crypts were exactly alike, with the same masonry, the same upright stones, the same horses' skulls. "the tombs of three great chieftains," said vorski. "they evidently lead to the tomb of a king; and the chieftains must have been the king's guards, after being his companions during his lifetime. no doubt it's the next crypt." he hesitated to go farther, not from fear, but from excessive excitement and a sense of inflamed vanity which he was enjoying to the full: "i am on the verge of knowledge," he declaimed, in dramatic tones. "vorski is approaching the goal and has only to put out his hand to be regally rewarded for his labours and his struggles. the god-stone is there. for ages and ages men have sought to fathom the secret of the island and not one has succeeded. vorski came and the god-stone is his. so let it show itself to me and give me the promised power. there is nothing between it and vorski, nothing but my will. and i declare my will! the prophet has risen out of the night. he is here. if there be, in this kingdom of the dead, a shade whose duty it is to lead me to the divine stone and place the golden crown upon my head, let that shade arise! here stands vorski." he went in. the fourth room was much larger and shaped like a dome with a slightly flattened summit. in the middle of the flattened part was a round hole, no wider than the hole left by a very small flue; and from it there fell a shaft of half-veiled light which formed a very plainly-defined disk on the floor. the centre of this disk was occupied by a little block of stones set together. and on this block, as though purposely displayed, lay a metal rod. in other respects, this crypt did not differ from the first three. like them it was adorned with menhirs and horses' heads, like them it contained traces of sacrifices. vorski did not take his eyes off the metal rod. strange to say, the metal gleamed as though no dust had ever covered it. he put out his hand. "no, no," said conrad, quickly. "why not?" "it may be the one maguennoc touched and burnt his hand with." "you're mad." "still . . ." "oh, i'm not afraid of anything!" vorski declared taking hold of the rod. it was a leaden sceptre, very clumsily made, but nevertheless revealing a certain artistic intention. round the handle was a snake, here encrusted in the lead, there standing out in relief. its huge, disproportionate head formed the pommel and was studded with silver nails and little green pebbles transparent as emeralds. "is it the god-stone?" vorski muttered. he handled the thing and examined it all over with respectful awe; and he soon observed that the pommel shifted almost loose. he fingered it, turned it to the left, to the right, until at length it gave a click and the snake's head became unfastened. there was a space inside, containing a stone, a tiny, pale-red stone, with yellow streaks that looked like veins of gold. "it's the god-stone, it's the god-stone!" said vorski, greatly agitated. "don't touch it!" conrad repeated, filled with alarm. "what burnt maguennoc will not burn me," replied vorski, solemnly. and, in bravado, swelling with pride and delight, he kept the mysterious stone in the hollow of his hand, which he clenched with all his strength: "let it burn me! i will let it! let it sear my flesh! i shall be glad if it will!" conrad made a sign to him and put his finger to his lips. "what's the matter?" asked vorski. "do you hear anything?" "yes," said the other. "so do i," said otto. what they heard was a rhythmical, measured sound, which rose and fell and made a sort of irregular music. "why, it's close by!" mumbled vorski. "it sounds as if it were in the room." it was in the room, as they soon learnt for certain; and there was no doubt that the sound was very like a snore. conrad, who had ventured on this suggestion, was the first to laugh at it; but vorski said: "upon my word, i'm inclined to think you're right. it _is_ a snore . . . . there must be some one here then?" "it comes from over there," said otto, "from that corner in the dark." the light did not extend beyond the menhirs. behind each of them opened a small, shadowy chapel. vorski turned his lantern into one of these and at once uttered a cry of amazement: "some one . . . yes . . . there is some one . . . . look . . . ." the two accomplices came forward. on a heap of rubble, piled up in an angle of the wall, a man lay sleeping, an old man with a white beard and long white hair. a thousand wrinkles furrowed the skin of his face and hands. there were blue rings round his closed eyelids. at least a century must have passed over his head. he was dressed in a patched and torn linen robe, which came down to his feet. round his neck and hanging over his chest was a string of those sacred beads which the gauls called serpents' eggs and which are actually sea-eggs or sea-urchins. within reach of his hand was a handsome jadeite axe, covered with illegible symbols. on the ground, in a row, lay sharp-edged flints, some large, flat rings, two ear-drops of green jasper and two necklaces of fluted blue enamel. the old man went on snoring. vorski muttered: "the miracle continues . . . . it's a priest . . . a priest like those of the olden time . . . of the time of the druids." "and then?" asked otto. "why, then he's waiting for me!" conrad expressed his brutal opinion: "i suggest we break his head with his axe." but vorski flew into a rage: "if you touch a single hair of his head, you're a dead man!" "still . . ." "still what?" "he may be an enemy . . . he may be the one whom we were pursuing last night . . . . remember . . . the white robe." "you're the biggest fool i ever met! do you think that, at his age, he could have kept us on the run like that?" he bent over and took the old man gently by the arm, saying: "wake up! . . . it's i!" there was no answer. the man did not wake up. vorski insisted. the man moved on his bed of stones, mumbled a few words and went to sleep again. vorski, growing a little impatient, renewed his attempts, but more vigorously, and raised his voice: "i say, what about it? we can't hang about all day, you know. come on!" he shook the old man more roughly. the man made a movement of irritation, pushed away his importunate visitor, clung to sleep a few seconds longer and, in the end, turned round wearily and, in an angry voice, growled: "oh, rats!" chapter xiv the ancient druid the three accomplices, who were perfectly acquainted with all the niceties of the french language and familiar with every slang phrase, did not for a moment mistake the true sense of that unexpected exclamation. they were astounded. vorski put the question to conrad and otto. "eh? what does he say?" "what you heard . . . . that's right," said otto. vorski ended by making a fresh attack on the shoulder of the stranger, who turned on his couch, stretched himself, yawned, seemed to fall asleep again, and, suddenly admitting himself defeated, half sat up and shouted: "when you've quite finished, please! can't a man have a quiet snooze these days, in this beastly hole?" a ray of light blinded his eyes: and he spluttered, in alarm: "what is it? what do you want with me?" vorski put down his lantern on a projection in the wall; and the face now stood clearly revealed. the old man, who had continued to vent his ill temper in incoherent complaints, looked at his visitor, became gradually calmer, even assumed an amiable and almost smiling expression and, holding out his hand, exclaimed: "well, i never! why, it's you, vorski! how are you, old bean?" vorski gave a start. that the old man should know him and call him by his name did not astonish him immensely, since he had the half-mystic conviction that he was expected as a prophet might be. but to a prophet, to a missionary clad in light and glory, entering the presence of a stranger crowned with the double majesty of age and sacerdotal rank, it was painful to be hailed by the name of "old bean!" hesitating, ill at ease, not knowing with whom he was dealing, he asked: "who are you? what are you here for? how did you get here?" and, when the other stared at him with a look of surprise, he repeated, in a louder voice: "answer me, can't you? who are you?" "who am i?" replied the old man, in a husky and bleating voice. "who am i? by teutatès, god of the gauls, is it you who ask me that question? then you don't know me? come, try and remember . . . . good old ségenax--eh, do you get me now--velléda's father, good old ségenax, the law-giver venerated by the rhedons of whom chateaubriand speaks in the first volume of his _martyrs_? . . . ah, i see your memory's reviving!" "what are you gassing about!" cried vorski. "i'm not gassing. i'm explaining my presence here and the regrettable events which brought me here long ago. disgusted by the scandalous behaviour of velléda, who had gone wrong with that dismal blighter eudorus, i became what we should call a trappist nowadays, that is to say, i passed a brilliant exam, as a bachelor of druid laws. since that time, in consequence of a few sprees--oh, nothing to speak of: three or four jaunts to paris, where i was attracted by mabille and afterwards by the moulin rouge--i was obliged to accept the little berth which i fill here, a cushy job, as you see: guardian of the god-stone, a shirker's job, what!" vorski's amazement and uneasiness increased at each word. he consulted his companions. "break his head," conrad repeated. "that's what i say: and i stick to it." "and you, otto?" "i think we ought to be on our guard." "of course we must be on our guard." but the old druid caught the word. leaning on a staff, he helped himself up and exclaimed: "what's the meaning of this? be on your guard . . . against me! that's really a bit thick! treat me as a fake! why, haven't you seen my axe, with the pattern of the swastika? the swastika, the leading cabalistic symbol, eh, what? . . . and this? what do you call this?" he lifted his string of beads. "what do you call it? horse-chestnuts? you've got some cheek, you have, to give a name like that to serpents' eggs, 'eggs which they form out of slaver and the froth of their bodies mingled and which they cast into the air, hissing the while.' it's pliny's own words i'm quoting! you're not going to treat pliny also as a fake, i hope! . . . you're a pretty customer! putting yourself on your guard against me, when i have all my degrees as an ancient druid, all my diplomas, all my patents, all my certificates signed by pliny and chateaubriand! the cheek of you! . . . upon my word, you won't find many ancient druids of my sort, genuine, of the period, with the bloom of age upon them and a beard of centuries! i a fake, i, who boast every tradition and who juggle with the customs of antiquity! . . . shall i dance the ancient druid dance for you, as i did before julius caesar? would you like me to?" and, without waiting for a reply, the old man, flinging aside his staff, began to cut the most extravagant capers and to execute the wildest of jigs with perfectly astounding agility. and it was the most laughable sight to see him jumping and twisting about, with his back bent, his arms outstretched, his legs shooting to right and left from under his robe, his beard following the evolutions of his frisking body, while the bleating voice announced the successive changes in the performance: "the ancient druids' dance, or caesar's delight! hi-tiddly, hi-tiddly, hi-ti, hi! . . . the mistletoe dance, vulgarly known as the tickletoe! . . . the serpents' egg waltz, music by pliny! hullo there! begone, dull care! . . . the vorska, or the tango of the thirty coffins! . . . the hymn of the red prophet! hallelujah! hallelujah! glory be to the prophet!" he continued his furious jig a little longer and then suddenly halted before vorski and, in a solemn tone, said: "enough of this prattle! let us talk seriously, i am commissioned to hand you the god-stone. now that you are here, are you ready to take delivery of the goods?" the three accomplices were absolutely flabbergasted. vorski did not know what to do, was unable to make out who the infernal fellow was: "oh, shut up!" he shouted, angrily. "what do you want? what's your object?" "what do you mean, my object? i've just told you; to hand you the god-stone!" "but by what right? in what capacity?" the ancient druid nodded his head: "yes, i see what you're after. things are not happening in the least as you thought they would. of course, you came here feeling jolly spry, glad and proud of the work you had done. just think; furnishings for thirty coffins, four women crucified, shipwrecks, hands steeped in blood, murders galore. those things are no small beer; and you were expecting an imposing reception, with an official ceremony, solemn pomp and state, antique choirs, processions of bards and minstrels, human sacrifices and what not; the whole gallic bag of tricks! instead of which, a poor beggar of a druid, snoozing in a corner, who just simply offers you the goods. what a come down, my lords! can't be helped, vorski; we do what we can and every man acts according to the means at his disposal. i'm not a millionaire, you know; and i've already advanced you, in addition to the washing of a few white robes, some thirty francs forty for bengal lights, fountains of fire and a nocturnal earthquake." vorski started, suddenly understanding and beside himself with rage: "what! so it was . . ." "of course it was me! who did you think it was? st. augustine? unless you believed in an intervention of the gods and supposed that they took the trouble last night to send an archangel to the island, arrayed in a white robe, to lead you to the hollow oak! . . . really, you're asking too much!" vorski clenched his fists. so the man in white whom he had pursued the night before was no other than this impostor! "oh," he growled, "i'm not fond of having my leg pulled!" "having your leg pulled!" cried the old man. "you've got a cheek, old chap! who hunted me like a wild beast, till i was quite out of breath? and who drove bullets through my best sunday robe? i never knew such a fellow! it'll teach me to put my back into a job again!" "that'll do!" roared vorski. "that'll do. once more and for the last time . . . what do you want with me?" "i'm sick of telling you. i am commissioned to hand you the god-stone." "commissioned by whom?" "oh, hanged if i know! i've always been brought up to believe that some day a prince of almain would appear at sarek, one vorski, who would slay his thirty victims and to whom i was to make an agreed signal when his thirtieth victim had breathed her last. therefore, as i'm a slave to orders, i got together my little parcel, bought two bengal lights at three francs seventy-five apiece at a hardware shop in brest, _plus_ a few choice crackers, and, at the appointed hour, took up my perch in my observatory, taper in hand, all ready for work. when you started howling, in the top of the tree, 'she's dead! she's dead!' i thought that was the right moment, set fire to the lights and with my crackers shook the bowels of the earth. there! now you know all about it." vorski stepped forward, with his fists raised to strike. that torrent of words, that imperturbable composure, that calm, bantering voice put him beside himself. "another word and i'll knock you down!" he cried. "i've had enough of it." "is your name vorski?" "yes; and then?" "are you a prince of almain?" "yes, yes; and then?" "have you slain your thirty victims?" "yes, yes, yes!" "well, then you're my man. i have a god-stone to hand you and i mean to hand it you, come what may. that's the sort of hairpin i am. you've got to pocket it, your miracle-stone." "but i don't care a hang for the god-stone!" roared vorski, stamping his foot. "and i don't care a hang for you! i want nobody. the god-stone! why, i've got it, it's mine. i've got it on me." "let's have a look." "what do you call that?" said vorski, taking from his pocket the little stone disk which he had found in the pommel of the sceptre. "that?" asked the old man, with an air of surprise. "where did you get that from?" "from the pommel of this sceptre, when i unfastened it." "and what do you call it?" "it's a piece of the god-stone." "you're mad." "then what do you say it is?" "that's a trouser-button." "a what?" "a trouser-button." "how do you make that out?" "a trouser-button with the shaft broken off, a button of the sort which the niggers in the sahara wear. i've a whole set of them." "prove it, damn you!" "i put it there." "what for?" "to take the place of the precious stone which maguennoc sneaked, the one which burnt him and obliged him to cut off his hand." vorski was silent. he was nonplussed. he had no notion what to do next or how to behave towards this strange adversary. the ancient druid went up to him and, gently, in a fatherly voice: "no, my lad," he said, "you can't do without me, you see. i alone hold the key of the safe and the secret of the casket. why do you hesitate?" "i don't know you." "you baby! if i were suggesting something indelicate and incompatible with your honour, i could understand your scruples. but my offer is one of those which can't offend the nicest conscience. well, is it a bargain? no? not yet? but, by teutatès, what more do you want, you unbelieving vorski? a miracle perhaps? lord, why didn't you say so before? miracles, forsooth: i turn 'em out thirteen to the dozen. i work a little miracle before breakfast every morning. just think, a druid! miracles? why, i've got my shop full of 'em! i can't find room to sit down for them. where will you try first? resurrection department? hair-restoring department? revelation of the future department? you can choose where you like. look here, at what time did your thirtieth victim breathe her last?" "how should i know?" "eleven fifty-two. your excitement was so great that it stopped your watch. look and see." it was ridiculous. the shock produced by excitement has no effect on the watch of the man who experiences the excitement. nevertheless, vorski involuntarily took out his watch: it marked eight minutes to twelve. he tried to wind it up: it was broken. the ancient druid, without giving him time to recover his breath and reply, went on: "that staggers you, eh? and yet there's nothing simpler for a druid who knows his business. a druid sees the invisible. he does more: he makes anyone else see it if he wants to. vorski, would you like to see something that doesn't exist? what's your name? i'm not speaking of your name vorski, but of your real name, your governor's name." "silence on that subject!" vorski commanded. "it's a secret i've revealed to nobody." "then why do you write it down?" "i've never written it down." "vorski, your father's name is written in red pencil on the fourteenth page of the little note-book you carry on you. look and see." acting mechanically, like an automaton whose movements are controlled by an alien will, vorski took from his inside pocket a case containing a small note-book. he turned the pages till he came to the fourteenth, when he muttered, with indescribable dismay: "impossible! who wrote this? and you know what's written here?" "do you want me to prove it to you?" "once more, silence! i forbid you . . ." "as you please, old chap! all that i do is meant for your edification. and it's no trouble to me! once i start working miracles, i simply can't stop. here's another funny little trick. you carry a locket hanging from a silver chain round your shirt, don't you?" "yes," said vorski, his eyes blazing with fever. "the locket consists of a frame, without the photograph which used to be set in it." "yes, yes, a portrait of . . ." "of your mother, i know: and you lost it." "yes, i lost it last year." "you mean you _think_ you've lost the portrait." "nonsense, the locket is empty." "you _think_ the locket's empty. it's not. look and see." still moving mechanically, with his eyes starting from his head, vorski unfastened the button of his shirt and pulled out the chain. the locket appeared. there was the portrait of a woman in a round gold frame. "it's she, it's she," he muttered, completely taken aback. "quite sure?" "yes." "then what do you say to it all, eh? there's no fake about it, no deception. the ancient druid's a smart chap and you're coming with him, aren't you?" "yes." vorski was beaten. the man had subjugated him. his superstitious instincts, his inherited belief in the mysterious powers, his restless and unbalanced nature, all imposed absolute submission on him. his suspicion persisted, but did not prevent him from obeying. "is it far?" he asked. "next door, in the great hall." otto and conrad had been the astounded witnesses of this dialogue. conrad tried to protest. but vorski silenced him: "if you're afraid, go away. besides," he added, with an affectation of assurance, "besides, we shall walk with our revolvers ready. at the slightest alarm, fire." "fire on me?" chuckled the ancient druid. "fire on any enemy, no matter who it may be." "well, you go first, vorski . . . . what, won't you?" he had brought them to the very end of the crypt, in the darkest shadow, where the lantern showed them a recess hollowed at the foot of the wall and plunging into the rocks in a downward direction. vorski hesitated and then entered. he had to crawl on his hands and knees in this narrow, winding passage, from which he emerged, a minute later, on the threshold of a large hall. the others joined him. "the hall of the god-stone," the ancient druid declared, solemnly. it was lofty and imposing, similar in shape and size to the broad walk under which it lay. the same number of upright stones, which seemed to be the columns of an immense temple, stood in the same place and formed the same rows as the menhirs on the walk overhead: stones hewn in the same uncouth way, with no regard for art or symmetry. the floor was composed of huge irregular flagstones, intersected with a network of gutters and covered with round patches of dazzling light, falling from above at some distance one from the other. in the centre, under maguennoc's garden, rose a platform of unmortared stones, fourteen or fifteen feet high, with sides about twenty yards long. on the top was a dolmen with two sturdy supports and a long, oval granite table. "is that it?" asked vorski, in a husky voice. without giving a direct answer, the ancient druid said: "what do you think of it? they were dabs at building, those ancestors of ours! and what ingenuity they displayed! what precautions against prying eyes and profane enquiries! do you know where the light comes from? for we are in the bowels of the island and there are no windows opening on to the sky. the light comes from the upper menhirs. they are pierced from the top to bottom with a channel which widens as it goes down and which sheds floods of light below. in the middle of the day, when the sun is shining, it's like fairyland. you, who are an artist, would shout with admiration." "then that's _it_?" vorski repeated. "at any rate, it's a sacred stone," declared the ancient druid, impassively, "since it used to overlook the place of the underground sacrifices, which were the most important of all. but there is another one underneath, which is protected by the dolmen and which you can't see from here; and that is the one on which the selected victims were offered up. the blood used to flow from the platform and along all these gutters to the cliffs and down to the sea." vorski muttered, more and more excited: "then that's it? if so, let's go on." "no need to stir," said the old man, with exasperating coolness. "it's not that one either. there's a third; and to see that one you have only to lift your head a little." "where? are you sure?" "of course! take a good look . . . above the upper table, yes, in the very vault which forms the ceiling and which is like a mosaic made of great flagstones . . . . you can twig it from here, can't you? a flagstone forming a separate oblong, long and narrow like the lower table and shaped like it . . . . they might be two sisters . . . . but there's only one good one, stamped with the trademark . . . ." vorski was disappointed. he had expected a more elaborate introduction to a more mysterious hiding-place. "is that the god-stone?" he asked. "why, it has nothing particular about it." "from a distance, no; but wait till you see it close by. there are coloured veins in it, glittering lodes, a special grain: in short, the god-stone. besides, it's remarkable not so much for its substance as for its miraculous properties." "what are the miracles in question?" asked vorski. "it gives life and death, as you know, and it gives a lot of other things." "what sort of things?" "oh, hang it, you're asking me too much! i don't know anything about it." "how do you mean, you don't know?" the ancient druid leant over and, in a confidential tone: "listen, vorski," he said, "i confess that i have been boasting a bit and that my function, though of the greatest importance--keeper of the god-stone, you know, a first-class berth--is limited by a power which in a manner of speaking is higher than my own." "what power?" "velléda's." vorski eyed him with renewed uneasiness: "velléda?" "yes, or at least the woman whom i call velléda, the last of the druidesses: i don't know her real name." "where is she?" "here." "here?" "yes, on the sacrificial stone. she's asleep." "what, she's asleep?" "she's been sleeping for centuries, since all time. i've never seen her other than sleeping: a chaste and peaceful slumber. like the sleeping beauty, velléda is waiting for him whom the gods have appointed to awake her; and that is . . ." "who?" "you, vorski, you." vorski knitted his brows. what was the meaning of this improbable story and what was his impenetrable interlocutor driving at? the ancient druid continued: "that seems to ruffle you! come, there's no reason, just because your hands are red with blood and because you have thirty coffins on your mind, why you shouldn't have the right to act as prince charming. you're too modest, my young friend. look here, velléda is marvellously beautiful: i tell you, hers is a superhuman beauty. ah, my fine fellow, you're getting excited! what? not yet?" vorski hesitated. really he was feeling the danger increase around him and rise like a swelling wave that is about to break. but the old man would not leave him alone: "one last word, vorski; and i'm speaking low so that your friends shan't hear me. when you wrapped your mother in her shroud, you left on her fore-finger, in obedience to her formal wish, a ring which she had always worn, a magic ring made of a large turquoise surrounded by a circle of smaller turquoises set in gold. am i right?" "yes," gasped vorski, taken aback, "yes, you're right: but i was alone and it is a secret which nobody knew." "vorski, if that ring is on velléda's finger, will you trust me and will you believe that your mother, in her grave, appointed velléda to receive you, that she herself might hand you the miraculous stone?" vorski was already walking towards the tumulus. he quickly climbed the first few steps. his head passed the level of the platform. "oh," he said, staggering back, "the ring . . . the ring is on her finger!" between the two supports of the dolmen, stretched on the sacrificial table and clad in a spotless gown that came down to her feet, lay the druidess. her body and face were turned the other way; and a veil hanging over her forehead hid her hair. almost bare, her shapely arm lay along the table. on the forefinger was a turquoise ring. "is that your mother's ring all right?" asked the ancient druid. "yes, there's no doubt about it." vorski had hurried across the space between himself and the dolmen and, stooping, almost kneeling, was examining the turquoises. "the number is complete," he whispered. "one of them is cracked. another is half covered by the gold setting which has worked down over it." "you needn't be so cautious," said the old man. "she won't hear you; and your voice can't wake her. what you had better do is to stand up and pass your hand lightly over her forehead. that is the magic caress which will rouse her from her slumber." vorski stood up. nevertheless he hesitated to approach the woman, who inspired him with ungovernable fear and respect. "don't come any nearer, you two," said the ancient druid, addressing otto and conrad. "when velléda's eyes open, they must rest on no one but vorski and behold no other sight. well, vorski, are you afraid?" "no, i'm not afraid." "only you're not feeling comfortable. it's easier to murder people than to bring them to life, what? come, show yourself a man! put aside her veil and touch her forehead. the god-stone is within your reach. act and you will be the master of the world." vorski acted. standing against the sacrificial altar, he looked down upon the druidess. he bent over the motionless bust. the white gown rose and fell to the regular rhythm of the breathing. with an undecided hand he drew back the veil and then stooped lower, so that his other hand might touch the uncovered forehead. but at that moment his action remained, so to speak, suspended and he stood without moving, like a man who does not understand but is vainly trying to understand. "well, what's up, old chap?" exclaimed the druid. "you look petrified. another squabble? something gone wrong? must i come and help you?" vorski did not answer. he was staring wildly, with an expression of stupefaction and affright which gradually changed into one of mad terror. drops of perspiration trickled over his face. his haggard eyes seemed to be gazing upon the most horrible vision. the old man burst out laughing: "lord love us, how ugly you are! i hope the last of the druidesses won't raise her divine eyelids and see that hideous mug of yours! sleep, velléda, sleep your pure and dreamless sleep." vorski stood muttering between his teeth incoherent words which conveyed the menace of an increasing anger. the truth became partly revealed to him in a series of flashes. a word rose to his lips which he refused to utter, as though, in uttering it, he feared lest he should give life to a being who was no more, to that woman who was dead, yes, dead though she lay breathing before him: she could not but be dead, because he had killed her. however, in the end and in spite of himself, he spoke; and every syllable cost him intolerable suffering: "véronique . . . . véronique . . . ." "so you think she's like her?" chuckled the ancient druid. "upon my word, may be you are right: there is a sort of family resemblance . . . . i dare say, if you hadn't crucified the other with your own hands and if you hadn't yourself received her last breath, you would be ready to swear that the two women are one and the same person . . . and that véronique d'hergemont is alive and that she's not even wounded . . . not even a scar . . . not so much as the mark of the cords round her wrists . . . . but just look, vorski, what a peaceful face, what comforting serenity! upon my word, i'm beginning to believe that you made a mistake and that it was another woman you crucified! just think a bit! . . . hullo, you're going to go for me now! come to my rescue, o teutatès! the prophet wants to have my blood!" vorski had drawn himself up and was now facing the ancient druid. his features, fashioned for hatred and fury, had surely never expressed more of either than at this moment. the ancient druid was not merely the man who for an hour had been toying with him as with a child. he was the man who had performed the most extraordinary feat and who suddenly appeared to him as the most ruthless and dangerous foe. a man like that must be got rid of on the spot, since the opportunity presented itself. "i'm done!" said the old man. "he's going to eat me up! crikey, what an ogre! . . . help! murder! help! . . . oh, look at his iron fingers! he's going to strangle me! . . . unless he uses a dagger . . . or a rope . . . . no, a revolver! i prefer that, it's neater . . . . fire away, alexis. two of the seven bullets have already made holes in my best sunday robe. that leaves five. fire away, alexis." each word aggravated vorski's fury. he was eager to get the work over and he shouted: "otto . . . conrad . . . are you ready?" he raised his arm. the two assistants likewise took aim. four paces in front of them stood the old man, laughingly pleading for mercy: "please, kind gentlemen, have pity on a poor beggar . . . . i won't do it again . . . . i'll be a good boy . . . . kind gentlemen, please . . . ." vorski repeated: "otto . . . conrad . . . attention! . . . i'm counting three: one . . . two . . . three . . . fire!" the three shots rang out together. the druid whirled round with one leg in the air, then drew himself up straight, opposite his adversaries, and cried, in a tragic voice: "a hit, a palpable hit! shot through the body! dead, for a ducat! . . . the ancient druid's _kaput_! . . . a tragic development! oh, the poor old druid, who was so fond of his joke!" "fire!" roared vorski. "shoot, can't you, you idiots? fire!" "fire! fire!" repeated the druid. "bang! bang! a bull's eye! . . . two! . . . three bull's eyes! . . . your shot, conrad: bang! . . . yours, otto: bang!" the shots rattled and echoed through the great resounding hall. the bewildered and furious accomplices were gesticulating before their target, while the invulnerable old man danced and kicked, now almost squatting on his heels, now leaping up with astounding agility: "lord, what fun one can have in a cave! and what a fool you are, vorski, my own! you blooming old prophet! . . . what a mug! but, i say, however could you take it all in? the bengal lights! the crackers! and the trouser-button! and your old mother's ring! . . . you silly juggins! what a spoof!" vorski stopped. he realized that the three revolvers had been made harmless, but how? by what unprecedented marvel? what was at the bottom of all this fantastic adventure? who was that demon standing in front of him? he flung away his useless weapon and looked at the old man. was he thinking of seizing him in his arms and crushing the life out of him? he also looked at the woman and seemed ready to fall upon her. but he obviously no longer felt equal to facing those two strange creatures, who appeared to him to be remote from the world and from actuality. then, quickly, he turned on his heel and, calling to his accomplices, made for the crypts, followed by the ancient druid's jeers: "look at that now! he's slinging his hook! and the god-stone, what about it? what do you want me to do with it? . . . i say, isn't he showing a clean pair of heels! . . . hi! are your trousers on fire? yoicks, tally-ho, tally-ho! proph--et proph--et! . . ." chapter xv the hall of the underground sacrifices vorski had never known fear and he was perhaps not yielding to an actual sense of fear in taking to flight now. but he no longer knew what he was doing. his bewildered brain was filled with a whirl of contradictory and incoherent ideas in which the intuition of an irretrievable and to some extent supernatural defeat held the first place. believing as he did in witchcraft and wonders, he had an impression that vorski, the man of destiny, had fallen from his mission and been replaced by another chosen favourite of destiny. there were two miraculous forces opposed to each other, one emanating from him, vorski, the other from the ancient druid; and the second was absorbing the first. véronique's resurrection, the ancient druid's personality, the speeches, the jokes, the leaps and bounds, the actions, the invulnerability of that spring-heeled individual, all this seemed to him magical and fabulous; and it created, in these caves of the barbaric ages, a peculiar atmosphere which stifled and demoralized him. he was eager to return to the surface of the earth. he wanted to breathe and see. and what he wanted above all to see was the tree stripped of its branches to which he had tied véronique and on which véronique had expired. "for she _is_ dead," he snarled, as he crawled through the narrow passage which communicated with the third and largest of the crypts. "she _is_ dead. i know what death means. i have often held it in my hands and i make no mistakes. then how did that demon manage to bring her to life again?" he stopped abruptly near the block on which he had picked up the sceptre: "unless . . ." he said. conrad, following him, cried: "hurry up, instead of chattering." vorski allowed himself to be pulled along; but, as he went, he continued: "shall i tell you what i think, conrad? well, the woman he showed us, the one asleep, wasn't that one at all. was she even alive? oh, the old wizard is capable of anything! he'll have modelled a figure, a wax doll, and given it her likeness." "you're mad. get on!" "i'm not mad. that woman was not alive. the one who died on the tree is properly dead. and you'll find her again up there, i warrant you. miracles, yes, but not such a miracle as that!" having left their lantern behind them, the three accomplices kept bumping against the wall and the upright stones. their footsteps echoed from vault to vault. conrad never ceased grumbling: "i warned you . . . . we ought to have broken his head." otto, out of breath with walking, said nothing. thus, groping their way, they reached the lobby which preceded the entrance-crypt; and they were not a little surprised to find that this first hall was dark, though the passage which they had dug in the upper part, under the roots of the dead oak, ought to have given a certain amount of light. "that's funny," said conrad. "pooh!" said otto. "we've only got to find the ladder hooked to the wall. here, i have it . . . here's a step . . . and the next . . . ." he climbed the rungs, but was pulled up almost at once: "can't get any farther . . . . it's as if there had been a fall of earth." "impossible!" vorski protested. "however, wait a bit, i was forgetting: i have my pocket-lighter." he struck a light; and the same cry of anger escaped all three of them: the whole of the top of the staircase and half the room was buried under a heap of stones and sand, with the trunk of the dead oak fallen in the middle. not a chance of escape remained. vorski gave way to a fit of despair and collapsed on the stairs: "we're tricked. it's that old brute who has played us this trick . . . which shows that he's not alone." he bewailed his fate, raving, lacking the strength to continue the unequal struggle. but conrad grew angry: "i say, vorski, this isn't like you, you know." "there's nothing to be done against that fellow." "nothing to be done! in the first place, there's this, as i've told you twenty times: wring his neck. oh, why did i restrain myself?" "you couldn't even have laid a hand on him. did any of our bullets touch him?" "our bullets . . . our bullets," muttered conrad. "all this strikes me as mighty queer. hand me your lighter. i have another revolver, which comes from the priory: and i loaded it myself yesterday morning. i'll soon see." he examined the weapon and was not long in discovering that the seven cartridges which he had put in the cylinder had been replaced by seven cartridges from which the bullets had been extracted and which could therefore fire nothing except blank shots. "that explains it," he said, "and your ancient druid is no more of a wizard than i am. if our revolvers had been really loaded, we'd have shot him down like a dog." but the explanation only increased vorski's alarm: "and how did he unload them? at what moment did he manage to take our revolvers from our pockets and put them back after drawing the charges? i did not leave go of mine for an instant." "no more did i," conrad admitted. "and i defy any one to touch it without my knowing. so what then? doesn't it prove that that demon has a special power? after all, we must look at things as they are. he's a man who possesses secrets of his own . . . and who has means at his disposal, means which . . ." conrad shrugged his shoulders: "vorski, this business has shattered you. you were within reach of the goal and yet you let go at the first obstacle. you're turned into a dish-cloth. well, i don't bow my head like you. tricked? why so? if he comes after us, there are three of us." "he won't come. he'll leave us here shut up in a burrow with no way out of it." "then, if he doesn't come, i'll go back there, i will! i've got my knife; that's enough for me." "you're wrong, conrad." "how am i wrong? i'm a match for any man, especially for that old blighter; and he's only got a sleeping woman to help him." "conrad, he's not a man and she's not a woman. be careful." "i'm careful and i'm going." "you're going, you're going; but what's your plan?" "i've no plan. or rather, if i have, it's to out that beggar." "all the same, mind what you're doing. don't go for him bull-headed; try to take him by surprise." "well, of course!" said conrad, moving away. "i'm not ass enough to risk his attacks. be easy, i've got the bounder!" conrad's daring comforted vorski. "after all," he said, when his accomplice was gone, "he's right. if that old druid didn't come after us, it's because he's got other ideas in his head. he certainly doesn't expect us to return on the offensive; and conrad can very well take him by surprise. what do you say, otto?" otto shared his opinion: "he has only to bide his time," he replied. fifteen minutes passed. vorski gradually recovered his assurance. he had yielded to the reaction, after an excess of hope followed by disappointment too great for him to bear and also because of the weariness and depression produced by his drinking-bout. but the fighting spirit stimulated him once more; and he was anxious to have done with his adversary. "i shouldn't be surprised," he said, "if conrad had finished him off by now." by this time he had acquired an exaggerated confidence which proved his unbalanced state of mind; and he wanted to go back again at once. "come along, otto, it's the last trip. an old beggar to get rid of; and the thing's done. you've got your dagger? besides, it won't be wanted. my two hands will do the trick." "and suppose that blasted druid has friends?" "we'll see." he once more went towards the crypts, moving cautiously and watching the opening of the passages which led from one to the other. no sound reached their ears. the light in the third crypt showed them the way. "conrad must have succeeded," vorski observed. "if not, he would have shirked the fight and come back to us." otto agreed. "it's a good sign, of course, that we don't see him. the ancient druid must have had a bad time of it. conrad is a scorcher." they entered the third crypt. things were in the places where they had left them: the sceptre on the block and the pommel, which vorski had unfastened, a little way off, on the ground. but, when he cast his eyes towards the shadowy recess where the ancient druid was sleeping when they first arrived, he was astounded to see the old fellow, not exactly at the same place, but between the recess and the exit to the passage. "hang it, what's he doing?" he stammered, at once upset by that unexpected presence. "one would think he was asleep!" the ancient druid, in fact, appeared to be asleep. only, why on earth was he sleeping in that attitude, flat on his stomach, with his arms stretched out on either side and his face to the floor? no man on his guard, or at least aware that he was in some sort of danger, would expose himself in this way to the enemy's attack. moreover--vorski's eyes were gradually growing accustomed to the half-darkness of the end crypt--moreover the white robe was marked with stains which looked red, which undoubtedly were red. what did it mean? otto said, in a low voice: "he's lying in a queer attitude." vorski was thinking the same thing and put it more plainly: "yes, the attitude of a corpse." "the attitude of a corpse," otto agreed. "that's it, exactly." vorski presently fell back a step: "oh," he exclaimed, "can it be?" "what?" asked the other. "between the two shoulders . . . . look." "well?" "the knife." "what knife?" "conrad's," vorski declared. "conrad's dagger. i recognise it. driven in between the shoulders." and he added, with a shudder, "that's where the red stains come from . . . . it's blood . . . blood flowing from the wound." "in that case," otto remarked, "he is dead?" "he's dead, yes, the ancient druid is dead . . . . conrad must have surprised him and killed him . . . . the ancient druid is dead." vorski remained undecided for a while, ready to fall upon the lifeless body and to stab it in his turn. but he dared no more touch it now that it was dead than when it was alive; and all that he had the courage to do was to run and wrench the dagger from the wound. "ah," he cried, "you scoundrel, you've got what you deserve! and conrad is a champion. i shan't forget you, conrad, be sure of that." "where can conrad be?" "in the hall of the god-stone. ah, otto, i'm itching to get back to the woman whom the ancient druid put there and to settle her hash too!" "then you believe that she's a live woman?" chuckled otto. "and very much alive at that . . . like the ancient druid! that wizard was only a fake, with a few tricks of his own, perhaps, but no real power. there's the proof!" "a fake, if you like," the accomplice objected. "but, all the same, he showed you by his signals the way to enter these caves. now what was his object in that? and what was he doing here? did he really know the secret of the god-stone, the way to get possession of it and exactly where it is?" "you're right. it's all so many riddles," said vorski, who preferred not to examine the details of the adventure too closely. "but it's so many riddles which'll answer themselves and which i'm not troubling about for the moment, because it's no longer that creepy individual who's putting them to me." for the third time they went through the narrow communicating passage. vorski entered the great hall like a conqueror, with his head high and a confident glance. there was no longer any obstacle, no longer any enemy to overcome. whether the god-stone was suspended between the stones of the ceiling, or whether the god-stone was elsewhere, he was sure to discover it. there remained the mysterious woman who looked like véronique, but who could not be véronique and whose real identity he was about to unmask. "always presuming that she's still there," he muttered. "and i very much suspect that she's gone. she played her part in the ancient druid's obscure schemes: and the ancient druid, thinking me out of the way . . ." he stepped forward and climbed a few steps. the woman was there. she was there, lying on the lower table of the dolmen, shrouded in veils as before. the arm no longer hung towards the ground. there was only the hand emerging from the veils. the turquoise ring was on the finger. "she hasn't moved," said otto. "she's still asleep." "perhaps she is asleep," said vorski. "i'll watch her. leave me alone." he went nearer. he still had conrad's dagger in his hand: and perhaps it was this that suggested killing to him, for his eyes fell upon the weapon and it was not till then that he seemed to realise that he was carrying it and that he might make use of it. he was not more than three paces from the woman, when he perceived that the wrist which was uncovered was all bruised and as it were mottled with black patches, which evidently came from the cords with which she had been bound. now the ancient druid had remarked, an hour ago, that the wrists showed no signs of a bruise! this detail confounded him anew, first, because it proved to him that this was really the woman whom he had crucified, who had been taken down and who was now before his eyes and, secondly, because he was suddenly reentering the domain of miracles; and véronique's arm appeared to him, alternately, under two different aspects, as the arm of a living, uninjured woman and as the arm of a lifeless, tortured victim. his trembling hand clutched the dagger, clinging to it, in a manner of speaking, as the only instrument of salvation. once more in his confused brain the idea arose of striking, not to kill, because the woman must be dead, but of striking the invisible enemy who persisted in thwarting him and of conjuring all the evil spells at one blow. he raised his arm. he chose the spot. his face assumed an expression of extreme savagery, lit up with the joy of murder. and suddenly he swooped down, striking, like a madman, at random, ten times, twenty times, with a frenzied unbridling of all his instincts. "take that and die!" he spluttered. "another! . . . die! . . . and let's have an end of this . . . . you are the evil genius that's been resisting me . . . and now i'm killing you . . . . die and leave me free! . . . die so that i shall be the only master!" he stopped to take breath. he was exhausted. and while his haggard eyes stared blindly at the horrible spectacle of the lacerated corpse, he received the strange impression that a shadow was placing itself between him and the sunlight which came through the opening overhead. "do you know what you remind me of?" said a voice. he was dumbfounded. the voice was not otto's voice. and the voice continued, while he stood with his head lowered and stupidly holding his dagger planted in the dead woman's body: "do you know what you remind me of, vorski? you remind me of the bulls of my country. let me tell you that i am a spaniard and a great frequenter of the bull-ring. well, when our bulls have gored some poor old cab-horse that is only fit for the knacker's yard, they go back to the body, from time to time, turn it over, gore it again, keep on killing it and killing it. you're like them, vorski. you're seeing red. in order to defend yourself against the living enemy, you fall desperately on the enemy who is no longer alive; and it is death itself that you are trying to kill. what a silly beast you're making of yourself!" vorski raised his head. a man was standing in front of him, leaning against one of the uprights of the dolmen. the man was of the average height, with a slender, well-built figure, and seemed to be still young, notwithstanding his hair, which was turning grey at the temples. he wore a blue-serge jacket with brass buttons and a yachting-cap with a black peak. "don't trouble to rack your brains," he said. "you don't know me. let me introduce myself: don luis perenna, grandee of spain, a noble of many countries and prince of sarek. yes, don't be surprised: i've taken the title of prince of sarek, having a certain right to it." vorski looked at him without understanding. the man continued: "you don't seem very familiar with the spanish nobility. still, just test your memory: i am the gentleman who was to come to the rescue of the d'hergemont family and the people of sarek, the one whom your son françois was expecting with such simple faith . . . . well, are you there? . . . look, your companion, the trusty otto, he seems to remember! . . . but perhaps my other name will convey more to you? it is well and favourably known. lupin . . . . arsène lupin . . . ." vorski watched him with increasing terror and with a misgiving which became more accentuated at each word and movement of this new adversary. though he recognized neither the man nor the man's voice, he felt himself dominated by a will of which he had already felt the power and lashed by the same sort of implacable irony. but was it possible? "everything is possible," don luis perenna went on, "including even what you think. but i repeat, what a silly beast you're making of yourself! here are you playing the bold highwayman, the dashing adventurer; and you're frightened the moment you set eyes on one of your crimes! as long as it was just a matter of happy-go-lucky killing, you went straight ahead. but the first little jolt throws you off the track. vorski kills; but whom has he killed? he has no idea. is véronique d'hergemont dead or alive? is she fastened to the oak on which you crucified her? or is she lying here, on the sacrificial table? did you kill her up there or down here? you can't tell. you never even thought, before you stabbed, of looking to see what you were stabbing. the great thing for you is to slash away with all your might, to intoxicate yourself with the sight and smell of blood and to turn live flesh into a hideous pulp. but look, can't you, you idiot? when a man kills, he's not afraid of killing and he doesn't hide the face of his victim. look, you idiot!" he himself stopped over the corpse and unwrapped the veil around the head. vorski had closed his eyes. kneeling, with his chest pressed against the dead woman's legs, he remained without moving and kept his eyes obstinately shut. "are you there now?" chuckled don luis. "if you daren't look, it's because you've guessed or because you're on the point of guessing, you wretch: am i right? your idiot brain is working it out: am i right? there were two women in the isle of sarek and two only, véronique and the other . . . the other whose name was elfride, i understand: am i right? elfride and véronique, your two wives, one the mother of raynold, the other the mother of françois. so, if it's not françois' mother whom you tied on the cross and whom you've just stabbed, then it's raynold's mother. if the woman lying here, with her wrists bruised by the torture, is not véronique, then she's elfride. there's no mistake possible: elfride, your wife and your accomplice; elfride, your willing and subservient tool. and you know it so well that you would rather take my word for it than risk a glance and see the livid face of that dead woman, of your obedient accomplice tortured by yourself. you miserable poltroon!" vorski had hidden his head in his folded arms. he was not weeping. vorski could not weep. nevertheless, his shoulders were jerking convulsively; and his whole attitude expressed the wildest despair. this lasted for some time. then the shaking of the shoulders ceased. still vorski did not stir. "upon my word, you move me to pity, you poor old buffer!" said don luis. "were you so fond of your elfride as all that? she had become a habit, what? a mascot? well, what can i say? people as a rule aren't such fools as you! they know what they're doing. they look before they leap! hang it all, they stop to think! whereas you go floundering about in crime like a new-born babe struggling in the water! no wonder you sink and go to the bottom . . . . the ancient druid, for instance: is he dead or alive? did conrad stick a dagger into his back, or was i playing the part of that diabolical personage? in short, are there an ancient druid and a spanish grandee, or are the two individuals one and the same? this is all a sealed book to you, my poor fellow. and yet you'll want an explanation. shall i help you?" if vorski had acted without thinking, it was easy to see, when he raised his head, that on this occasion he had taken time to reflect; that he knew very well the desperate resolve which circumstances called upon him to take. he was certainly ready for an explanation, as don luis suggested, but he wanted it dagger in hand, with the implacable intention of using it. slowly, with his eyes fixed on don luis and without concealing his purpose, he had freed his weapon and was rising to his feet. "take care," said don luis. "your knife is faked as your revolver was. it's made of tin-foil." useless pleasantry! nothing could either hasten or delay the methodical impulse which urged vorski to the supreme contest. he walked round the sacred table and took up his stand in front of don luis. "you're sure it's you who have been thwarting all my plans these last few days?" "the last twenty-four hours, no longer. i arrived at sarek twenty-four hours ago." "and you're determined to go on to the end?" "yes; and farther still, if possible." "why? and in what capacity?" "as a sportsman; and because you fill me with disgust." "so there's no arrangement to be made?" "no." "would you refuse to go shares with me?" "ah, now you're talking!" "you can have half, if you like." "i'd rather have the lot." "meaning that the god-stone . . ." "the god-stone belongs to me." further speech was idle. an adversary of that quality has to be made away with; if not, he makes away with you. vorski had to choose between the two endings; there was not a third. don luis remained impassive, leaning against the pillar. vorski towered a head above him: and at the same time vorski had the profound impression that he was equally don luis' superior in every other respect, in strength, muscular power and weight. in these conditions, there was no need to hesitate. moreover, it seemed out of the question that don luis could even attempt to defend himself or to evade the blow before the dagger fell. his parry was bound to come late unless he moved at once. and he did not move. vorski therefore struck his blow with all certainty, as one strikes a quarry that is doomed beforehand. and yet--it all happened so quickly and so inexplicably that he could not tell what occurred to bring about his defeat--and yet, three or four seconds later, he was lying on the ground, disarmed, defeated, with his two legs feeling as though they had been broken with a stick and his right arm hanging limp and paining him till he cried out. don luis did not even trouble to bind him. with one foot on the big, helpless body, half-bending over his adversary, he said: "for the moment, no speeches. i'm keeping one in reserve for you. it'll strike you as a bit long, but it'll show you that i understand the whole business from start to finish, that is to say, much better than you do. there's one doubtful point: and you're going to clear it up. where's your son françois d'hergemont?" receiving no reply, he repeated: "where's françois d'hergemont?" vorski no doubt considered that chance had placed an unexpected trump in his hands and that the game was perhaps not absolutely lost, for he maintained an obstinate silence. "you refuse to answer?" asked don luis. "one . . . two . . . three times: do you refuse? . . . very well!" he gave a low whistle. four men appeared from a corner of the hall, four men with swarthy faces, resembling moors. like don luis, they wore jackets and sailor's caps with shiny peaks. a fifth person arrived almost immediately afterwards, a wounded french officer, who had lost his right leg and wore a wooden leg in its place. "ah, is that you, patrice?" said don luis. he introduced him formally: "captain patrice belval, my greatest friend; mr. vorski, a hun." then he asked: "no news, captain? you haven't found françois?" "no." "we shall have found him in an hour and then we'll be off. are all our men on board?" "yes." "everything all right there?" "quite." he turned to the three moors: "pick up the hun," he ordered, "and carry him up to the dolmen outside. you needn't bind him: he couldn't move a limb if he tried. oh, one minute!" he leant over vorski's ear: "before you start, have a good look at the god-stone, between the flags in the ceiling. the ancient druid wasn't lying to you. it _is_ the miraculous stone which people have been seeking for centuries . . . and which i discovered from a distance . . . by correspondence. say good-bye to it, vorski! you will never see it again, if indeed you are ever to see anything in this world." he made a sign with his hand. the four moors briskly took up vorski and carried him to the back of the hall, on the side opposite the communicating passage. turning to otto, who had stood throughout this scene without moving: "i see that you're a reasonable fellow, otto, and that you understand the position. you won't get up to any tricks?" "no." "then we shan't touch you. you can come along without fear." he slipped his arm through belval's and the two walked away, talking. they left the hall of the god-stone through a series of three crypts, each of which was on a higher level than the one before. the last of them also led to a vestibule. at the far side of the vestibule, a ladder stood against a lightly-built wall in which an opening had been newly made. through this they emerged into the open air, in the middle of a steep path, cut into steps, which wound about as it climbed upwards in the rock and which brought them to that part of the cliff to which françois had taken véronique on the previous morning. it was the postern path. from above they saw, hanging from two iron davits, the boat in which véronique and her son had intended to take flight. not far away, in a little bay, was the long, tapering outline of a submarine. turning their backs to the sea, don luis and patrice belval continued on their way towards the semicircle of oaks and stopped near the fairies' dolmen, where the moors were waiting for them. they had set vorski down at the foot of the tree on which his last victim had died. nothing remained on the tree to bear witness to the abominable torture except the inscription, "v. d'h." "not too tired, vorski?" asked don luis. "legs feeling better?" vorski gave a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. "yes, i know," said don luis. "you're pinning your faith to your last card. still, i would have you know that i also hold a few trumps and that i have a rather artistic way of playing them. the tree behind you should be more than enough to tell you so. would you like another instance? while you're getting muddled with all your murders and are no longer sure of the number of your victims, i bring them to life again. look at that man coming from the priory. do you see him? he's wearing a blue reefer with brass buttons, like myself. he's one of your dead men, isn't he? you locked him up in one of the torture-chambers, intending to cast him into the sea; and it was your sweet cherub of a raynold who hurled him down before véronique's eyes. do you remember? stéphane maroux his name was. he's dead, isn't he? no, not a bit of it! a wave of my magic wand; and he's alive again. here he is. i take him by the hand. i speak to him." going up to the newcomer, he shook hands with him and said: "you see, stéphane? i told you that it would be all over at twelve o'clock precisely and that we should meet at the dolmen. well, it is twelve o'clock precisely." stéphane seemed in excellent health. he showed not a sign of a wound. vorski looked at him in dismay and stammered: "the tutor . . . . stéphane maroux . . . ." "the man himself," said don luis. "what did you expect? here again you behaved like an idiot. the adorable raynold and you throw a man into the sea and don't even think of leaning over to see what becomes of him. i pick him up . . . . and don't be too badly staggered, old chap. it's only the beginning; and i have a few more tricks in my bag. remember, i'm a pupil of the ancient druid's! . . . well, stéphane, where do we stand? what's the result of your search?" "nothing." "françois?" "not to be found." "and all's well? did you send him on his master's tracks, as we arranged?" "yes, but he simply took me down the postern path to françois' boat." "there's no hiding-place on that side?" "not one." don luis was silent and began to pace up and down before the dolmen. he seemed to be hesitating at the last moment, before beginning the series of actions upon which he had resolved. at last, addressing vorski, he said: "i have no time to waste. i must leave the island in two hours. what's your price for setting françois free at once?" "françois fought a duel with raynold," vorski replied, "and was beaten." "you lie. françois won." "how do you know? did you see them fight?" "no, or i should have interfered. but i know who was the victor." "no one knows except myself. they were masked." "then, if françois is dead, it's all up with you." vorski took time to think. the argument allowed of no debate. he put a question in his turn: "well, what do you offer me?" "your liberty." "and with it?" "nothing." "yes, the god-stone." "_never!_" don luis shouted the word, accompanying it with a vehement gesture of the hand, and he explained: "never! your liberty, yes, if the worst comes to the worst and because i know you and know that, denuded of all resources, you will simply go and get yourself hanged somewhere else. but the god-stone would spell safety, wealth, the power to do evil . . ." "that's exactly why i want it," said vorski; "and, by telling me what it's worth, you make me all the more difficult in the matter of françois." "i shall find françois all right. it's only a question of patience; and i shall stay two or three days longer, if necessary." "you will not find him; and, if you do, it will be too late." "why?" "because he has had nothing to eat since yesterday." this was said coldly and maliciously. there was a silence; and don luis retorted: "in that case, speak, if you don't want him to die." "what do i care? anything rather than fail in my task and stop midway when i've got so far. the end is within sight: those who get in my way must look out for themselves." "you lie. you won't let that boy die." "i let the other die right enough!" patrice and stéphane made a movement of horror, while don luis laughed frankly: "capital! there's no hypocrisy about you. plain and convincing arguments. by jingo, how beautiful to see a hun laying bare his soul! what a glorious mixture of vanity and cruelty, of cynicism and mysticism! a hun has always a mission to fulfil, even when he's satisfied with plundering and murdering. well, you're better than a hun: you're a superhun!" and he added, still laughing: "so i propose to treat you as superhun. once more, will you tell me where françois is?" "no." "all right." he turned to the four moors and said, very calmly: "go ahead, lads." it was a matter of a second. with really extraordinary precision of gesture and as though the act had been separated into a certain number of movements, learnt and rehearsed beforehand like a military drill, they picked up vorski, fastened him to the rope which hung to the tree, hoisted him up without paying attention to his cries, his threats or his shouts and bound him firmly, as he had bound his victim. "howl away, old chap," said don luis, serenely, "howl as much as you like! you can only wake the sisters archignat and the others in the thirty coffins! howl away, my lad! but, good lord, how ugly you are! what a face!" he took a few steps back, to appreciate the sight better: "excellent! you look very well there; it couldn't be better. even the inscription fits: 'v. d'h.,' vorski de hohenzollern! for i presume that, as the son of a king, you are allied to that noble house. and now, vorski, all you have to do is to lend me an attentive ear: i'm going to make you the little speech i promised you." vorski was wriggling on the tree and trying to burst his bonds. but, since every effort merely served to increase his suffering, he kept still and, to vent his fury, began to swear and blaspheme most hideously and to inveigh against don luis: "robber! murderer! it's you that are the murderer, it's you that are condemning françois to death! françois was wounded by his brother; it's a bad wound and may be poisoned . . . ." stéphane and patrice pleaded with don luis. stéphane expressed his alarm: "you can never tell," he said. "with a monster like that, anything is possible. and suppose the boy's ill?" "it's bunkum and blackmail!" don luis declared. "the boy's quite well." "are you sure?" "well enough, in any case, to wait an hour. in an hour the superhun will have spoken. he won't hold out any longer. hanging loosens the tongue." "and suppose he doesn't hold out at all?" "what do you mean?" "suppose he himself expires, from too violent an effort, heart-failure, a clot of blood to the head?" "well?" "well, his death would destroy the only hope we have of learning where françois is hidden, his death would be françois' undoing!" but don luis was inflexible: "he won't die!" he cried. "vorski's sort doesn't die of a stroke! no, no, he'll talk, he'll talk within an hour. just time enough to deliver my lecture." patrice belval began to laugh in spite of himself: "have you a lecture to deliver?" "rather! and such a lecture!" exclaimed don luis. "the whole adventure of the god-stone! an historical treatise, a comprehensive view extending from prehistoric times to the thirty murders committed by the superhun! by jove, it's not every day that one has the opportunity of reading a paper like that; and i wouldn't miss it for a kingdom! mount the platform, don luis, and fire away with your speech!" he took his stand opposite vorski: "you lucky dog, you! you're in the front seats and you won't lose a word. i expect you're glad, eh, to have a little light thrown upon your darkness? we've been floundering about so long that it's time we had a definite lead. i assure you i'm beginning not to know where i am. just think, a riddle which has lasted for centuries and centuries and which you've merely muddled still further." "thief! robber!" snarled vorski. "insults? why? if you're not comfortable, let's talk about françois." "never! he shall die." "not at all, you'll talk. i give you leave to interrupt me. when you want me to stop, all you've got to do is to whistle a tune: '_en r'venant de la r'vue_,' or _tipperary_. i'll at once send to see; and, if you've told the truth, we'll leave you here quietly, otto will untie you and you can be off in françois' boat. is it agreed?" he turned to stéphane and patrice belval: "sit down, my friends," he said, "for it will take rather long. but, if i am to be eloquent, i need an audience . . . and an audience who will also act as judges." "we're only two," said patrice. "you're three." "with whom?" "here's your third." it was all's well. he came trotting along, without hurrying more than usual. he frisked round stéphane, wagged his tail to don luis, as though to say, "i know you: you and i are pals," and squatted on his hind-quarters, with the air of one who does not wish to disturb people. "that's right, all's well!" cried don luis. "you also want to hear all about the adventure. your curiosity does you honour; and i won't disappoint you." don luis appeared to be delighted. he had an audience, a full bench of judges. vorski was writhing on his tree. it was an exquisite moment. he cut a sort of caper which must have reminded vorski of the ancient druid's pirouettes and, drawing himself up, bowed, imitated a lecturer taking a sip of water from a tumbler, rested his hands on an imaginary table and at last began, in a deliberate voice: "ladies and gentlemen: "on the twenty-fifth of july, in the year seven hundred and thirty-two b. c. . . ." chapter xvi the hall of the kings of bohemia don luis interrupted himself after delivering his opening sentence and stood enjoying the effect produced. captain belval, who knew his friend, was laughing heartily. stéphane continued to look anxious. all's well had not budged. don luis continued: "let me begin by confessing, ladies and gentlemen, that my object in fixing my date so precisely was to some extent to stagger you. in reality i could not tell you within a few centuries the exact date of the scene which i shall have the honour of describing to you. but what i can guarantee is that it is laid in that country of europe which to-day we call bohemia and at the spot where the little industrial town of joachimsthal now stands. that, i hope, is fairly circumstantial. well, on the morning of the day when my story begins, there was great excitement among one of those celtic tribes which had settled a century or two earlier between the banks of the danube and the sources of the elbe, amidst the hyrcanian forests. the warriors, assisted by their wives, were striking their tents, collecting the sacred axes, the bows and arrows, gathering up the pottery, the bronze and tin implements, loading the horses and the oxen. "the chiefs were here, there and everywhere, attending to the smallest details. there was neither tumult nor disorder. they started early in the direction of a tributary of the elbe, the eger, which they reached towards the end of the day. here boats were waiting, guarded by a hundred of the picked warriors who had been sent ahead. one of these boats was conspicuous for its size and the richness of its decoration. a long yellow cloth was stretched from side to side. the chief of chiefs, the king, if you prefer, climbed on the stern thwart and made a speech which i will spare you, because i do not wish to shorten my own, but which may be summed up as follows: the tribe was emigrating to escape the cupidity of the neighbouring populations. it is always sad to leave the places where one has dwelt. but it made no difference to the men of the tribe, because they were carrying with them their most valuable possession, the sacred inheritance of their ancestors, the divinity that protected them and made them formidable and great among the greatest, in short, the stone that covered the tomb of their kings. "and the chief of chiefs, with a solemn gesture, drew the yellow cloth and revealed a block of granite in the shape of a slab about two yards by one, granular in appearance and dark in colour, with a few glittering scales gleaming in its substance. "there was a single shout raised by the crowd of men and women; and all, with outstretched arms, fell flat on their faces in the dust. "then the chief of chiefs took up a metal sceptre with a jewelled handle, which lay on the block of granite, brandished it on high and spoke: "'the all-powerful staff shall not leave my hand until the miraculous stone is in a place of safety. the all-powerful staff is born of the miraculous stone. it also contains the fire of heaven, which gives life or death. while the miraculous stone was the tomb of my forefathers, the all-powerful staff never left their hands on days of disaster or of victory. may the fire of heaven lead us! may the sun-god light our way!' "he spoke: and the whole tribe set out upon its journey." don luis struck an attitude and repeated, in a self-satisfied tone: "he spoke: and the whole tribe set out upon its journey." patrice belval was greatly amused; and stéphane, infected by his hilarity, began to feel more cheerful. but don luis now addressed his remarks to them: "there's nothing to laugh at! all this is very serious. it's not a story for children who believe in conjuring tricks and sleight of hand, but a real history, all the details of which will, as you shall see, give rise to precise, natural and, in a sense, scientific explanations. yes, ladies and gentlemen, scientific: i am not afraid of the word. we are here on scientific ground; and vorski himself will regret his cynical merriment." don luis took a second sip of water and continued: "for weeks and months the tribe followed the course of the elbe; and one evening, on the stroke of half-past nine, reached the sea-board, in the country which afterwards became the country of the frisians. it remained there for weeks and months, without finding the requisite security. it therefore determined upon a fresh exodus. "this time it was a naval exodus. thirty boats put out to sea--observe this number thirty, which was that of the families composing the tribe--and for weeks and months they wandered from shore to shore, settling first in scandinavia, next among the saxons, driven off, putting to sea again and continuing their voyage. and i assure you it was really a strange, moving, impressive sight to see this vagrant tribe dragging in its wake the tombstone of its kings and seeking a safe, inaccessible and final refuge in which to conceal its idol, protect it from the attack of its enemies, celebrate its worship and employ it to consolidate the tribal power. "the last stage was ireland; and it was here that, one day, after they had dwelt in the green isle for half a century or perhaps a century, after their manners had acquired a certain softening by contact with nations which were already less barbarous, the grandson or great-grandson of the great chief, himself a great chief, received one of the emissaries whom he maintained in the neighbouring countries. this one came from the continent. he had discovered the miraculous refuge. it was an almost unapproachable island, protected by thirty rocks and having thirty granite monuments to guard it. "thirty! the fateful number! it was an obvious summons and command from the mysterious deities. the thirty galleys were launched once more and the expedition set forth. "it succeeded. they took the island by assault. the natives they simply exterminated. the tribe settled down; and the tombstone of the kings of bohemia was installed . . . in the very place which it occupies to-day and which i showed to our friend vorski. here i must interpolate a few historical data of the greatest significance. i will be brief." adopting a professorial tone, don luis explained: "the island of sarek, like all france and all the western part of europe, had been inhabited for thousands of years by a race known as the liguri, the direct descendants of the cave-dwellers part of whose manners and customs they had retained. they were mighty builders, those liguri, who, in the neolithic period, perhaps under the influence of the great civilizations of the east, had erected their huge blocks of granite and built their colossal funeral chambers. "it was here that our tribe found and made great use of a system of caves and natural crypts adapted by the patient hand of man and of a cluster of enormous monuments which struck the mystic and superstitious imagination of the celts. "we find therefore that, after the first or wandering phase, there begins for the god-stone a period of rest and worship which we will call the druidical period. it lasted for a thousand or fifteen hundred years. the tribe became mingled with the neighbouring tribes and probably lived under the protection of some breton king. but, little by little, the ascendancy had passed from the chiefs to the priests; and these priests, that is to say, the druids, assumed an authority which increased in the course of the generations that followed. "they owed this authority, beyond all doubt, to the miraculous stone. true, they were the priests of a religion accepted by all and also the instructors of gallic childhood (it seems certain, incidentally, that the cells under the black heath were those of a druid convent, or rather a sort of university); true, in obedience to the practices of the time, they presided over human sacrifices and ordained the gathering of the mistletoe, the vervain and all the magic herbs; but, before all, in the island of sarek, they were the guardians and the possessors of the stone which gave life or death. placed above the hall of the underground sacrifices, it was at that time undoubtedly visible in the open air; and i have every reason to believe that the fairies' dolmen, which we now see here, then stood in the place known as the calvary of the flowers and sheltered the god-stone. it was there that ailing and crippled persons and sickly children were laid to recover their health and strength. it was on the sacred slab that barren women became fruitful, on the sacred slab that old men felt their energies revive. "in my eyes it dominates the whole of the legendary and fabled past of brittany. it is the radiating centre of all the superstitions, all the beliefs, all the fears and hopes of the country. by virtue of the stone or of the magic sceptre which the archdruid wielded and with which he burnt men's flesh or healed their sores at will, we see the beautiful tales of romance springing spontaneously into being, tales of the knights of the round table, tales of merlin the wizard. the stone is at the bottom of every mystery, at the heart of every symbol. it is darkness and light in one, the great riddle and the great explanation." don luis uttered these last words with a certain exaltation. he smiled: "don't let yourself be carried away, vorski. we'll keep our enthusiasm for the narrative of your crimes. for the moment, we are at the climax of the druidical period, a period which lasted far beyond the druids through long centuries during which, after the druids had gone, the miraculous stone was exploited by the sorcerers and soothsayers. and thus we come gradually to the third period, the religious period, that is to say, actually to the progressive decline of all that constituted the glory of sarek: pilgrimages, commemorative festivals and so forth. "the church in fact was unable to put up with that crude fetish-worship. as soon as she was strong enough, she was bound to fight against the block of granite which attracted so many believers and perpetuated so hateful a religion. the fight was an unequal one; and the past succumbed. the dolmen was moved to where we stand, the slab of the kings of bohemia was buried under a layer of earth and a calvary rose at the very spot where the sacrilegious miracles were once wrought. "and, over and above that, there was the great oblivion! "let me explain. the practices were forgotten. the rites were forgotten and all that constituted the history of a vanished cult. but the god-stone was not forgotten. men no longer knew where it was. in time they even no longer knew what it was. but they never ceased to speak of and believe in the existence of something which they called the god-stone. from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation, they handed down on to one another fabulous and terrible stories, which became farther and farther removed from reality, which formed a more and more vague and, for that matter, a more and more frightful legend, but which kept alive in their imaginations the recollection of the god-stone and, above all, its name. "this persistence of an idea in men's memories, this survival of a fact in the annals of a country had the logical result that, from time to time, some enquiring person would try to reconstruct the prodigious truth. two of these enquiring persons, brother thomas, a member of the benedictine order, who lived in the middle of the fifteenth century, and the man maguennoc, in our own time, played an important part. brother thomas was a poet and an illuminator about whom we possess not many details, a very bad poet, to judge by his verses, but as an illuminator ingenuous and not devoid of talent. he left a sort of missal in which he related his life at sarek abbey and drew the thirty dolmens of the island, the whole accompanied by instances, religious quotations and predictions after the manner of nostradamus. it was this missal, discovered by maguennoc aforesaid, that contained the famous page with the crucified women and the prophecy relating to sarek; it was this missal that i myself found and consulted last night in maguennoc's bedroom. "he was an odd person, this maguennoc, a belated descendant of the sorcerers of old; and i strongly suspect him of playing the ghost on more than one occasion. you may be sure that the white-robed, white-bearded druid whom people declared that they had seen on the sixth day of the moon, gathering the mistletoe, was none other than maguennoc. he too knew all about the good old recipes, the healing herbs, the way to work up the soil so as to make it yield enormous flowers. one thing is certain, that he explored the mortuary crypts and the hall of the sacrifices, that it was he who purloined the magic stone contained in the knob of the sceptre and that he used to enter these crypts by the opening through which we have just come, in the middle of the postern path, of which he was obliged each time to replace the screen of stones and pebbles. it was he also who gave m. d'hergemont the page from the missal. whether he confided the result of his last explorations to him and how much exactly m. d'hergemont knew does not matter now. another figure looms into sight, one who is henceforth the embodiment of the whole affair and claims all our attention, an emissary dispatched by fate to solve the riddle of the centuries, to carry out the orders of the mysterious powers and to pocket the god-stone. i am speaking of vorski." don luis swallowed his third glass of water and, beckoning to the accomplice, said: "otto, you had better give him a drink, if he's thirsty. are you thirsty, vorski?" vorski on his tree seemed exhausted, incapable of further effort or resistance. stéphane and patrice once more intervened on his behalf, fearing an immediate consummation. "not at all, not at all!" cried don luis. "he's all right and he'll hold out until i've finished my speech, if it were only because he wants to know. you're tremendously interested, aren't you, vorski?" "robber! murderer!" spluttered the wretched man. "splendid! so you still refuse to tell us where françois is hidden?" "murderer! highwayman!" "then stay where you are, old chap. as you please. there's nothing better for the health than a little suffering. besides, you have caused so much suffering to others, you dirty scum!" don luis uttered these words harshly and in accents of anger which one would hardly have expected from a man who had already beheld so many crimes and battled with so many criminals. but then this last one was out of all proportion. don luis continued: "about thirty-five years ago, a very beautiful woman, who came from bohemia but who was of hungarian descent, visited the watering-places that swarm around the bavarian lakes and soon achieved a great reputation as a fortune-teller palmist, seer and medium. she attracted the attention of king louis ii, wagner's friend, the man who built bayreuth, the crowned mad-man famed for his extravagant fancies. the intimacy between the king and the clairvoyant lasted for some years. it was a violent, restless intimacy, interrupted by the frequent whims of the king; and it ended tragically on the mysterious evening when louis of bavaria threw himself out of his boat into the starnbergersee. was it really, as the official version stated, suicide following on a fit of madness? or was it a case of murder, as some have held? why suicide? why murder? these are questions that have never been answered. but one fact remains: the bohemian woman was in the boat with louis ii and next day was escorted to the frontier and expelled from the country after her money and jewellery had been taken from her. "she brought back with her from this adventure a young monster, four years old, alex vorski by name, which young monster lived with his mother near the village of joachimsthal in bohemia. here, in course of time, she instructed him in all the practices of hypnotic suggestion, extralucidity and trickery. endowed with a character of unexampled violence but a very weak intellect, a prey to hallucinations and nightmares, believing in spells, in predictions, in dreams, in occult powers, he took legends for history and falsehoods for reality. one of the numerous legends of the mountains in particular had impressed his imagination: it was the one that describes the fabulous power of a stone which, in the dim recesses of the past, was carried away by evil genii and which was one day to be brought back by the son of a king. the peasants still show the cavity left by the stone in the side of a hill. "'the king's son is yourself,' his mother used to say. 'and, if you find the missing stone, you will escape the dagger that threatens you and will yourself become a king.' "this ridiculous prophecy and another, no less fantastic, in which the bohemian woman announced that her son's wife would perish on the cross and that he himself would die by the hand of a friend, were among those which exercised the most direct influence on vorski when the fateful hour struck. and i will go straight on to this fateful hour, without saying any more of what our conversations of yesterday and last night revealed to the three of us or of what we have been able to reconstruct. there is no reason to repeat in full the story which you, stéphane, told véronique d'hergemont in your cell. there is no need to inform you, patrice, you, vorski, or you, all's well, of events with which you are familiar, such as your marriage, vorski, or rather your two marriages, first with elfride and next with véronique d'hergemont, the kidnapping of françois by his grandfather, the disappearance of véronique, the searches which you set on foot to find her, your conduct at the outbreak of the war and your life in the internment-camps. these are mere trifles besides the events which are on the point of taking place. we have cleared up the history of the god-stone. it is the modern adventure, which you, vorski, have woven around the god-stone, that we are now about to unravel. "in the beginning it appears like this: vorski is imprisoned in an internment-camp near pontivy in brittany. he no longer calls himself vorski, but lauterbach. fifteen months before, after a first escape and at the moment when the court martial was about to sentence him to death as a spy, he escaped again, spent some time in the forest of fontainebleau, there found one of his former servants, a man called lauterbach, a german like himself and like himself an escaped prisoner, killed him, dressed the body in his clothes and made the face up in such a way as to give him the appearance of his murderer, vorski. the military police were taken in and had the sham vorski buried at fontainebleau. as for the real vorski, he had the bad luck to be arrested once more, under his new name of lauterbach, and to be interned in the camp at pontivy. "so much for vorski. on the other hand, elfride, his first wife, the formidable accomplice in all his crimes and herself a german--i have some particulars about her and their past life in common which are of no importance and need not be mentioned here--elfride, i was saying, his accomplice, was hidden with their son raynold in the cells of sarek. he had left her there to spy on m. d'hergemont and through him to ascertain véronique d'hergemont's whereabouts. the reasons which prompted the wretched woman's actions i do not know. it may have been blind devotion, fear of vorski, an instinctive love of evil-doing, hatred of the rival who supplanted her. it doesn't matter. she has suffered the most terrible punishment. let us speak only of the part she played, without seeking to understand how she had the courage to live for three years underground, never going out except at night, stealing food for herself and her son and patiently awaiting the day when she could serve and save her lord and master. "i am also ignorant of the series of events that enabled her to take action, nor do i know how vorski and elfride managed to communicate. but what i know most positively is that vorski's escape was long and carefully prepared by his first wife. every detail arranged. every precaution was taken. on the fourteenth of september of last year, vorski escaped, taking with him the two accomplices with whom he had made friends during his captivity and whom he had, so to speak, enrolled: the otto and conrad whom you know of. "it was an easy journey. at every cross-roads, an arrow, accompanied by a number, one of a series, and surmounted by the initials 'v. d'h.,' which initials were evidently selected by vorski, pointed out the road which he was to follow. at intervals, in a deserted cabin, some provisions were hidden under a stone or in a truss of hay. the way led through guémené, le faouet and rosporden and ended on the beach at beg-meil. "here elfride and raynold came by night to fetch the three fugitives in honorine's motor-boat and to land them near the druid cells under the black heath. they clambered up. their lodgings were ready for them and, as you have seen, were fairly comfortable. the winter passed; and vorski's plan, which as yet was very vague, became more precisely outlined from day to day. "strange to say, at the time of his first visit to sarek, before the war, he had not heard of the secret of the island. it was elfride who told him the legend of the god-stone in the letters which she wrote to him at pontivy. you can imagine the effect produced by this revelation on a man like vorski. the god-stone was bound to be the miraculous stone wrested from the soil of his native land, the stone which was to be discovered by the son of a king and which, from that time onward, would give him power and royalty. everything that he learnt later confirmed his conviction. but the great fact that dominates his subterranean life at sarek was the discovery of brother thomas' prophecy in the course of the last month. fragments of this prophecy were lingering on every hand, which he was able to pick up by listening to the conversations of the fisherfolk in the evenings, lurking under the windows of the cottages or on the roofs of the barns. within mortal memory, the people of sarek have always feared some terrible events, connected with the discovery and the disappearance of the invisible stone. there was likewise always a question of wrecks and of women crucified. besides, vorski was acquainted with the inscription on the fairies' dolmen, about the thirty victims destined for the thirty coffins, the martyrdom of the four women, the god-stone which gives life or death. what a number of disturbing coincidences for a mind as weak as his! "but the prophecy itself, found by maguennoc in the illuminated missal, constitutes the essential factor of the whole story. remember that maguennoc had torn out the famous page and that m. d'hergemont, who was fond of drawing, had copied it several times and had unconsciously given to the principal woman the features of his daughter véronique. vorski became aware of the existence of the original and of one of the copies when he saw maguennoc one night looking at them by the light of his lamp. immediately, in the darkness, he contrived somehow to pencil in his note-book the fifteen lines of this precious document. he now knew and understood everything. he was dazzled by a blinding light. all the scattered elements were gathered into a whole, forming a compact and solid truth. there was no doubt possible: the prophecy concerned _him_! and it was _his_ mission to realize it! "this, i repeat, is the essence of the whole matter. from that moment, vorski's path was lighted by a beacon. he held in his hand ariadne's clue of thread. the prophecy represented to him an unimpeachable text. it was one of the tables of the law. it was the bible. and yet think of the stupidity, of the unspeakable silliness of those fifteen lines scribbled at a venture, with no other motive than rhyme! not a phrase showing a sign of inspiration! not a spark, not a gleam! not a trace of the sacred madness that uplifted the delphian pythoness or provoked the delirious visions of a jeremiah or an ezekiel! nothing! syllables, rhymes! nothing! less than nothing! but quite enough to enlighten the gentle vorski and to make him burn with all the enthusiasm of a neophyte! "stéphane, patrice, listen to the prophecy of brother thomas. the superhun wrote it down on ten different pages of his note-book, so that he might wear it ten times next to his skin and engrave it in the very substance of his being. here's one of the pages. stéphane, patrice, listen! listen, o faithful otto! and you yourself, vorski, for the last time listen to the doggerel of brother thomas! listen as i read! "in sarek's isle, in year fourteen and three, there will be shipwrecks, terrors, grief and crimes, death-chambers, arrows, poison there will be and woe, four women crucified on tree! for thirty coffins victims thirty times. "before his mother's eyes, abel kills cain. the father then, coming forth of almain, a cruel prince, obeying destiny, by thousand deaths and lingering agony, his wedded wife one night of june hath slain. "fire and loud noise will issue from the earth in secrecy where the great treasure lies and man again will on the stone set eyes once stolen from wild men in byegone days o'er the sea; the god-stone which gives life or death." don luis perenna had begun to read in emphatic tones, bringing out the imbecility of the words and the triteness of the rhythm. he ended in a hollow voice, without resonance, which died away in an anguished silence. the whole adventure appeared in all its horror. he continued: "you understand how the facts are linked together, don't you stéphane, you who were one of the victims and who knew or know the others? so do you, patrice, don't you? in the fifteenth century, a poor monk, with a disordered imagination and a brain haunted by infernal visions, expresses his dreams in a prophecy which we will describe as bogus, which rests on no serious data, which consists of details depending on the exigencies of the rhyme or rhythm and which certainly, both in the poet's mind and from the standpoint of originality, possesses no more value than if the poet had drawn the words at random out of a bag. the story of the god-stone, the legends and traditions, none of all this provides him with the least element of prophecy. the worthy man evolved the prophecy from his own consciousness, not intending any harm and simply to add a text of some sort to the margin of the devilish drawing which he had so painstakingly illuminated. and he is so pleased with it that he takes the trouble to take a pointed implement and engrave a few lines of it on one of the stones of the fairies' dolmen. "well, four or five centuries later, the prophetic page falls into the hands of a superhun, a criminal lunatic, a madman eaten up with vanity. what does the superhun see in it? a diverting puerile fantasy? a meaningless caprice? not a bit of it! he regards it as a document of the highest interest, one of those documents which the most superhunnish of his fellowcountrymen love to pore over, with this difference, that the document to his mind possesses a miraculous origin. he looks upon it as the old and new testament, the scriptures which explain and expound the sarek law, the very gospel of the god-stone. and this gospel designates him, vorski, him, the superhun, as the messiah appointed to execute the decrees of providence. "to vorski, there is no possibility of mistake. no doubt he enjoys the business, because it is a matter of stealing wealth and power. but this question occupies a secondary position. he is above all obeying the mystic impulse of a race which believes itself to be marked out by destiny and which flatters itself that it is always fulfilling missions, a mission of regeneration as well as a mission of pillage, arson and murder. and vorski reads his mission set out in full in brother thomas' prophecy. brother thomas says explicitly what has to be done and names him, vorski, in the plainest terms, as the man of destiny. is he not a king's son, in other words a 'prince of almain?' does he not come from the country where the stone was stolen from the 'wild men o'er the sea?' has he not also a wife who is doomed, in the seer's prophecies, to the torture of the cross? has he not two sons, one gentle and gracious as abel, and the other wicked and uncontrolled as cain? "these proofs are enough for him. he now has his mobilization-papers, his marching-orders in his pocket. the gods have indicated the objective upon which he is to march; and he marches. true, there are a few living people in his path. so much the better; it is all part of the programme. for it is after all these living people have been killed and, moreover, killed in the manner announced by brother thomas that the task will be done, the god-stone released and vorski, the instrument of destiny, crowned king. therefore, let's turn up our sleeves, take our trusty butcher's knife in hand, and get to work! vorski will translate brother thomas' nightmare into real life!" chapter xvii "cruel prince, obeying destiny" don luis once more addressed himself to vorski: "we're agreed, aren't we, kamerad? all that i'm saying exactly expresses the truth?" vorski had closed his eyes, his head was drooping, and the veins on his temple were immoderately swollen. to prevent any interference by stéphane, don luis exclaimed: "you will speak, my fine fellow! ah, the pain is beginning to grow serious, is it? the brain is giving way? . . . remember, just one whistle, a bar or two of _tipperary_ and i interrupt my speech . . . . you won't? you're not ripe yet? so much the worse for you! . . . and you, stéphane, have no fear for françois. i answer for everything. but no pity for this monster, please! no, no and again no! don't forget that he prepared and contrived everything of his own free will! don't forget . . . but i'm getting angry. what's the use?" don luis unfolded the page of the note-book on which vorski had written down the prophecy and, holding it under his eyes, continued: "what remains to be said is not so important, once the general explanation is accepted. nevertheless, we must go into detail to some slight extent, show the mechanism of the affair imagined and built up by vorski and lastly come to the part played by our attractive ancient druid . . . . so we are now in the month of june. this is the season fixed for the execution of the thirty victims. it was evidently appointed by brother thomas because the rhythm of his verse called for a month in one syllable, just as the year fourteen and three was selected because three rhymes with be and tree and just as brother thomas decided upon the number of thirty victims because thirty is the number of the sarek reefs and coffins. but vorski takes it as a definite command. thirty victims are needed in june ' . they will be provided. they will be provided on condition that the twenty-nine inhabitants of sarek--we shall see presently that vorski has his thirtieth victim handy--consent to stay on the island and await their destruction. well, vorski suddenly hears of the departure of honorine and maguennoc. honorine will come back in time. but how about maguennoc? vorski does not hesitate: he sends elfride and conrad on his tracks, with instructions to kill him and to wait. he hesitates the less because he believes, from certain words which he has overheard, that maguennoc has taken with him the precious stone, the miraculous gem which must not be touched but which must be left in its leaden sheath (this is the actual phrase used by maguennoc)! "elfride and conrad therefore set out. one morning, at an inn, elfride mixes poison with the coffee which maguennoc is drinking (the prophecy has stated that there will be poison). maguennoc continues his journey. but in an hour or two he is seized with intolerable pain and dies, almost immediately, on the bank by the road-side. elfride and conrad come up and go through his pockets. they find nothing, no gem, no precious stone. vorski's hopes have not been realized. all the same, the corpse is there. what are they to do with it? for the time being, they fling it into a half-demolished hut, which vorski and his accomplices had visited some months before. here véronique d'hergemont discovers the body . . . and an hour later fails to find it there. elfride and conrad, keeping watch close at hand, have taken it away and hidden it, still for the time being, in the cellars of a little empty country-house. "there's one victim accounted for. we may observe, in passing, that maguennoc's predictions relating to the order in which the thirty victims are to be executed--beginning with himself--have no basis. the prophecy doesn't mention such a thing. in any case, vorski goes to work at random. at sarek he carries off françois and stéphane maroux and then, both as a measure of precaution and in order to cross the island without attracting attention and to enter the priory more easily, he dresses himself in stéphane's clothes, while raynold puts on françois'. the job before them is an easy one. the only people in the house are an old man, m. d'hergemont, and a woman, marie le goff. as soon as these are got rid of, the rooms and maguennoc's in particular will be searched. vorski, as yet unaware of the result of elfride's expedition, would not be surprised if maguennoc had left the miraculous jewel at the priory. "the first to fall is the cook, marie le goff, whom vorski takes by the throat and stabs with a knife. but it so happens that the ruffian's face gets covered with blood; and, seized with one of those fits of cowardice to which he is subject, he runs away, after loosing raynold upon m. d'hergemont. "the fight between the boy and the old man is a long one. it is continued through the house and, by a tragic chance, ends before véronique d'hergemont's eyes. m. d'hergemont is killed. honorine arrives at the same moment. she drops, making the fourth victim. "matters now begin to go quickly. panic sets in during the night. the people of sarek, frightened out of their wits, seeing that maguennoc's predictions are being fulfilled and that the hour of the disaster which has so long threatened their island is about to strike, make up their minds to go. this is what vorski and his son are waiting for. taking up their position in the motor-boat which they have stolen, they rush after the runaways and the abominable hunt begins, the great disaster foretold by brother thomas: "'there will be shipwrecks, terrors, grief and crimes.' "honorine, who witnesses the scene and whose brain is already greatly upset, goes mad and throws herself from the cliff. "thereupon we have a lull of a few days, during which véronique d'hergemont explores the priory and the island without being disturbed. as a matter of fact, after their successful hunt, leaving only otto, who spends his time drinking in the cells, the father and son have gone off in the boat to fetch elfride and conrad and to bring back maguennoc's body and fling it in the water within sight of sarek, since maguennoc of necessity has one of the thirty coffins earmarked for his reception. "at that moment, that is when he returns to sarek, vorski's bag numbers twenty-four victims. stéphane and françois are prisoners, guarded by otto. the rest consists of four women reserved for crucifixion, including the three sisters archignat, all locked up in their wash-house. it is their turn next. véronique d'hergemont tries to release them, but it is too late. waylaid by the band, shot at by raynold, who is an expert archer, the sisters archignat are wounded by arrows (for arrows, see the prophecy) and fall into the enemy's hands. that same evening they are strung up on the three oaks, after vorski has first relieved them of the fifty thousand-franc notes which they carried concealed on their persons. total: twenty-nine victims. who will be the thirtieth? who will be the fourth woman?" don luis paused and continued: "as to this, the prophecy speaks very plainly in two places, each of which complements the other: "'before his mother's eyes, abel kills cain.' "and, a few lines lower down: "'his wedded wife one night in june hath slain.' "vorski, from the moment when he became aware of this document, had interpreted the two lines in his own fashion. being, in fact, unable at that time to dispose of véronique, for whom he has vainly been hunting all over france, he temporizes with the decrees of destiny. the fourth woman to be tortured shall be a wife, but she shall be his first wife, elfride. and this will not be absolutely contrary to the prophecy, which, if need be, can apply to the mother of cain just as well as to the mother of abel. and observe that the other prophecy, that which was communicated to him by word of mouth in the old days, also failed to specify the woman who was to die: "'vorski's wife shall perish on the cross.' "which wife? elfride. "so his dear, devoted accomplice is to perish. it's terrible for vorski; it breaks his heart. but the god moloch must be obeyed; and, considering that vorski, to accomplish his task, decided to sacrifice his son raynold, it would be inexcusable if he refused to sacrifice his wife elfride. so all will be well. "but, suddenly, a dramatic incident occurs. while pursuing the sisters archignat, he sees and recognizes véronique d'hergemont! "a man like vorski could not fail to behold in this yet another favour vouchsafed by the powers above. the woman whom he has never forgotten is sent to him at the very moment when she is to take her place in the great adventure. she is given to him as a miraculous victim which he can destroy . . . or conquer. what a prospect! and how the heavens brighten with unexpected light! vorski loses his head. he becomes more and more convinced that he is the messiah, the chosen one, the apostle, missionary, the man who is 'obeying destiny.' he is linked up with the line of the high-priests, the guardians of the god-stone. he is a druid, an arch-druid; and, as such, on the night when véronique d'hergemont burns the bridge, on the sixth night after the moon, he goes and cuts the sacred mistletoe with a golden sickle! "and the siege of the priory begins. i will not linger over this. véronique d'hergemont has told you the whole story, stéphane, and we know her sufferings, the part played by the delightful all's well, the discovery of the underground passage and the cells, the fight for françois, the fight for you, stéphane, whom vorski imprisoned in one of the torture-cells called 'death-chambers' in the prophecy. here you are surprised with madame d'hergemont. the young monster, raynold, hurls you into the sea. françois and his mother escape. unfortunately, vorski and his band succeed in reaching the priory. françois is captured. his mother joins him. and then . . . and then the most tragic scenes ensue, scenes upon which i will not enlarge: the interview between vorski and véronique d'hergemont, the duel between the two brothers, between cain and abel, before véronique d'hergemont's very eyes. for the prophecy insists upon it: "'before his mother's eyes, abel kills cain.' "and the prophecy likewise demands that she shall suffer beyond expression and that vorski shall be subtle in doing evil. 'a cruel prince,' he puts marks on the two combatants; and, when abel is on the point of being defeated, he himself wounds cain so that cain may be killed. "the monster is mad. he's mad and drunk. the climax is close at hand. he drinks and drinks; for véronique d'hergemont's martyrdom is to take place that evening: "'by thousand deaths and lingering agony, his wedded wife one night of june hath slain.' "the thousand deaths véronique has already undergone; and the agony will be lingering. the hour comes. supper, funeral procession, preparations, the setting up of the ladder, the binding of the victim and then . . . and then the ancient druid!" don luis gave a hearty laugh as he uttered the last words: "here, upon my word, things begin to get amusing! from this moment onward, tragedy goes hand in hand with comedy, the gruesome with the burlesque. oh, that ancient druid, what a caution! to you, stéphane, and you, patrice, who were behind the scenes, the story is devoid of interest. but to you, vorski, what exciting revelations! . . . i say, otto, just put the ladder against the trunk of the tree, so that your employer can rest his feet on the top rung. is that easier for you, vorski? mark you, my little attention does not come from any ridiculous feeling of pity. oh, dear, no! but i'm afraid that you might go phut; and besides i want you to be in a comfortable position to listen to the ancient druid's confession." he had another burst of laughter. there was no doubt about it: the ancient druid was a great source of entertainment to don luis. "the ancient druid's arrival," he said, "introduces order and reason into the adventure. what was loose and vague becomes more compact. incoherent crime turns into logical punishment. we have no longer blind obedience to brother thomas' doggerel, but the submission to common sense, the rigorous method of a man who knows what he wants and who has no time to lose. really, the ancient druid deserves all our admiration. "the ancient druid, whom we may call either don luis perenna or arsène lupin--you suspect that, don't you?--knew very little of the story when the periscope of his submarine, the _crystal stopper_, emerged in sight of the coast of sarek at mid-day yesterday." "very little?" stéphane maroux cried, in spite of himself. "one might say, nothing," don luis declared. "what! all those facts about vorski's past, all those precise details about what he did at sarek, about his plans and the part played by elfride and the poisoning of maguennoc?" "i learnt all that here, yesterday," said don luis. "but from whom? we never left one another?" "believe me when i say that the ancient druid, when he landed yesterday on the coast of sarek, knew nothing at all. but the ancient druid lays claim to be at least as great a favourite of the gods as you are, vorski. and in fact he at once had the luck to see, on a lonely little beach, our friend stéphane, who himself had had the luck to fall into a pretty deep pool of water and thus to escape the fate which you and your son had prepared for him. rescue-work, conversation. in half an hour, the ancient druid had the facts. forthwith, investigations. he ended by reaching the cells, where he found in yours, vorski, a white robe which he needed for his own use and a scrap of paper with a copy of the prophecy written by yourself. excellent. the ancient druid knows the enemy's plans. "he begins by following the tunnel down which françois and his mother fled, but is unable to pass because of the subsidence which has been produced. he retraces his steps and comes out on the black heath. exploration of the island. meeting with otto and conrad. the enemy burns the foot-bridge. it is six o'clock in the evening. query: how to get to the priory? stéphane suggests, by the postern path. the ancient druid returns to the _crystal stopper_. they circumnavigate the island under the direction of stéphane, who knows all the channels--and besides, my dear vorski, the _crystal stopper_ is a very docile submarine. she can slip in anywhere; the ancient druid had her built to his own designs--and at last they land at the spot where françois' boat is hanging. here, meeting with all's well, who is sleeping under the boat, the ancient druid introduces himself. immediate display of sympathy. they make a start. but, half-way up the ascent, all's well branches off. at this place the wall is the cliff is, so to speak, patched with movable blocks of stone. in the middle of these stones is an opening, an opening made by maguennoc, as the ancient druid discovered later, in order to enter the hall of sacrifices and the mortuary crypts. thus, the ancient druid finds himself in the thick of the plot, master above ground and below. only, it is eight o'clock in the evening. "as regards françois, there is no immediate anxiety. the prophecy says, 'abel kills cain.' but véronique d'hergemont was to perish 'one night of june.' had she undergone the horrible martyrdom? was it too late to rescue her?" don luis turned to stéphane: "you remember, stéphane, the agony through which you and the ancient druid passed and your relief at discovering the tree prepared with the inscription, 'v. d'h.' the tree has no victim on it yet. véronique will be saved; and in fact we hear a sound of voices coming from the priory. it is the grim procession. it slowly climbs the grassy slope amid the thickening darkness. the lantern is waved. a halt is called. vorski spouts and holds forth. the last scene is at hand. soon we shall rush to the assault and véronique will be delivered. "but here an incident occurs which will amuse you, vorski. yes, we make a strange discovery, my friends and i: we find a woman prowling round the dolmen, who hides as we come up. we seize her. stéphane recognizes her by the light of an electric torch. do you know who it was, vorski? i give you a hundred guesses. elfride! yes, elfride, your accomplice, the one whom you meant to crucify at first! curious, wasn't it? in an extreme state of excitement, half crazy, she tells us that she consented to the duel between the two boys on your promise that her son would be the victor and kill véronique's son. but you had locked her up, in the morning; and, in the evening, when she succeeded in making her escape, it was raynold's dead body that she found. she has now come to be present at the torture of the rival whom she detests and then to avenge herself on you and kill you, my poor old chap. "a capital idea! the ancient druid approves; and, while you go up to the dolmen and stéphane keeps an eye on you, he continues to question elfride. but, lo and behold, vorski, at the sound of your voice, the jade begins to kick! she veers round unexpectedly. her master's voice stimulates her to an unparalleled display of ardour. she wants to see you, to warn you of your danger, to save you; and suddenly she makes a rush at the ancient druid with a dagger in her hand. the ancient druid is obliged, in self-defence, to knock her down, half-stunning her; and the sight of this moribund woman at once suggests to him a means of turning the incident to good account. the wretched creature is tied up in the twinkling of an eye. the ancient druid intends you yourself to punish her, vorski, and make her undergo the fate which you had reserved for her before. so he slips his robe on stéphane, gives him his instructions, shoots an arrow in your direction the moment you come up and, while you go running in pursuit of a white robe, does a conjuring-trick and substitutes elfride for véronique, the first wife for the second. how? that's my business. all you need know is that the trick was played and succeeded to perfection!" don luis stopped to draw breath. one would really have thought, from his familiar and confidential tone, that he was telling vorski an amusing story, a good joke, which vorski ought to be the first to laugh at. "that's not all," he continued. "patrice belval and some of my moors--you may as well know that we have eighteen of them on board--have been working in the underground rooms. there's no getting away from the prophecy. the moment the wife has expired "'fire and loud noise will issue from the earth. in secrecy where the great treasure lies.' "of course, brother thomas never knew where the great treasure lay, nor did any one else. but the ancient druid has guessed; and he wants vorski to receive his signal and to drop ready-roasted into his mouth. for this he needs an outlet issuing near the fairies' dolmen. captain belval looks for one and finds it. they clear an old stairway. they clear the inside of the dead tree. they take from the submarine some dynamite-cartridges and signal-rockets and place them in position. and, when you, vorski, from your perch, start proclaiming like a herald, 'she's dead! the fourth woman has died upon the cross!' bang, bang, bang! thunder, flame, uproar, the whole bag of tricks. that does it: you are more and more the darling of the gods, the pet of destiny; and you burn with the noble longing to fling yourself down the chimney and gobble up the god-stone. next day, therefore, after sleeping off your brandy and your rum, you start to work again, smiling. you killed your thirty victims, according to the rites prescribed by brother thomas. you have surmounted every obstacle. the prophecy is fulfilled. "'and man again will on the stone set eyes once stolen from wild men in bye-gone days o'er sea: the god-stone which gives life or death.' "the ancient druid has no choice but to give in and to hand you the key of paradise. but first, of course, a little interlude, a few capers and wizard's tricks, just for a bit of fun. and then hey for the god-stone guarded by the sleeping beauty!" don luis nimbly cut a few of those capers of which he seemed so fond. then he said to vorski: "well, old chap, i have a vague impression that you've had enough of my speech and that you would prefer to reveal françois' hiding-place to me at once, rather then stay here any longer. i'm awfully sorry, but you really must learn how the matter stands with the sleeping beauty and the unexpected presence of véronique d'hergemont. however, two minutes will be sufficient. pardon me." dropping the character of the ancient druid and speaking in his own name, don luis continued: "what you want to know is why i took véronique d'hergemont to that place after snatching her from your clutches. the answer is very simple. where would you have me take her? to the submarine? an absurd suggestion! the sea was rough that night and véronique needed rest. to the priory? never! that would have been too far from the scene of operations and i should have had no peace of mind. in reality there was only one place sheltered from the storm and sheltered from attack; and that was the hall of sacrifices. that was why i took her there and why she was sleeping there, quietly, under the influence of a strong narcotic, when you saw her. i confess that the pleasure of treating you to this spectacle counted for something in my decision. and how splendidly i was rewarded! oh, if you could have seen the face you pulled! such a ghastly sight! véronique raised from the dead! véronique brought back to life! so horrible was the vision that you ran away helter-skelter. "but to cut a long story short: you find the exit blocked. thereupon you change your mind. conrad returns to the offensive. he attacks me by stealth while i am preparing to move véronique d'hergemont to the submarine. conrad receives a mortal blow from one of the moors. second comic interlude. conrad, dressed up in the ancient druid's robe, is laid on the floor in one of the crypts; and of course your first thought is to leap on him and wreak your vengeance on him. and, when you see elfride's body, which has taken the place of véronique d'hergemont in the sacred table, whoosh . . . you jump on that too and reduce the woman whom you have already crucified to a bleeding pulp! blunder upon blunder! and the end of the whole story likewise strikes a comic note. you are strung up on the pillory while i deliver straight at you a speech which does for you and which proves that, if you have won the god-stone by virtue of your thirty coffins, i am taking possession of it by my own intrinsic virtue. there's the whole adventure for you, my dear vorski. except for a few secondary incidents, or some others, of greater importance, which there is no need for you to know, you know as much as i do. you've been quite comfortable and have had lots of time to think. so i am confidently expecting your answer about françois. come, out with your little song: "'it's a long, long way to tipperary. it's a long way to go . . . .' "well? are you feeling in a chatty mood?" don luis had climbed a few rungs. stéphane and patrice had come near and were anxiously listening. it was evident that vorski meant to speak. he had opened his eyes and was staring at don luis with a look of mingled hatred and fear. this extraordinary man must have appeared to him as one of those persons against whom it is absolutely useless to fight and to whom it is equally useless to appeal for compassion. don luis represented the conqueror; and, in the presence of one stronger than yourself, there is nothing for it but to yield in all humility. besides, vorski was incapable of further resistance. the torture was becoming intolerable. he spoke a few words in an unintelligible voice. "a little louder, please," said don luis. "i can't hear. where's françois?" he climbed the ladder. vorski stammered: "shall i be free?" "on my word of honour. we shall all leave this place, except otto, who will release you." "at once?" "at once." "then . . ." "then what?" "well, françois is alive." "you mutton-head. i know that. but where is he?" "tied into the boat." "the one hanging at the foot of the cliff?" "yes." don luis struck his forehead with his hand: "idiot! idiot! idiot! . . . don't mind: i'm speaking of myself. yes, i ought to have guessed that! why, all's well was sleeping under the boat, peacefully, like a good dog sleeping beside his master! why, when we sent all's well on françois' trail, he led stéphane straight to the boat. it's true enough, there are times when the cleverest of us behave like simpletons! but you, vorski, did you know that there was a way down there and a boat?" "i knew it since yesterday." "and, you artful dog, you intended to skedaddle in her?" "yes." "well, vorski, you shall skedaddle in her, with otto. i'll leave her for you. stéphane!" but stéphane maroux was already running towards the cliff, escorted by all's well. "release him, stéphane," cried don luis. and he added, addressing the moors: "help him, you others. and get the submarine under way. we shall sail in ten minutes." he turned to vorski: "good-bye, my dear chap . . . . oh, just one more word! every well-regulated adventure contains a love-story. ours appears to be without one, for i should never dare to allude to the feelings that urged you towards the sainted woman who bore your name. and yet i must tell you of a very pure and noble affection. did you notice the eagerness with which stéphane flew to françois' assistance? obviously he loves his young pupil, but he loves the mother still more. and, since everything that pleases véronique d'hergemont is bound to please you, i wish to admit that he is not indifferent to her, that his wonderful love has touched her heart, that it was with real joy that she saw him restored to her this morning and that this will all end in a wedding . . . as soon as she's a widow, of course. you follow me, don't you? the only obstacle to their happiness is yourself. therefore, as you are a perfect little gentleman, you will not like to . . . but i need not go on. i rely on your good manners to die as soon as you can. good-bye, old fellow, i won't offer you my hand, but my heart's with you. otto, in ten minutes, unless you hear to the contrary, release your employer. you'll find the boat at the bottom of the cliff. good luck, my friends!" it was finished. the battle between don luis and vorski was ended: and the issue had not been in doubt for a single instant. from the first minute, one of the two adversaries had so consistently dominated the other, that the latter, in spite of all his daring and his training as a criminal, had been nothing more than a grotesque, absurd, disjointed puppet in his opponent's hands. after succeeding in the entire execution of his plan, after attaining and surpassing his object, he, the master of events, in the moment of victory, found himself suddenly strung up on the tree of torture; and there he remained, gasping and captive like an insect pinned to a strip of cork. without troubling any further about his victims, don luis went off with patrice belval, who could not help saying to him: "all the same, you're letting those vile scoundrels down very lightly!" "pooh, it won't be long before they get themselves nabbed elsewhere," said don luis, chuckling. "what do you expect them to do?" "well, first of all, to take the god-stone." "out of the question! it would need twenty men to do that, with a scaffolding and machinery. i myself am giving up the idea for the present. i shall come back after the war." "but, look here, don luis, what is this miraculous stone?" "ah, now you're asking something!" said don luis, without making further reply. they set out; and don luis, rubbing his hands, said: "i worked the thing well. it's not much over twenty-four hours since we landed at sarek. and the riddle had lasted twenty-four centuries. one century an hour. my congratulations, lupin." "i should be glad to offer you mine, don luis," said patrice belval, "but they are not worth as much as those of an expert like yourself." when they reached the sands of the little beach, françois' boat had already been lowered and was empty. farther away, on the right, the _crystal stopper_ was floating on the calm sea. françois came running up to them, stopped a few yards from don luis and looked at him with wide-open eyes: "i say," he murmured, "then it's you? it's you i was expecting?" "faith," said don luis, laughing. "i don't know if you were expecting me . . . but i'm sure it's me!" "you . . . you . . . don luis perenna! . . . that is to say . . ." "hush, no other names! perenna's enough for me . . . . besides, we won't talk about me, if you don't mind. i was just a chance, a gentleman who happened to drop in at the right moment. whereas you . . . by jove, youngster, but you've done jolly well! . . . so you spent the night in the boat?" "yes, under the tarpaulin, lashed to the bottom and tightly gagged." "uncomfortable?" "not at all. i hadn't been there ten minutes when all's well appeared. so . . ." "but the man, the scoundrel: what had he threatened to do to you?" "nothing. after the duel, while the others were attending to my opponent, he brought me down here, pretending that he was going to take me to mother and put us both on board the boat. then, when we got to the boat, he laid hold of me without a word." "do you know the man? do you know his name?" "i know nothing about him. all i can say is that he was persecuting us, mother and me." "for reasons which i shall explain to you, françois. in any case, you have nothing to fear from him now." "oh, but you haven't killed him?" "no, but i have put it out of his power to do any more harm. this will all be explained to you; but i think that, for the moment, the most urgent thing is that we should go to your mother." "stéphane told me that she was resting over there, in the submarine, and that you had saved her too. does she expect me?" "yes; we had a talk last night, she and i, and i promised to find you. i felt that she trusted me. all the same, stéphane, you had better go ahead and prepare her." the _crystal stopper_ lay at the end of a reef of rocks which formed a sort of natural jetty. some ten or twelve moors were running to and fro. two had drawn apart and were whispering together. two of them were holding a gangway which don luis and françois crossed a minute later. in one of the cabins, arranged as a drawing-room, véronique lay stretched on a couch. her pale face bore the marks of the unspeakable suffering which she had undergone. she seemed very weak, very weary. but her eyes, full of tears, were bright with happiness. françois rushed into her arms. she burst into sobs, without speaking a word. opposite them, all's well, seated on his haunches, beat the air with his fore-paws and looked at them, with his head a little on one side: "mother," said françois, "don luis is here." she took don luis' hand and pressed a long kiss upon it, while françois murmured: "you saved mother . . . . you saved us both . . . ." don luis interrupted him: "will you give me pleasure, françois? well, don't thank me. if you really want to thank somebody, there, thank your friend all's well. he does not look as if he had played a very important part in the piece. and yet, compared with the scoundrel who persecuted you, he was the good genius, always discreet, intelligent, modest and silent." "so are you!" "oh, i am neither modest nor silent; and that's why i admire all's well. here, all's well, come along with me and, for goodness' sake, stop sitting up! you might have to do it all night, for they will be shedding tears together for hours, the mother and son . . . ." chapter xviii the god-stone the _crystal stopper_ was running on the surface of the water. don luis sat talking, with stéphane, patrice and all's well, who were gathered round him: "what a swine that vorski is!" he said. "i've seen that breed of monster before, but never one of his calibre." "then, in that case . . ." patrice belval objected. "in that case?" echoed don luis. "i repeat what i've said already. you hold a monster in your hands and you let him go free! to say nothing of its being highly immoral, think of all the harm that he can do, that he inevitably will do! it's a heavy responsibility to take upon yourself, that of the crimes which he will still commit." "do you think so too, stéphane?" asked don luis. "i'm not quite sure what i think," replied stéphane, "because, to save françois, i was prepared to make any concession. but, all the same . . ." "all the same, you would rather have had another solution?" "frankly, yes. so long as that man is alive and free, madame d'hergemont and her son will have everything to fear from him." "but what other solution was there? i promised him his liberty in return for françois' immediate safety. ought i to have promised him only his life and handed him over to the police?" "perhaps," said captain belval. "very well. but, in that case, the police would institute enquiries, and by discovering the fellow's real identity bring back to life the husband of véronique d'hergemont and the father of françois. is that what you want?" "no, no!" cried stéphane, eagerly. "no, indeed," confessed patrice belval, a little uneasily. "no, that solution is no better; but what astonishes me is that you, don luis, did not hit upon the right one, the one which would have satisfied us all." "there was only one solution," don luis perenna said, plainly. "there was only one." "which was that?" "death." there was a pause. then don luis resumed: "my friends, i did not form you into a court simply as a joke; and you must not think that your parts as judges are played because the trial seems to you to be over. it is still going on; and the court has not risen. that is why i want you to answer me honestly: do you consider that vorski deserves to die?" "yes," declared patrice. and stéphane approved: "yes, beyond a doubt." "my friends," don luis continued, "your verdict is not sufficiently solemn. i beseech you to utter it formally and conscientiously, as though you were in the presence of the culprit. i ask you once more: what penalty did vorski deserve?" they raised their hands and, one after the other, answered: "death." don luis whistled. one of the moors ran up. "two pairs of binoculars, hadji." the man brought the glasses and don luis handed them to stéphane and patrice: "we are only a mile from sarek," he said. "look towards the point: the boat should have started." "yes," said patrice, presently. "do you see her, stéphane?" "yes, only . . ." "only what?" "there's only one passenger." "yes," said patrice, "only one passenger." they put down their binoculars and one of them said: "only one has got away: vorski evidently. he must have killed otto, his accomplice." "unless otto, his accomplice, has killed him," chuckled don luis. "what makes you say that?" "why, remember the prophecy made to vorski in his youth: 'your wife will die on the cross and you will be killed by a friend.'" "i doubt if a prediction is enough." "i have other proofs, though." "what proofs?" "they, my friends, form part of the last problem we shall have to elucidate together. for instance, what is your idea of the manner in which i substituted elfride vorski for madame d'hergemont?" stéphane shook his head: "i confess that i never understood." "and yet it's so simple! when a gentleman in a drawing-room, in a white tie and a tail-coat, performs conjuring-tricks or guesses your thoughts, you say to yourself, don't you, that there must be some artifice beneath it all, the assistance of a confederate? well, you need seek no farther where i'm concerned." "what, you had a confederate?" "yes, certainly." "but who was he?" "otto." "otto? but you never left us! you never spoke to him, surely?" "how could i have succeeded without his help? in reality, i had two confederates in this business, elfride and otto, both of whom betrayed vorski, either out of revenge or out of greed. while you, stéphane, were luring vorski past the fairies' dolmen, i accosted otto. we soon struck a bargain, at the cost of a few bank-notes and in return for a promise that he would come out of the adventure safe and sound. moreover i informed him that vorski had pouched the sisters archignat's fifty thousand francs." "how did you know that?" asked stéphane. "through my confederate number one, through elfride, whom i continued to question in a whisper while you were looking out for vorski's coming and who also, in a few brief words, told me what she knew of vorski's past." "when all is said, you only saw otto that once." "two hours later, after elfride's death and after the fireworks in the hollow oak, we had a second interview, under the fairies' dolmen. vorski was asleep, stupefied with drink, and otto was mounting guard. you can imagine that i seized the opportunity to obtain particulars of the business and to complete my information about vorski with the details which otto for two years had been secretly collecting about a chief whom he detested. then he unloaded vorski's and conrad's revolvers, or rather he removed the bullets, while leaving the cartridges. then he handed me vorski's watch and note-book, as well as an empty locket and a photograph of vorski's mother which otto had stolen from him some months before, things which helped me next day to play the wizard with the aforesaid vorski in the crypt where he found me. that is how otto and i collaborated." "very well," said patrice, "but still you didn't ask him to kill vorski?" "certainly not." "in that case, how are we to know that . . ." "do you think that vorski did not end by discovering our collaboration, which is one of the obvious causes of his defeat? and do you imagine that master otto did not foresee this contingency? you may be sure that there was no doubt of this: vorski, once unfastened from his tree, would have made away with his accomplice, both from motives of revenge and in order to recover the sisters archignat's fifty thousand francs. otto got the start of him. vorski was there, helpless, lifeless, an easy prey. he struck him a blow. i will go farther and say that otto, who is a coward, did not even strike him a blow. he will simply have left vorski on his tree. and so the punishment is complete. are you appeased now, my friends? is your craving for justice satisfied?" patrice and stéphane were silent, impressed by the terrible vision which don luis was conjuring up before their eyes. "there," he said, laughing, "i was right not to make you pronounce sentence over there, when we were standing at the foot of the oak, with the live man in front of us! i can see that my two judges might have flinched a little at that moment. and so would my third judge, eh, all's well, you sensitive, tearful fellow? and i am like you, my friends. we are not people who condemn and execute. but, all the same, think of what vorski was, think of his thirty murders and his refinements of cruelty and congratulate me on having, in the last resort, chosen blind destiny as his judge and the loathsome otto as his responsible executioner. the will of the gods be done!" the sarek coast was making a thinner line on the horizon. it disappeared in the mist in which sea and sky were merged. the three men were silent. all three were thinking of the isle of the dead, laid waste by one man's madness, the isle of the dead where soon some visitor would find the inexplicable traces of the tragedy, the entrances to the tunnels, the cells with their "death-chambers," the hall of the god-stone, the mortuary crypts, elfride's body, conrad's body, the skeletons of the sisters archignat and, right at the end of the island, near the fairies' dolmen, where the prophecy of the thirty coffins and the four crosses was written for all to read, vorski's great body, lonely and pitiable, mangled by the ravens and owls. * * * * * a villa near arcachon, in the pretty village of les moulleaux, whose pine-trees run down to the shores of the gulf. véronique is sitting in the garden. a week's rest and happiness have restored the colour to her comely face and assuaged all evil memories. she is looking with a smile at her son, who, standing a little way off, is listening to and questioning don luis perenna. she also looks at stéphane; and their eyes meet gently. it is easy to see that the affection in which they both hold the boy is a link which unites them closely and which is strengthened by their secret thoughts and their unuttered feelings. not once has stéphane recalled the avowals which he made in the cell, under the black heath; but véronique has not forgotten them; and the profound gratitude which she feels for the man who brought up her son is mingled with a special emotion and an agitation of which she unconsciously savours the charm. that day, don luis, who, on the evening when the _crystal stopper_ brought them all to the villa des moulleaux, had taken the train for paris, arrived unexpectedly at lunch-time, accompanied by patrice belval; and during the hour that they have been sitting in their rocking-chairs in the garden, the boy, his face all pink with excitement, has never ceased to question his rescuer: "and what did you do next? . . . but how did you know? . . . and what put you on the track of that?" "my darling," says véronique, "aren't you afraid of boring don luis?" "no, madame," replies don luis, rising, going up to véronique and speaking in such a way that the boy cannot hear, "no, françois is not boring me; and in fact i like answering his questions. but i confess that he perplexes me a little and that i am afraid of saying something awkward. tell me, how much exactly does he know of the whole story?" "as much as i know myself, except vorski's name, of course." "but does he know the part which vorski played?" "yes, but with certain differences. he thinks that vorski is an escaped prisoner who picked up the legend of sarek and, in order to get hold of the god-stone, proceeded to carry out the prophecy touching it. i have kept some of the lines of the prophecy from françois." "and the part played by elfride? her hatred for you? the threats she made you?" "madwoman's talk, i told françois, of which i myself did not understand the meaning." don luis smiled: "the explanation is a little arbitrary; and i have a notion that françois quite well understands that certain parts of the tragedy remain and must remain obscure to him. the great thing, don't you think, is that he should not know that vorski was his father?" "he does not know and he never will." "and then--and this is what i was coming to--what name will he bear himself?" "what do you mean?" "whose son will he believe himself to be? for you know as well as i do that the legal reality is this, that françois vorski died fifteen years ago, drowned in a shipwreck, and his grandfather with him. and vorski died last year, stabbed by a fellow-prisoner. neither of them is alive in the eyes of the law. so . . ." véronique nodded her head and smiled: "so i don't know. the position seems to me, as you say, incapable of explanation. but everything will come out all right." "why?" "because you're here to do it." it was his turn to smile: "i can no longer take credit for the actions which i perform or the steps which i take. everything is arranging itself _a priori_. then why worry?" "am i not right to?" "yes," he said, gravely. "the woman who has suffered all that you have must not be subjected to the least additional annoyance. and nothing shall happen to her after this, i swear. so what i suggest to you is this: long ago, you married against your father's wish a very distant cousin, who died after leaving you a son, françois. this son your father, to be revenged upon you, kidnapped and brought to sarek. at your father's death, the name of d'hergemont became extinct and there is nothing to recall the events of your marriage." "but my name remains. legally, in the official records, i am véronique d'hergemont." "your maiden name disappears under your married name." "you mean under that of vorski." "no, because you did not marry that fellow vorski, but one of your cousins called . . ." "called what?" "jean maroux. here is a stamped certificate of your marriage to jean maroux, a marriage mentioned in your official records, as this other document shows." véronique looked at don luis in amazement: "but why? why that name?" "why? so that your son may be neither d'hergemont, which would have recalled past events, nor vorski, which would have recalled the name of a traitor. here is his birth-certificate, as françois maroux." she repeated, all blushing and confused: "but why did you choose just that name?" "it seemed easy for françois. it's the name of stéphane, with whom françois will go on living for some time. we can say that stéphane was a relation of your husband's; and this will explain the intimacy generally. that is my plan. it presents, believe me, no possible danger. when one is confronted by an inexplicable and painful position like yours, one must needs employ special means and resort to drastic and, i admit, very illegal measures. i did so without scruple, because i have the good fortune to dispose of resources which are not within everybody's reach. do you approve of what i have done?" véronique bent her head: "yes," she said, "yes." he half-rose from his seat: "besides," he added, "if there should be any drawbacks, the future will no doubt take upon itself the burden of removing them. it would be enough, for instance--there is no indiscretion, is there, in alluding to the feelings which stéphane entertains for françois' mother?--it would be enough if, one day or another, for reasons of common-sense, or reasons of gratitude, françois' mother were moved to accept the homage of those feelings. how much simpler everything will be if françois already bears the name of maroux! how much more easily the past will be abolished, both for the outside world and for françois, who will no longer be able to pry into the secret of bygone events which there will be nothing to recall to memory. it seemed to me that these were rather weighty arguments. i am glad to see that you share my opinion." don luis bowed to véronique and, without insisting any further, without appearing to notice her confusion, turned to françois and explained: "i'm at your orders now, young man. and, since you don't want to leave anything unexplained, let's go back to the god-stone and the scoundrel who coveted its possession. yes, the scoundrel," repeated don luis, seeing no reason not to speak of vorski with absolute frankness, "and the most terrible scoundrel that i have ever met with, because he believed in his mission; in short, a sick-brained man, a lunatic . . ." "well, first of all," françois observed, "what i don't understand is that you waited all night to capture him, when he and his accomplices were sleeping under the fairies' dolmen." "well done, youngster," said don luis, laughing, "you have put your finger on a weak point! if i had acted as you suggest, the tragedy would have been finished twelve or fifteen hours earlier. but think, would you have been released? would the scoundrel have spoken and revealed your hiding-place? i don't think so. to loosen his tongue i had to keep him simmering. i had to make him dizzy, to drive him mad with apprehension and anguish and to convince him by means of a mass of proofs, that he was irretrievably defeated. otherwise he would have held his tongue and we might perhaps not have found you. . . . . besides, at that time, my plan was not very clear, i did not quite know how to wind up; and it was not until much later that i thought not of submitting him to violent torture--i am incapable of that--but of tying him to that tree on which he wanted to let your mother die. so that, in my perplexity and hesitation, i simply yielded, in the end, to the wish--the rather puerile wish, i blush to confess--to carry out the prophecy to the end, to see how the missionary would behave in the presence of the ancient druid, in short to amuse myself. after all, the adventure was so dark and gloomy that a little fun seemed to me essential. and i laughed like blazes. that was wrong. i admit it and i apologize." the boy was laughing too. don luis, who was holding him between his knees, kissed him and asked: "do you forgive me?" "yes, on condition that you answer two more questions. the first is not important." "ask away." "it's about the ring. where did you get that ring which you put first on mother's finger and afterwards on elfride's?" "i made it that same night, in a few minutes, out of an old wedding-ring and some coloured stones." "but the scoundrel recognized it as having belonged to his mother." "he thought he recognized it; and he thought it because the ring was like the other." "but how did you know that? and how did you learn the story?" "from himself." "you don't mean that?" "certainly i do! from words that escaped him while he was sleeping under the fairies' dolmen. a drunkard's nightmare. bit by bit he told the whole story of his mother. elfride knew a good part of it besides. you see how simple it is and how my luck stood by me!" "but the riddle of the god-stone is not simple," françois cried, "and you deciphered it! people have been trying for centuries and you took a few hours!" "no, a few minutes, françois. it was enough for me to read the letter which your grandfather wrote about it to captain belval. i sent your grandfather by post all the explanations as to the position and the marvellous nature of the god-stone." "well," cried the boy, "it's those explanations that i'm asking of you, don luis. this is my last question, i promise you. what made people believe in the power of the god-stone? and what did that so-called power consist of exactly?" stéphane and patrice drew up their chairs. véronique sat up and listened. they all understood that don luis had waited until they were together before rending the veil of the mystery before their eyes. he began to laugh: "you mustn't hope for anything sensational," he said. "a mystery is worth just as much as the darkness in which it is shrouded; and, as we have begun by dispelling the darkness, nothing remains but the fact itself in its naked reality. nevertheless the facts in this case are strange and the reality is not denuded of a certain grandeur." "it must needs be so," said patrice belval, "seeing that the reality left so miraculous a legend in the isle of sarek and even all over brittany." "yes," said don luis, "and a legend so persistent that it influences us to this day and that not one of you has escaped the obsession of the miraculous." "what do you mean?" protested patrice. "i don't believe in miracles." "no more do i," said the boy. "yes, you do, you believe in them, you accept miracles as possible. if not, you would long ago have seen the whole truth." "why?" don luis picked a magnificent rose from a tree by his side and asked françois: "is it possible for me to transform this rose, whose proportions, as it is, are larger than those a rose often attains, into a flower double the size and this rose-tree into a shrub twice as tall?" "certainly not," said françois. "then why did you admit, why did you all admit that maguennoc could achieve that result, merely by digging up earth in certain parts of the island, at certain fixed hours? that was a miracle; and you accepted it without hesitation, unconsciously." stéphane objected: "we accept what we saw with our eyes." "but you accepted it as a miracle, that is to say, as a phenomenon which maguennoc produced by special and, truth to tell, by supernatural means. whereas i, when i read this detail in m. d'hergemont's letter, at once--what shall i say?--caught on. i at once established the connection between those monstrous blossoms and the name borne by the calvary of the flowers. and my conviction was immediate: 'no, maguennoc is not a wizard. he simply cleared a piece of uncultivated land around the calvary; and all he had to do, to produce abnormal flowers, was to bring along a layer of mould. so the god-stone is underneath; the god-stone which, in the middle-ages, produced the same abnormal flowers; the god-stone, which, in the days of the druids, healed the sick and strengthened children.'" "therefore," said patrice, "there is a miracle." "there is a miracle if we accept the supernatural explanation. there is a natural phenomenon if we look for it and if we find the physical cause capable of giving rise to the apparent miracle." "but those physical causes don't exist! they are not present." "they exist, because you have seen monstrous flowers." "then there is a stone," asked patrice, almost chaffingly, "which can naturally give health and strength? and that stone is the god-stone?" "there is not a particular, individual stone. but there are stones, blocks of stone, rocks, hills and mountains of rock, which contain mineral veins formed of various metals, oxides of uranium, silver, lead, copper, nickel, cobalt and so on. and among these metals are some which emit a special radiation, endowed with peculiar properties known as radioactivity. these veins are veins of pitchblende which are found hardly anywhere in europe except in the north of bohemia and which are worked near the little town of joachimsthal. and those radioactive bodies are uranium, thorium, helium and chiefly, in the case which we are considering . . ." "radium," françois interrupted. "you've said it, my boy: radium. phenomena of radioactivity occur more or less everywhere; and we may say that they are manifested throughout nature, as in the healing action of thermal springs. but plainly radioactive bodies like radium possess more definite properties. for instance, there is no doubt that the rays and the emanation of radium exercise a power over the life of plants, a power similar to that caused by the passage of an electric current. in both cases, the stimulation of the nutritive centres makes the elements required by the plant more easy to assimilate and promotes its growth. in the same way, there is no doubt that the radium rays are capable of exercising a physiological action on living tissues, by producing more or less profound modifications, destroying certain cells and contributing to develop other cells and even to control their evolution. radiotherapy claims to have healed or improved numerous cases of rheumatism of the joints, nervous troubles, ulceration, eczema, tumours and adhesive cicatrices. in short radium is a really effective therapeutic agent." "so," said stéphane, "you regard the god-stone . . ." "i regard the god-stone as a block of radiferous pitchblende originating from the joachimsthal lodes. i have long known the bohemian legend which speaks of a miraculous stone that was once removed from the side of a hill; and, when i was travelling in bohemia, i saw the hole left by the stone. it corresponds pretty accurately with the dimensions of the god-stone." "but," stéphane objected, "radium is contained in rocks only in the form of infinitesimal particles. remember that, after a mass of fourteen hundred tons of rock have been duly mined and washed and treated, there remains at the end of it all only a filtrate of some fifteen grains of radium. and you attribute a miraculous power to the god-stone, which weighs two tons at most!" "but it evidently contains radium in appreciable quantities. nature has not pledged herself to be always niggardly and invariably to dilute the radium. she was pleased to accumulate in the god-stone a generous supply which enabled it to produce the apparently extraordinary phenomena which we know of . . . not forgetting that we have to allow for popular exaggeration." stéphane seemed to be yielding to conviction. nevertheless he said: "one last point. apart from the god-stone, there was the little chip of stone which maguennoc found in the leaden sceptre, the prolonged touch of which burnt his hand. according to you, this was a particle of radium?" "undoubtedly. and it is this perhaps that most clearly reveals the presence and the power of radium in all this adventure. when henri becquerel, the great physicist, kept a tube containing a salt of radium in his waistcoat-pocket, his skin became covered in a few days with suppurating ulcers. curie repeated the experiment, with the same result. maguennoc's case was more serious, because he held the particle of radium in his hand. a wound formed which had a cancerous appearance. scared by all that he knew and all that he himself had said about the miraculous stone which burns like hell-fire and 'gives life or death,' he chopped off his hand." "very well," said stéphane, "but where did that particle of pure radium come from? it can't have been a chip of the god-stone, because, once again, however rich a mineral may be, radium is incorporated in it, not in isolated grains, but in a soluble form, which has to be dissolved and afterwards collected, by a series of mechanical operations, into a solution rich enough to enable successive crystallizations and concentrations to isolate the active product which the solution contains. all this and a number of other later operations demand an enormous plant, with workshops, laboratories, expert chemists, in short, a very different state of civilization, you must admit, from the state of barbarism in which our ancestors the celts were immersed." don luis smiled and tapped the young man on the shoulder: "hear, hear, stéphane! i am glad to see that françois' friend and tutor has a far-seeing and logical mind. the objection is perfectly valid and suggested itself to me at once. i might reply by putting forward some quite legitimate theory, i might presume a natural means of isolating radium and imagine that, in a geological fault occurring in the granite, at the bottom of a big pocket containing radiferous ore, a fissure has opened through which the waters of the river slowly trickle, carrying with them infinitesimal quantities of radium; that the waters so charged flow for a long time in a narrow channel, combine again, become concentrated and, after centuries upon centuries, filter through in little drops, which evaporate at once, and form at the point of emergence a tiny stalactite, exceedingly rich in radium, the tip of which is broken off one day by some gallic warrior. but is there any need to seek so far and to have recourse to hypotheses? cannot we rely on the unaided genius and the inexhaustible resources of nature? does it call for a more wonderful effort on her part to evolve by her own methods a particle of pure radium than to make a cherry ripen or to make this rose bloom . . . or to give life to our delightful all's well? what do you say, young françois? do we agree?" "we always agree," replied the boy. "so you don't unduly regret the miracle of the god-stone?" "why, the miracle still exists!" "you're right, françois, it still exists and a hundred times more beautiful and dazzling than before. science does not kill miracles: it purifies them and ennobles them. what was that crafty, capricious, wicked, incomprehensible little power attached to the tip of a magic wand and acting at random, according to the ignorant fancy of a barbarian chief or druid, what was it, i ask you, beside the beneficent, logical, reliable and quite as miraculous power which we behold to-day in a pinch of radium?" don luis suddenly interrupted himself and began to laugh: "come, come, i'm allowing myself to be carried away and singing an ode to science! forgive me, madame," he added, rising and going up to véronique, "and tell me that i have not bored you too much with my explanations. i haven't, have i? not too much? besides, it's finished . . . or nearly finished. there is only one more point to make clear, one decision to take." he sat down beside her: "it's this. now that we have won the god-stone, in other words, an actual treasure, what are we going to do with it?" véronique spoke with a heartfelt impulse: "oh, as to that, don't let us speak of it! i don't want anything that may come from sarek, or anything that's found in the priory. we will work." "still, the priory belongs to you." "no, no, véronique d'hergemont no longer exists and the priory no longer belongs to any one. let it all be put up to auction. i don't want anything of that accursed past." "and how will you live?" "as i used to by my work. i am sure that françois approves, don't you, darling?" and, with an instinctive movement, turning to stéphane, as though he had a certain right to give his opinion, she added: "you too approve, don't you, dear stéphane?" "entirely," he said. she at once went on: "besides, though i don't doubt my father's feelings of affection, i have no proof of his wishes towards me." "i have the proofs," said don luis. "how?" "patrice and i went back to sarek. in a writing-desk in maguennoc's room, in a secret drawer, we found a sealed, but unaddressed envelope, and opened it. it contained a bond worth ten thousand francs a year and a sheet of paper which read as follows: "'after my death, maguennoc will hand this bond to stéphane maroux, to whom i confide the charge of my grandson, françois. when françois is eighteen years of age, the bond will be his to do what he likes with. i hope and trust, however, that he will seek his mother and find her and that she will pray for my soul. i bless them both.' "here is the bond," said don luis, "and here is the letter. it is dated april of this year." véronique was astounded. she looked at don luis and the thought occurred to her that all this was perhaps merely a story invented by that strange man to place her and her son beyond the reach of want. it was a passing thought. when all was considered, it was a natural consequence. everything said, m. d'hergemont's action was very reasonable; and, foreseeing the difficulties that would crop up after his death, it was only right that he should think of his grandson. she murmured: "i have not the right to refuse." "you have so much the less right," said don luis, "in that the transaction excludes you altogether. your father's wishes affect françois and stéphane directly. so we are agreed. there remains the god-stone; and i repeat my question. what are we to do with it? to whom does it belong?" "to you," said véronique, definitely. "to me?" "yes, to you. you discovered it and you have given it a real signification." "i must remind you," said don luis, "that this block of stone possesses, beyond a doubt, an incalculable value. however great the miracles wrought by nature may be, it is only through a wonderful concourse of circumstances that she was able to perform the miracle of collecting so much precious matter in so small a volume. there are treasures and treasures there." "so much the better," said véronique, "you will be able to make a better use of them than any one else." don luis thought for a moment and added: "you are quite right; and i confess that i prepared for this climax. first, because my right to the god-stone seemed to me to be proved by adequate titles of ownership; and, next, because i have need of that block of stone. yes, upon my word, the tombstone of the kings of bohemia has not exhausted its magic power; there are plenty of nations left on whom that power might produce as great an effect as on our ancestors the gauls; and, as it happens, i am tackling a formidable undertaking in which an assistance of this kind will be invaluable to me. in a few years, when my task is completed, i will bring the god-stone back to france and present it to a national laboratory which i intend to found. in this way science will purge any evil that the god-stone may have done and the horrible adventure of sarek will be atoned for. do you approve, madame?" she gave him her hand: "with all my heart." there was a fairly long pause. then don luis said: "ah, yes, a horrible adventure, too terrible for words. i have had some gruesome adventures in my life which have left painful memories behind them. but this outdoes them all. it exceeds anything that is possible in reality or human in suffering. it was so excessively logical as to become illogical; and this because it was the act of a madman . . . and also because it came to pass at a season of madness and bewilderment. it was the war which facilitated the safe silent committal of an obscure crime prepared and executed by a monster. in times of peace, monsters have not the time to realize their stupid dreams. to-day, in that solitary island, this particular monster found special, abnormal conditions . . ." "please don't let us talk about all this," murmured véronique, in a trembling voice. don luis kissed her hand and then took all's well and lifted him in his arms: "you're right. don't let's talk about it, or else tears would come and all's well would be sad. therefore, all's well, my delightful all's well, let us talk no more of the dreadful adventure. but all the same let us recall certain episodes which were beautiful and picturesque. for instance, maguennoc's garden with the gigantic flowers; you will remember it as i shall, won't you, all's well? and the legend of the god-stone, the idyll of the celtic tribes wandering with the memorial stone of their kings, the stone all vibrant with radium, emitting an incessant bombardment of vivifying and miraculous atoms; all that, all's well, possesses a certain charm, doesn't it? only, my most exquisite all's well, if i were a novelist and if it were my duty to tell the story of coffin island, i should not trouble too much about the horrid truth and i should give you a much more important part. i should do away with the intervention of that phrase-mongering humbug of a don luis and you would be the fearless and silent rescuer. you would fight the abominable monster, you would thwart his machinations and, in the end, you, with your marvellous instinct, would punish vice and make virtue triumph. and it would be much better so, because none would be more capable than you, my delightful all's well, of demonstrating by a thousand proofs, each more convincing than the other, that in this life of ours all things come right and all's well." the end popular copyright novels _at moderate prices_ ask your dealer for a complete list of a. l. burt company's popular copyright fiction adventures of jimmie dale, the. by frank l. packard. adventures of sherlock holmes. by a. conan doyle. after house, the. by mary roberts rinehart. ailsa paige. by robert w. chambers. alton of somasco. by harold bindloss. amateur gentleman, the. by jeffery farnol. anna, the adventuress. by e. phillips oppenheim. anne's house of dreams. by l. m. montgomery. around old chester. by margaret deland. athalie. by robert w. chambers. at the mercy of tiberius. by augusta evans wilson. auction block, the. by rex beach. aunt jane of kentucky. by eliza c. hall. awakening of helena richie. by margaret deland. bab: a sub-deb. by mary roberts rinehart. barrier, the. by rex beach. barbarians. by robert w. chambers. bargain true, the. by nalbro bartley. bar . by clarence e. mulford. bar days. by clarence e. mulford. bars of iron, the. by ethel m. dell. beasts of tarzan, the. by edgar rice burroughs. beloved traitor, the. by frank l. packard. beltane the smith. by jeffery farnol. betrayal, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. beyond the frontier. by randall parrish. big timber. by bertrand w. sinclair. black is white. by george barr mccutcheon. blind man's eyes, the. by wm. macharg and edwin balmer. bob, son of battle. by alfred ollivant. boston blackie. by jack boyle. boy with wings, the. by berta ruck. brandon of the engineers. by harold bindloss. broad highway, the. by jeffery farnol. brown study, the. by grace s. richmond. bruce of the circle, a. by harold titus. buck peters, ranchman. by clarence e. mulford. business of life, the. by robert w. chambers. cabbages and kings. by o. henry. cabin fever. by b. m. bower. calling of dan matthews, the. by harold bell wright. cape cod stories. by joseph c. lincoln. cap'n abe, storekeeper. by james a. cooper. cap'n dan's daughter. by joseph c. lincoln. cap'n eri. by joseph c. lincoln. cap'n jonah's fortune. by james a. cooper. cap'n warren's wards. by joseph c. lincoln. chain of evidence, a. by carolyn wells. chief legatee, the. by anna katharine green. cinderella jane. by marjorie b. cooke. cinema murder, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. city of masks, the. by george barr mccutcheon. cleek of scotland yard. by t. w. hanshew. cleek, the man of forty faces. by thomas w. hanshew. cleek's government cases. by thomas w. hanshew. clipped wings. by rupert hughes. clue, the. by carolyn wells. clutch of circumstance, the. by marjorie benton cooke. coast of adventure, the. by harold bindloss. coming of cassidy, the. by clarence e. mulford. coming of the law, the. by chas. a. seltzer. conquest of canaan, the. by booth tarkington. conspirators, the. by robert w. chambers. court of inquiry, a. by grace s. richmond. cow puncher, the. by robert j. c. stead. crimson gardenia, the, and other tales of adventure. by rex beach. cross currents. by author of "pollyanna." cry in the wilderness, a. by mary e. waller. danger, and other stories. by a. conan doyle. dark hollow, the. by anna katharine green. dark star, the. by robert w. chambers. daughter pays, the. by mrs. baillie reynolds. day of days, the. by louis joseph vance. depot master, the. by joseph c. lincoln. desired woman, the. by will n. harben. destroying angel, the. by louis jos. vance. devil's own, the. by randall parrish. double traitor, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. empty pockets. by rupert hughes. eyes of the blind, the. by arthur somers roche. eye of dread, the. by payne erskine. eyes of the world, the. by harold bell wright extricating obadiah. by joseph c. lincoln. felix o'day. by f. hopkinson smith. - or fight. by emerson hough. fighting chance, the. by robert w. chambers. fighting shepherdess, the. by caroline lockhart financier, the. by theodore dreiser. flame, the. by olive wadsley. flamsted quarries. by mary e. wallar. forfeit, the. by ridgwell cullum. four million, the. by o. henry. fruitful vine, the. by robert hichens. further adventures of jimmie dale, the. by frank l. packard. girl of the blue ridge, a. by payne erskine. girl from keller's, the. by harold bindloss. girl philippa, the. by robert w. chambers. girls at his billet, the. by berta ruck. god's country and the woman. by james oliver curwood. going some. by rex beach. golden slipper, the. by anna katharine green. golden woman, the. by ridgwell cullum. greater love hath no man. by frank l. packard. greyfriars bobby. by eleanor atkinson. gun brand, the. by james b. hendryx. halcyone. by elinor glyn. hand of fu-manchu, the. by sax rohmer. havoc. by e. phillips oppenheim. heart of the desert the. by honoré willsie. heart of the hills, the. by john fox, jr. heart of the sunset. by rex beach. heart of thunder mountain, the. by edfrid a. bingham. her weight in gold. by geo. b. mccutcheon. hidden children, the. by robert w. chambers. hidden spring, the. by clarence b. kelland. hillman, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. hills of refuge, the. by will n. harben. his official fiancee. by berta ruck. honor of the big snows. by james oliver curwood. hopalong cassidy. by clarence e. mulford. hound from the north, the. by ridgwell cullum. house of the whispering pines, the. by anna katharine green. hugh wynne, free quaker. by s. weir mitchell, m.d. i conquered. by harold titus. illustrious prince, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. in another girl's shoes. by berta ruck. indifference of juliet, the. by grace s. richmond. infelice. by augusta evans wilson. initials only. by anna katharine green. inner law, the. by will n. harben. innocent. by marie corelli. insidious dr. fu-manchu, the. by sax rohmer. in the brooding wild. by ridgwell cullum. intriguers, the. by harold bindloss. iron trail, the. by rex beach. iron woman, the. by margaret deland. i spy. by natalie sumner lincoln. japonette. by robert w. chambers. jean of the lazy a. by b. m. bower. jeanne of the marshes. by e. phillips oppenheim. jennie gerhardt. by theodore dreiser. judgment house, the. by gilbert parker. keeper of the door, the. by ethel m. dell. keith of the border. by randall parrish. kent knowles: quahaug. by joseph c. lincoln. kingdom of the blind, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. king spruce. by holman day. king's widow, the. by mrs. baillie reynolds. knave of diamonds, the. by ethel m. dell. ladder of swords. by gilbert parker. lady betty across the water. by c. n. & a. m. williamson. land-girl's love story, a. by berta ruck. landloper, the. by holman day. land of long ago, the. by eliza calvert hall. land of strong men, the. by a. m. chisholm. last trail, the. by zane grey. laugh and live. by douglas fairbanks. laughing bill hyde. by rex beach. laughing girl, the. by robert w. chambers. law breakers, the. by ridgwell cullum. lifted veil, the. by basil king. lighted way, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. lin mclean. by owen wister. lonesome land. by b. m. bower. lone wolf, the. by louis joseph vance. long ever ago. by rupert hughes. lonely stronghold, the. by mrs. baillie reynolds. long live the king. by mary roberts rinehart. long roll, the. by mary johnston. lord tony's wife. by baroness orczy. lost ambassador. by e. phillips oppenheim. lost prince, the. by frances hodgson burnett. lydia of the pines. by honoré willsie. maid of the forest, the. by randall parrish. maid of the whispering hills, the. by vingie e. roe. maids of paradise, the. by robert w. chambers. major, the. by ralph connor. maker of history, a. by e. phillips oppenheim. malefactor, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. man from bar , the. by clarence e. mulford. man in grey, the. by baroness orczy. man trail, the. by henry oyen. man who couldn't sleep, the. by arthur stringer. man with the club foot, the. by valentine williams. mary-'gusta. by joseph c. lincoln. mary moreland. by marie van vorst. mary regan. by leroy scott. master mummer, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. memoirs of sherlock holmes. by a. conan doyle. men who wrought, the. by ridgwell cullum. mischief maker, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. missioner, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. miss million's maid. by berta ruck. molly mcdonald. by randall parrish. money master, the. by gilbert parker. money moon, the. by jeffery farnol. mountain girl, the. by payne erskine. moving finger, the. by natalie sumner lincoln. mr. bingle. by george barr mccutcheon. mr. grex of monte carlo. by e. phillips oppenheim. mr. pratt. by joseph c. lincoln. mr. pratt's patients. by joseph c. lincoln. mrs. belfame. by gertrude atherton. mrs. red pepper. by grace s. richmond. my lady caprice. by jeffrey farnol. my lady of the north. by randall parrish. my lady of the south. by randall parrish. mystery of the hasty arrow, the. by anna k. green. nameless man, the. by natalie sumner lincoln. ne'er-do-well, the. by rex beach. nest builders, the. by beatrice forbes-robertson hale. net, the. by rex beach. new clarion. by will n. harben. night operator, the. by frank l. packard. night riders, the. by ridgwell cullum. nobody. by louis joseph vance. okewood of the secret service. by the author of "the man with the club foot." one way trail, the. by ridgwell cullum. open, sesame. by mrs. baillie reynolds. otherwise phyllis. by meredith nicholson. outlaw, the. by jackson gregory. paradise auction. by nalbro bartley. pardners. by rex beach. parrot & co. by harold macgrath. partners of the night. by leroy scott. partners of the tide. by joseph c. lincoln. passionate friends, the. by h. g. wells. patrol of the sun dance trail, the. by ralph connor. paul anthony, christian. by hiram w. hays. pawns count, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. people's man, a. by e. phillips oppenheim. perch of the devil. by gertrude atherton. peter ruff and the double four. by e. phillips oppenheim. pidgin island. by harold macgrath. place of honeymoon, the. by harold macgrath. pool of flame, the. by louis joseph vance. postmaster, the. by joseph c. lincoln. prairie wife, the. by arthur stringer. price of the prairie, the. by margaret hill mccarter. prince of sinners, a. by e. phillips oppenheim. promise, the. by j. b. hendryx. proof of the pudding, the. by meredith nicholson. rainbow's end, the. by rex beach. ranch at the wolverine, the. by b. m. bower. ranching for sylvia. by harold bindloss. ransom. by arthur somers roche. reason why, the. by elinor glyn. reclaimers, the. by margaret hill mccarter. red mist, the. by randall parrish. red pepper burns. by grace s. richmond. red pepper's patients. by grace s. richmond. rejuvenation of aunt mary, the. by anne warner. restless sex, the. by robert w. chambers. return of dr. fu-manchu, the. by sax rohmer. return of tarzan, the. by edgar rice burroughs. riddle of night, the. by thomas w. hanshew. rim of the desert, the. by ada woodruff anderson. rise of roscoe paine, the. by j. c. lincoln. rising tide, the. by margaret deland. rocks of valpré, the. by ethel m. dell. rogue by compulsion, a. by victor bridges. room number . by anna katharine green. rose in the ring, the. by george barr mccutcheon. rose of old harpeth, the. by maria thompson daviess. round the corner in gay street. by grace s. richmond. second choice. by will n. harben. second violin, the. by grace s. richmond. secret history. by c. n. & a. m. williamson. secret of the reef, the. by harold bindloss. seven darlings, the. by gouverneur morris. shavings. by joseph c. lincoln. shepherd of the hills, the. by harold bell wright. sheriff of dyke hole, the. by ridgwell cullum. sherry. by george barr mccutcheon. side of the angels, the. by basil king. silver horde, the. by rex beach. sin that was his, the. by frank l. packard. sixty-first second, the. by owen johnson. soldier of the legion, a. by c. n. & a. m. williamson. son of his father, the. by ridgwell cullum. son of tarzan, the. by edgar rice burroughs. source, the. by clarence buddington kelland. speckled bird, a. by augusta evans wilson. spirit in prison, a. by robert hichens. spirit of the border, the. (new edition.) by zane grey. spoilers, the. by rex beach. steele of the royal mounted. by james oliver curwood. still jim. by honoré willsie. story of foss river ranch, the. by ridgwell cullum. story of marco, the. by eleanor h. porter. strange case of cavendish, the. by randall parrish. strawberry acres. by grace s. richmond. sudden jim. by clarence b. kelland. tales of sherlock holmes. by a. conan doyle. tarzan of the apes. by edgar r. burroughs. tarzan and the jewels of opar. by edgar rice burroughs. tempting of tavernake, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. tess of the d'urbervilles. by thos. hardy. thankful's inheritance. by joseph c. lincoln. that affair next door. by anna katharine green. that printer of udell's. by harold bell wright. their yesterdays. by harold bell wright. thirteenth commandment, the. by rupert hughes. three of hearts, the. by berta ruck. three strings, the. by natalie sumner lincoln. threshold, the. by marjorie benton cooke. throwback, the. by alfred henry lewis. tish. by mary roberts rinehart. to m. l. g.; or, he who passed. anon. trail of the axe, the. by ridgwell cullum. trail to yesterday, the. by chas. a. seltzer. treasure of heaven, the. by marie corelli. triumph, the. by will n. harben. t. tembarom. by frances hodgson burnett. turn of the tide. by author of "pollyanna." twenty-fourth of june, the. by grace s. richmond. twins of suffering creek, the. by ridgwell cullum. two-gun man, the. by chas. a. seltzer. uncle william. by jeannette lee. under handicap. by jackson gregory. under the country sky. by grace s. richmond. unforgiving offender, the. by john reed scott. unknown mr. kent, the. by roy norton. unpardonable sin, the. by major rupert hughes. up from slavery. by booker t. washington. valiants of virginia, the. by hallie ermine rives. valley of fear, the. by sir a. conan doyle. vanished messenger, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. vanguards of the plains. by margaret hill mccarter. vashti. by augusta evans wilson. virtuous wives. by owen johnson. visioning, the. by susan glaspell. waif-o'-the-sea. by cyrus townsend brady. wall of men, a. by margaret h. mccarter. watchers of the plans, the. by ridgwell cullum. way home, the. by basil king. way of an eagle, the. by e. m. dell. way of the strong, the. by ridgwell cullum. way of these women, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. we can't have everything. by major rupert hughes. weavers, the. by gilbert parker. when a man's a man. by harold bell wright. when wilderness was king. by randall parrish. where the trail divides. by will lillibridge. where there's a will. by mary r. rinehart. white sister, the. by marion crawford. who goes there? by robert w. chambers. why not. by margaret widdemer. window at the white cat, the. by mary roberts rinehart. winds of chance, the. by rex beach. wings of youth, the. by elizabeth jordan. winning of barbara worth, the. by harold bell wright. wire devils, the. by frank l. packard. winning the wilderness. by margaret hill mccarter. wishing ring man, the. by margaret widdemer. with juliet in england. by grace s. richmond. wolves of the sea. by randall parrish. woman gives, the. by owen johnson. woman haters, the. by joseph c. lincoln. woman in question, the. by john reed scott. woman thou gavest me, the. by hall caine. woodcarver of 'lympus, the. by mary e. waller. wooing of rosamond fayre, the. by berta ruck. world for sale, the. by gilbert parker. years for rachel, the. by berta ruck. yellow claw, the. by sax rohmer. you never know your luck. by gilbert parker. zeppelin's passenger, the. by e. phillips oppenheim. * * * * * transcriber's note: the following typographical errors present in the original edition have been corrected. in chapter i, "but the tree letters were visible" was changed to "but the three letters were visible", and "though an ever-thickening mist" was changed to "through an ever-thickening mist". in chapter iii, a missing period was added after "spluttered honorine", and "you musn't stay" was changed to "you mustn't stay". in chapter iv, "then . . . then. . . it's happening" was changed to "then . . . then . . . it's happening", and "slackened spend when she was level" was changed to "slackened speed when she was level". in chapter v, a quotation mark was added after "they: the people of old.", and "that killed m. antoine, marie le goff and the others" was changed to "that killed m. antoine, marie le goff and the others". in chapter vi, quotation marks were added before "did you put them under there?" and "and i am not a bit afraid", and after "then what is it?". in chapter vii, "one of the cells probably the last" was changed to "one of the cells, probably the last", and a missing period was added after "yes, madeleine ferrand". in chapter viii, "last night . . or rather this morning" was changed to "last night . . . or rather this morning", and "painted perenna is such strange colours" was changed to "painted perenna in such strange colours". in chapter x, a quotation mark was removed before "véronique received her answer", "none come" was changed to "none came", a quotation mark was added after "my boat is hanging at the foot of the cliff.", and "we'll land at pont-l'abbé" was changed to "we'll land at pont-l'abbé". in chapter xii, a quotation mark was removed after "its feathered end was still quivering." in chapter xiv, "the other joined him" was changed to "the others joined him", and a quotation mark was added after "at any rate, it's a sacred stone". in chapter xv, a quotation mark was added before "she is dead", "yatching-cap" was changed to "yachting-cap", a comma was changed to a period after "there's no hypocrisy about you", and "is is agreed" was changed to "is it agreed". in chapter xvi, "ascertain véronique d'hergemont's whereabout" was changed to "ascertain véronique d'hergemont's whereabouts", and "the worthy man envolved the prophecy from his own consciousness" was changed to "the worthy man evolved the prophecy from his own consciousness". in chapter xvii, "the ancient druid, whom we may call either don luis perenna or arséne lupin" was changed to "the ancient druid, whom we may call either don luis perenna or arsène lupin". in chapter xviii, a period was changed to a comma after "one after the other", and quotation marks were added after "the boat should have started" and "he chopped off his hand". in the advertisements, bruce of the circle a was changed to bruce of the circle, a, in the entry for the nameless man "nataile sumner lincoln" was changed to "natalie sumner lincoln", and in the entry for the world for sale "gilbert-parker" was changed to "gilbert parker". transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). brittany * * * * * other volumes in this series by mortimer menpes each = s.= net with illustrations in colour japan world pictures venice india china price = s.= net published by adam and charles black soho square, london, w. * * * * * [illustration: marie jeanne] brittany by mortimer menpes text by dorothy menpes published by adam & charles black soho square london · w · mcmxii. published july, reprinted contents chapter page i. douarnÉnez ii. rochefort-en-terre iii. vitrÉ iv. vannes v. quimper vi. st. brieuc vii. paimpol viii. guingamp ix. huelgoat x. concarneau xi. morlaix xii. pont-aven xiii. quimperlÉ xiv. auray xv. belle isle xvi. st. anne d'auray xvii. st. malo xviii. mont st. michel xix. chÂteau des rochers xx. carnac xxi. a romantic land list of illustrations . marie jeanne _frontispiece_ facing page . homeward bound . grandmère . meditation . minding the babies . a cottage in rochefort-en-terre . at rochefort-en-terre . mid-day rest . a cottage home . mediæval houses, vitré . preparing the mid-day meal . in church . père louis . idle hours . la vieille mère perot . a vieillard . place henri quatre, vannes . gossips . a cattle market . bread stalls . in a breton kitchen . a rainy day at the fair . in the porch of the cathedral, quimper . the vegetable market, quimper . outside the cathedral, quimper . by the side of a farm . on the road to bannalec . débit de boissons . church of st. mody . reflections . a sabot-stall . la vieillesse . a beggar . a wayside shrine, huelgoat . fishing boats, concarneau . at the fountain, concarneau . concarneau harbour . the sardine fleet, concarneau . watching for the fishing-fleet, concarneau . mediæval house at morlaix . outside the smithy, pont-aven . in an auberge, pont-aven . a sand-cart on the quay, pont-aven . playing on the 'place,' pont-aven . on the quay at pont-aven . on the steps of the mill house, pont-aven . the bridge, pont-aven . the village forge, pont-aven . the village cobbler . the blind piper . at the foire . mid-day . a little mother . curiosity . a solitary meal . in the bois d'amour . a breton farmer . in the eye of the sun . sunday . the cradle . soupe maigre . déjeuner . a farmhouse kitchen . marie . a farm labourer . a little water-carrier . weary . the master of the house . in the ingle nook . a blind beggar . la petite marie . the little housewife . an old woman . a pig-market . household duties chapter i douarnÉnez the gray and somewhat uninteresting village of douarnénez undergoes a change when the fishing-boats come home. even with your eyes shut, you would soon know of the advent of the fishermen by the downward clatter of myriads of sabots through the badly-paved steep streets, gathering in volume and rapidity with each succeeding minute. the village has been thoroughly wakened up. douarnénez is the headquarters of the sardine fishery, and the home-coming of the sardine boats is a matter of no little importance. the , inhabitants of the place are all given up to this industry. prosperity, or adversity, depends upon the faithfulness, or the fickleness, of the little silver fish in visiting their shores. not long ago the sardines forsook douarnénez, and great was the desolation and despair which settled upon the people. however, the season this year is good, and the people are prosperous. as one descends the tortuous street leading to the sea, when the tide is in, everything and everyone you encounter seem to be in one way or another connected with sardines. the white-faced houses are festooned and hung with fine filmy fishing-nets of a pale cornflower hue, edged with rows of deep russet-brown corks. occasionally they are stretched from house to house across the street, and one passes beneath triumphal arches of really glorious gray-blue fishing-nets. this same little street, which barely an hour ago was practically empty and deserted, now swarms with big bronzed fishermen coming up straight from the sea, laden with their dripping cargo of round brown baskets half filled with glistening fish. they live differently from the sleepy villagers--these strapping giants of the sea, with their deep-toned faces, their hair made tawny by exposure, their blue eyes, which somehow or other seem so very blue against the dark red-brown of their complexion, their reckless, rollicking, yet graceful, sailor's gait. a sailor always reminds me of a cat amongst a roomful of crockery: he looks as if he will knock over something or trip over something every moment as he swings along in his careless fashion; yet he never does. [illustration: homeward bound] what a contrast they are, these stalwart fishers of the deep, to the somewhat pallid, dapper-looking, half-french hotel and shop keepers, who are the only men to be seen in the village during the daytime--these fishermen, with their russet-brown clothing faded by the salt air into indescribably rich wallflower tones of gold and orange and red! what pranks mistress sea plays with the simple homespun garments of these men, staining and bleaching them into glorious and unheard-of combinations of colour, such as would give a clever london or parisian dressmaker inspiration for a dozen gowns, which, if properly adapted, would take the whole of the fashionable world by storm! you see blue woollen jerseys faded into greens and yellows, red _bérets_ wondrously shaded in tones of vermilion and salmon. from almost every window tarpaulin and yellow oilskin trousers hang drying; every woman in the place is busily employed. many a fascinating glimpse one catches at the doorways when passing, subjects worthy of peter de hooch--a young girl in the white-winged cap and red crossway shawl of douarnénez cutting up squares of cork against the rich dark background of her home, in which glistening brass, polished oak, blue-and-white china, and a redly burning fire can be faintly discerned. a soft buzzing noise, as of many people singing, occasionally broken by a shrill treble, and a group of loafing men, peering in at a doorway, attract your attention. you gaze inquisitively within. it is a large shed or barn filled with hundreds of young girls and women, with bare feet and skirts tucked up to their knees, salting and sifting and drying and cooking sardines, singing together the while as with one voice some breton folk-song in a minor key, as they busy themselves about their work. it is impossible to describe one's feelings when, after descending the steep cobbled street, one first catches sight of the sea at douarnénez. one can only stand stock-still for a moment and draw in a deep breath of astonishment and fulfilment of hopes. before you lies a broad expanse of gray-blue. i can liken it to nothing but the hue of faded cornflowers. whether it is the time of day or not i cannot tell, but sea and sky alike are flooded with this same strange cornflower hue; the hills in the distance are of a deeper cornflower; and clustered about the quay are many fishing-barques, showing purply-black against the blue delicacy of the background. [illustration: grandmÈre] over the gray-blue sea are scudding myriads of brown, double-winged boats, all making for the little harbour--some in twos, some in threes, others in flocks, like so many swallows. close to the dark cornflower hills is a patch of brilliant verdant green--so yellow-green that it almost sets your teeth on edge. set down in mere words, this description can convey no impression of the bay of douarnénez as i saw it that balmy autumn afternoon. my pen is clogged; it refuses to interpret my thoughts. it was a scene that i shall never forget. as the fishing-boats neared the shore the gorgeously flaming brown-and-gold and vermilion sails were hauled down, and in their places appeared the filmy gray-blue nets hung with rows of brown corks. the rapidity with which these brown-sailed workaday boats changed to gossamer, cornflower-decked, fairy-like crafts was extraordinary. it was as if a flight of moths had by the stroke of a fairy's wand been suddenly transformed to blue-winged butterflies. in and about their boats the sailors are working, busy with their day's haul, picturesque figures standing against the luminous blue in their sea-toned garments. on the quay the women are standing in groups, talking and knitting, and keeping a sharp look-out for their own particular 'men.' trim, neat little figures these women, with their short dark-blue or red skirts, their gaily-coloured shawls drawn down to a peak at the back, their light-yellow sabots and their tightly-fitting lace caps, made to show the brilliant black hair beneath and the pretty rounded shape of their heads. many a time when the cornflower-blue sea has turned to sullen black, and the balmy air is alive with flying foam and roaring winds, such women must wait in vain on the quay at douarnénez for their men-folk. the sailor's life is a hard one in brittany, exposed as he is in his small boat to the fearful storms of the atlantic. but danger and trouble are far distant on this balmy autumn afternoon: the haul has been an exceptional one, the little fishing-craft are filled high with silver fish, fishermen fill the streets with laden baskets, and the soft murmur of many women's voices singing at their work is wafted through the open doorways of the sorting and counting-houses. every moment the boats on the horizon become more and more numerous, the men being anxious to land their cargo before nightfall; the sea, in fact, is dark with little brown craft racing in as if for a wager. at one point the fleet splits up, and the greater portion enter an inlet other than that at which we are standing. anxious to watch their incoming, we hurry round the cliffs, past quiet bays. the black rocks against the blue sea, allspice-coloured sand, and overhanging autumn-tinted trees almost reaching to the water's edge, would afford many a fascinating subject for the painter of seascapes. in descending a hill, the haven towards which the fishing-boats are scudding is before us--a large bay with a breakwater. on the near side of it are massed rows upon rows of fishing-boats, now arrayed in their gossamer robes of blue. everyone is busy. you are reminded of a scene in a play--a comic opera at the gaiety. boats are entering by the dozen every moment, and arranging themselves in rows in the little harbour, like a pack of orderly school-children, shuffling and fidgeting for a moment in their places before dropping anchor and remaining stationary. others are scudding rapidly over the smooth blue sea, ruffling it up in white foam at their bows. scores of men in rich brown wallflower-hued clothes and dark-blue _bérets_ are as busy as bees among the sails and cordage; others are walking rapidly to and fro, with round brown baskets, full of silver fish, slung over the arms. but before even the sardines are unloaded the nets are taken down, bundles of blue net and brown corks, and promptly carried off home to be dried. this is the sailors' first consideration, for on the frail blue nets depends prosperity or poverty. such nets are most expensive: only one set can be bought in a man's lifetime, and even then they must be paid for in instalments. above the quay, leaning over the stone parapet, are scores of girls, come from their homes just as they were, some with their work and some with their _goûté_ (bread and chocolate or an apple). they have come to watch the entrance of the fishing fleet: comely, fresh-complexioned women, in shawls and aprons of every colour--some blue, some maroon, some checked--all with spotless white caps. the wives are distinguished from the maids by the material of which their caps are made: the wives' are of book-muslin and the maids' of fillet lace. some have brought their knitting, and work away busily, their hair stuck full of bright steel knitting-needles. i was standing in what seemed to be a "boulevard des jeunes filles." they were mostly quite young girls; and handsome creatures they were too, all leaning over the parapet and smiling down upon the men as they toiled up the slope with their baskets full, and ran down again at a jog-trot with the empties. the stalwart young men of the village were too much preoccupied to find time for tender or friendly glances: it was only later, when the bustle had subsided somewhat, and the coming and going was not so active, that they condescended to pay any attention to the fair. [illustration: meditation] the matrons were mostly engaged in haggling for cheap fish. the men, tired after their day's work, generally gave way without much ado. it was amusing to watch the triumph in which the old ladies carried off their fish, washed and cleaned them in the sea, threaded them on cords, and, slinging them on their shoulders, set off for home. it seemed as if the busy scene would never end. always fresh boats were arriving, and still the horizon was black with fishing craft. reluctantly we left the scene--a forest of masts against the evening sky, a jumble of blues and browns, rich wallflower shades and palest cornflower, brown corks, and the white caps of the women. next morning the romantic and picturesque aspect of the town had disappeared. gone were the fishermen, and gone their dainty craft. the only men remaining were loafers and good-for-nothings, besides the tradesmen and inn-keepers. two by two the children were tramping through the steep gray streets on their way to school--small dirty-faced cherubs, under tangled mops of fair hair (one sees the loveliest red-gold and yellow-gold hair in douarnénez), busily munching their breakfasts of bread and apples, many of them just able to toddle. 'donne la main a ta soeur, george,' i heard a shrill voice exclaim from a doorway to two little creatures in blue-checked pinafores wending their weary way schoolwards. who would have known that one of them was a boy? they seemed exactly alike. handsome young girls in neat short skirts, pink worsted stockings, and yellow sabots, were busy sweeping out the gutters. little children's dresses and pinafores had taken the place of nets and seamen's oilskins, now hanging from the windows to be dried. the quay was silent and desolate; the harbour empty of boats, save for a few battered hulks. all the colour and romance had gone out to sea with the fishermen. only the smell of the sardines had been left behind. [illustration: minding the babies] [illustration: a cottage in rochefort-en-terre] chapter ii rochefort-en-terre during our month's tour in brittany we had not met one english or american traveller; but at rochefort-en-terre there was said to be a colony of artists. on arriving at the little railway-station, we found that the only conveyance available was a diligence which would not start until the next train, an hour thence, had come in. there was nothing for it, therefore, but to sit in the stuffy little diligence or to pace up and down the broad country road in the moonlight. there is something strangely weird and eerie about arriving at a place, the very name of which is unfamiliar, by moonlight. after a long hour's wait, the diligence, with its full complement of passengers, a party of young girls returned from a day's shopping in a neighbouring town, started. it was a long, cold drive, and the air seemed to be growing clearer and sharper as we ascended. at length rochefort-en-terre was reached, and, after paying the modest sum of fifty centimes for the two of us, we were set down at the door of the hotel. we were greeted with great kindness and hospitality by two maiden ladies in the costume of the country, joint proprietors of the hotel, who made us exceedingly comfortable. to our surprise, we discovered that the colony of painters had been reduced to one lady artist; but it was evident, from the pictures on the panels of the _salle-à-manger_, that many artists had stayed in the hotel during the summer. rochefort by morning light was quite a surprise. the hotel, with a few surrounding houses, was evidently situated on a high hill; the rest of the village lay below, wreathed, for the time being, in a white mist. it was a balmy autumn morning; the sunlight was clear and radiant; and i was filled with impatience to be out and at work. the market-place was just outside our hotel, and the streets were alive with people. a strange smell pervaded the place--something between cider apples and burning wood--and whenever i think of rochefort that smell comes back to me, bringing with it vivid memories of the quaint little town as i saw it that day. there is nothing modern about rochefort. the very air is suggestive of antiquity. few villages in brittany have retained their old simplicity of character; but rochefort is one of them. untouched and unspoilt by the march of modernity, she has stood still while most of her neighbours have been whirled into the vortex of civilization. rochefort, like the sleeping beauty's palace, has lain as it was and unrepaired for years. moss has sprung up between the cobble-stones of her streets; ferns and lichen grow on the broken-down walls; nature and men's handiwork have been allowed their own sweet way--and a very sweet way they have in rochefort. to enter the village one must descend a flight of stone steps between two high walls, green and dark with ivy and small green ferns growing in the niches. very old walls they are, with here and there ancient carved doorways breaking the straight monotony. on one side is a garden, and over the time-worn stone-work tomato-coloured asters nod and wistaria throws her thick festoons of green, for the flowering season is past. everything is dark and damp and moss-grown, and very silent. an old woman, with a terra-cotta pitcher full of water poised on her head, is toiling up the steps, the shortest way to the town, which, save for the singing of the birds in the old château garden, the bleating of lambs on the hillside, and the chopping of a wood-cutter, is absolutely silent. one descends into a valley shut in by rugged blue-gray mountains, for all the world like a little alpine village, or, rather, a breton village in an alpine setting. the mountains in parts are rocky and rugged, purple in aspect, and in parts overgrown with gray-green pines. there are stretches of wooded land, of golden-brown and russet trees, and great slopes of grass, the greenest i have ever seen. it is quite a little swiss pastoral picture, such as one finds in children's story-books. on the mountain-side a woman, taking advantage of the sun, is busy drying her day's washing, and a little girl is driving some fat black-and-white cows into a field; while a sparkling river runs tumbling in white foam over boulders and fallen trees at the base. but rochefort is a typically breton village. nowhere in switzerland does one see such ancient walls, such gnarled old apple-trees, laden and bowed down to the earth with their weight of golden red fruit. nowhere in switzerland, i am sure, do you see such fine relics of architecture. nearly every house in the village has something noble or beautiful in its construction. renovation has not laid her desecrating hands on rochefort. here you see a house that was once a lordly dwelling; for there are remains of some fine sculpture round about the windows, remnants of magnificent mouldings over the door, a griffin's head jutting from the gray walls. there you see a double flight of rounded stone steps, with a balustrade leading up to a massive oak door. on the ancient steps chickens perch now, and over the doorway hang a bunch of withered mistletoe and the words 'debit de boisson.' [illustration: at rochefort-en-terre] the village is full of surprises. everywhere you may go in that little place you will see all about you pictures such as would drive most artists wild with joy. everything in rochefort seems to be more or less overgrown. even in this late october you will see flowers and vines and all kinds of greenery growing rampant everywhere. you will see a white house almost covered with red rambling roses and yellowing vines, oleanders and cactus plants standing in tubs on either side of the door. there is not a wall over which masses of greenery do not pour, and not a window that does not hold its pot of red and pink geraniums. two cats are licking their paws in two different windows. the sun has come out from the mists which enveloped it, and shines in all its glory, hot and strong on your back, as it would in august. it is market day, and everyone is light-hearted and happy. the men whistle gaily on their way; the women's tongues wag briskly over their purchases; even the birds, forgetful of the coming winter, are bursting their throats with song. in the château garden the birds sing loudest of all, and the flowers bloom their best. it is a beautiful old place, the château of rochefort. very little of the ruin is left standing; but the grounds occupy an immense area, and are enclosed by great high walls. where the old kitchen once stood an american has built a house out of the old bricks, using many of the ornamentations and stone gargoyles found about the place. it is an ingeniously designed building; yet one cannot but feel that a modern house is somewhat incongruous amid such historic surroundings. the old avenue leading to the front door still exists; also there are some apple-trees and ancient farm-buildings. the château has been built in the most beautiful situation possible, high above the town, on a kind of tableland, from which one can look down to the valley and the encircling hills. [illustration: mid-day rest] set up in a prominent position in the village, where two roads meet, is a gaudy crucifix, very large and newly painted. it is a realistic presentation of our saviour on the cross, with the blood flowing redly from his side, the piercing of every thorn plainly demonstrated, and the drawn lines of agony in his face and limbs very much accentuated. every market woman as she passes shifts her basket to the other arm, that she may make the sign of the cross and murmur her prayers; every man, woman, child, stops before the cross to make obeisance, some kneeling down in the dust for a few moments before passing on their way. who is to say that the image of that patient, suffering saviour is not an influence for good in the village? who is to say that the adoration, no matter how fleeting, does not soften, does not help, does not control, those humble peasant folk who bow before him? religion has an immense hold over the peasants of brittany. it is the one thing of which they stand in dread. these images, you say, are dolls; but they are very realistic dolls. they teach the people their bible history in a thorough, splendid way. they stand ever before them as something tangible to cling to, to believe in. and the images in the churches--do you mean to say that they have no influence for good on the people? st. stanislaus, the monk, for example, with cowl and shaven head--what an influence such a statue must have on the hearts of children! there is in his face a world of tender fatherly feeling for the little child in the white robe and golden girdle who is resting his head so wearily on the saint's shoulder, clasping a branch of faded lilies in his hand. children look at this statue, and they picture st. stanislaus in their minds always thus: they know what the saint looked like, what he did. he is not only a misty, dim, uncertain figure in the history of the bible, but a tangible, living, vibrating reality, taking active part in their daily lives. for older children, boys especially, there is st. antoine to admire and imitate--st. antoine the hermit, with his staff and his book, the man with the strong, good face. françoise d'amboise, a pure, sweet saint in the habit of a nun, her arms full of lilies, appeals to the hearts and imaginations of all young girls. i believe in the efficacy of these figures and pictures. the peasants' brains are not of a sufficiently fine calibre to believe in a vague christ, a vague virgin, vague saints interpreted to them by the priests. if it were not for the images, men and women would not come to church, as they do at all hours of the day, bringing their market baskets and their tools with them. they would not come in this way, spontaneously, joyfully, two or three times a day, to an empty church with only an altar. church-going would then become a bare duty, forced and unreal, to be gradually dropped and discontinued. these people are able to see the sufferings of our saviour on the cross, and everything that he had to undergo for us; also, there is something infinitely comforting in the divine figure, surrounded by myriads of candles and white flowers, with hands outstretched, bidding all who are weary and heavy-laden to come unto him. the peasants contribute their few sous' worth of candles, and light them, and feel somehow or other that they have indeed rid themselves of sins and troubles. the country round rochefort is truly beautiful. the village lies in a hollow; but it is delightful to take one of the mountain-paths, and go up the rocky way into the pines and gorse and heather. as one sits on the hillside, looking down upon the village, it is absolutely still save for the cawing of some birds. you are out of the world up here. the quaint little gray hamlet lies far below. between it and you is the fertile valley, with green fields and groves of bushy trees. the country is quite cultivated for brittany, where cabbage-fields and pasture-lands are rare. the mountains encircling the valley are of gray slate; growing here and there amongst the slate are yellow gorse and purple heather. it is a gray, dull day; not a breath stirs the air, which is heavy and ominous. evening is drawing on as one walks down the mountain-path towards home, and a haze is settling on the village; the sun has been feebly trying to shine all day through the thick clouds that cover it. the green pines, with their purple stems, are very beautiful against the deeper purple of the mountains; pretty, too, the homesteads on the hills, with their fields of cabbages and little plantations of flowers. there is a sweet smell of gorse and pine-needles and decaying bracken, and always one hears the caw of rooks. in such a country as this, on such a day, amid such sights and sounds, you feel glad to be alive. you swing down the mountain-side quickly, and the beauty of it all enters into your soul, filling you with a nameless longing and yearning for you know not what, as nature in her grandest moods always does. what rich colouring there is round about everywhere on this autumn afternoon! the mountain-path leads, let us say, through a pine-wood. the leaves are far above your head; you seem to be walking in a forest of stems--long, slim, silver stems, purple in the shadows. on the ground is a carpet of salmon and brown leaves, with here and there a bracken-leaf which is absolutely the colour of pure gold. [illustration: a cottage home] there is no sound in the forest but your own footsteps and the rustle of the dry leaves as your dress brushes them. you emerge from the pine-forest on to a bare piece of mountain land, grayish purple, with patches of black. then you dive into a chestnut-grove, where the leaves are green and brown and gold, and the earth is a rich brown. and so down the path into the village wrapped in a blue haze. the women in their cottages are bending busily over copper pots and pans on great open fireplaces of blazing logs. little coloured bowls have been laid out on long polished tables for the evening meal, and the bright pewter plates have been brought down from the dresser. lulu has been sent out to bring home bread for supper. 'va, ma petite lulu,' says her mother, 'dépêche toi.' and the small fat bundle in the check pinafore toddles hastily down the stone steps on chubby legs. on the stone settles outside almost every house in the village families are sitting--the mothers and withered old grandmothers knitting or peeling potatoes, and the children munching apples and hunches of bread-and-butter. an old woman is washing her fresh green lettuce at the pump. as we mount the hill leading to the hotel and look back, night is fast descending on the village. the mountains have taken on a deeper purple; blue smoke rises from every cottage; the gray sky is changing to a faint citron yellow; the few slim pine-trees on the hills stand out against it jet-black, like sentinels. [illustration: mediÆval houses, vitrÉ] chapter iii vitrÉ for the etcher, the painter, the archæologist, and the sculptor, vitré is an ideal town. to the archæologist it is an ever-open page from the middle ages, an almost complete relic of that period, taking one back with a strange force and realism three hundred years and more. time has dealt tenderly with vitré. the slanting, irregular houses, leaning one against the other, as if for mutual support, stand as by a miracle. wandering through vitré, one seems to be visiting a wonderful and perfect museum, such as must needs please even the exacting, the blasé, and the indifferent. you are met at every turn by the works of the ancients in all their naïve purity and simplicity, many of the houses having been built in the first half of the seventeenth century. one can have no conception of the energy of these early builders, fighting heroically against difficulties such as we of the present day do not experience. they overcame problems of balance and expressed their own imaginations. common masons with stone and brick and wood accomplished marvellous and audacious examples of architecture. they sought symmetry as well as the beautifying of their homes, covering them with ornamentations and sculpture in wood and stone. without architects, without plans or designs, these men simply followed their own initiative, and the result has been absolute marvels of carpentry and stone-work, such as have withstood the onslaught of time and held their own. when you first arrive at vitré, at the crowded, bustling station, surrounded by the most modern of houses and hotels, and faced by the newest of fountains, disappointment is acute. if you were to leave vitré next morning, never having penetrated into the town, you would carry away a very feeble and uninteresting impression; but, having entered the town, and discovered those grand old streets--the baudrarie, the poterie, and the nôtre dame, among many others--poet, painter, sculptor, man of business or of letters, whoever you may be, you cannot fail to be astonished, overwhelmed, and delighted. a quiet old-world air pervades the streets; no clatter and rattle of horses' hoofs disturbs their serenity; no busy people, hurrying to and fro, fill the pathways. handcarts are the only vehicles, and the inhabitants take life quietly. often for the space of a whole minute you will find yourself quite alone in a street, save for a hen and chickens that are picking up scraps from the gutter. in these little old blackened streets, ever so narrow, into which the sun rarely penetrates except to touch the upper stories with golden rays, there are houses of every conceivable shape--there are houses of three stories, each story projecting over the other; houses so old that paint and plaster will stay on them no longer; houses with pointed roofs; houses with square roofs thrust forward into the street, spotted by yellow moss; houses the façades of which are covered with scaly gray tiles, glistening in the sun like a knight's armour. these are placed in various patterns according to the taste and fantasy of the architect: sometimes they are cut round, sometimes square, and sometimes they are placed like the scales of a fish. there are houses, whose upper stories, advancing into the middle of the street, are kept up by granite pillars, forming an arcade underneath, and looking like hunchbacked men; there are the houses of the humble artisans and the houses of the proud noblemen; houses plain and simple in architecture; houses smothered with carvings in wood and stone of angels and saints and two-headed monsters--houses of every shape and kind imaginable. in a certain zigzag, tortuous street the buildings are one mass of angles and sloping lines, one house leaning against another,--noble ruins of the ages. the plaster is falling from the walls; the slates are slipping from the roofs; and the wood is becoming worm-eaten. it is four o'clock on a warm autumn afternoon; the sun is shining on one side of this narrow street, burnishing gray roofs to silver, resting lovingly on the little balconies, with their pendent washing and red pots of geranium. the men are returning from their work and the children from their schools; the workaday hours are ended, and the houses teem with life. a woman is standing in a square sculptured doorway trying to teach her little white-faced fluffy-haired baby to say 'ma! ma!' this he positively refuses to do; but he gurgles and chuckles at intervals, at which his mother shakes him and calls him 'petit gamin.' [illustration: preparing the mid-day meal] all bretons love the sun; they are like little children in their simple joy of it. a workman passing says to a girl leaning out of a low latticed window: 'c'est bon le soleil?' 'mais oui: c'est pour cela que j'y suis,' she answers. one house has an outside staircase of chocolate-coloured wood, spirally built, with carved balustrades. on one of the landings an old woman is sitting. she has brought out a chair and placed it in the sunniest corner. she is very old, and wears the snowiest of white caps on her gray hair; her wrinkled pink hands, with their red worsted cuffs, are working busily at her knitting; and every now and then she glances curiously through the banisters into the street below, like a little bright bird. there are white houses striped with brown crossbars, each with its little shallow balcony. above, the white plaster has nearly all fallen away, revealing the beautiful old original primrose-yellow. curiosity shops are abundant everywhere, dim and rich in colour with the reds and deep tones of old polished wood, the blue of china, and the glistening yellow of brass. ancient houses there are, with scarcely any windows: the few that one does see are heavily furnished with massive iron-nailed shutters or grated with rusty red iron; the doorways are of heaviest oak, crowned with coats of arms sculptured in stone. large families of dirty children now live in these lordly domains. one longs in vitré, above all other places, to paint, or, rather, to etch. vitré is made for the etcher; endless and wondrous are the subjects for his needle. here, in a markedly time-worn street, are a dozen or more pictures awaiting him--a doorway aged and blackened alternately by the action of the sun and by that of the rain, and carved in figures and symbols sculptured in stone, through which one catches glimpses of a courtyard wherein two men are shoeing a horse; then, again, there is an obscure shop, so calm and tranquil that one asks one's self if business can ever be carried on there. as you peer into the darkness, packets of candles, rope, and sugar are faintly discernible, also dried fish and bladders of lard suspended from the ceiling; in a far corner is an old woman in a white cap--all this in deepest shadow. above, the clear yellow autumn sunlight shines in a perfect blaze upon the primrose-coloured walls, crossed with beams of blackest wood, making the slates on the pointed roofs scintillate, and touching the windows here and there with a golden light. [illustration: in church] side by side with this wonderful old house, the glories of which it is impossible to describe in mere words, a new one has been built--not in a modern style, but striving to imitate the fine old structures in this very ancient street. the contrast, did it not grate on one's senses, would be laughable. stucco is pressed into the service to represent the original old stone, and varnished deal takes the place of oak beams with their purple bloom gathered through the ages. the blocks of stone round the doors and windows have been laboriously hewn, now large, now small, and placed artistically and carelessly zigzag, pointed with new black cement. this terrible house is interesting if only to illustrate what age can do to beautify and modernity to destroy. madonnas, crucifixes, pictures of saints in glass cases, and statuettes of the virgin, meet you at every turn in vitré, for the inhabitants are proverbially a religious people. a superstitious yet guilty conscience would have a trying time in vitré. in entering a shop, st. joseph peers down upon you from a niche above the portal; at every street corner, in every market, and in all kinds of quaint and unexpected places, saints and angels look out at you. the beautiful old cathedral, nôtre dame de vitré, is one of the purest remaining productions of the decadent gothic art in brittany, and one of the finest. several times the grand old edifice has been enlarged and altered, and the changes in art can be traced through different additions as in the pages of a book. it is a comparatively low building, the roof of which is covered by a forest of points or spires, and at the apex of each point is a stone cross. in fact, the characteristics of this building are its points: the windows are shaped in carved points, and so are the ornamentations on the projecting buttresses. the western door, very finely carved and led up to by a flight of rounded steps, is of the renaissance period. in colouring, the cathedral is gray, blackened here and there, but not much stained by damp or lichen, except the tower, which seems to be of an earlier date. the stained-glass windows, seen from the outside, are of a dim, rich colouring; and on one of the outside walls has been built an exterior stone pulpit, ornamented with graceful points, approached from the church by a slit in the wall. it was constructed to combat the calvinistic party, so powerful in vitré at one time. one can easily imagine the seething crowd in the square below--the sea of pale, passionate, upturned faces. it must have presented much the same picture then as it does now, this cathedral square in vitré--save for the people;--for there are still standing, facing the pulpit, and not a hundred paces from it, a row of ancient houses that existed in those very riotous times. every line of those once stately domains slants at a different angle now, albeit they were originally built in a solid style--square-fronted and with pointed roofs, the upper stories projecting over the pavement, with arcades beneath. some are painted white, with gray woodwork; others yellow, with brown wood supports. outside one of the houses, once a butcher's shop, hangs a boar's head, facing the stone pulpit. what scenes that old animal must have witnessed in his time, gazing so passively with those glassy brown eyes! if only it could speak! [illustration: pÈre louis] convent-bred girls in a long line are filing into church through the western door--meek-faced little people in black pinafores and shiny black hats. all wear their hair in pigtails, and above their boots an inch or so of coloured woollen stockings is visible. each carries a large prayer-book under her arm. a reverend mother, in snowy white cap and flowing black veil, heads the procession, and another brings up the rear. the main door facing the square is flung wide open; and the contrast between the brilliant sunlit square, with its noisy laughing children returning from school, dogs barking, and handcarts rattling over the cobble stones, and this dim, sombre interior, bathed in richest gloom, is almost overwhelming. a stained-glass window at the opposite end of the church, with the light at the back of it, forms the only patch of positive colour, with its brilliant reds and purples and blues. all else is dim and rich and gloomy, save here and there where the glint of brass, the gold of the picture-frames, the white of the altar-cloth, or the ruby of an ever-burning light, can be faintly discerned in the obscurity. the deep, full notes of the organ reach you as you stand at the cathedral steps, and you detect the faint odour of incense. the figure of a woman kneeling with clasped hands and bent head is dimly discernible in the heavy gloom. one glance into such an interior, after coming from the glare and glamour of the outside world, cannot but bring peace and rest and a soothing influence to even the most unquiet soul. the château of vitré is an even older building than the cathedral. it has lived bravely through the ages, suffering little from the march of time: a noble edifice, huge and massive, with its high towers, its châtelet, and its slate roofs. just out of the dark, narrow, cramped old streets, you are astonished to emerge suddenly on a large open space, and to be confronted by this massive château, well preserved and looking almost new. as a matter of fact, its foundation dates back as far as the eleventh century, although four hundred years ago it was almost entirely reconstructed. parts of the château are crumbling to decay; but the principal mass, consisting of the towers and châtelet, is marvellously preserved. it still keeps a brave front, though the walls and many of the castle keeps and fortresses are tottering to ruin. many a shock and many a siege has the old château withstood; but now its fighting days are over. the frogs sing no longer in the moat through the beautiful summer nights; the sentinel's box is empty; and in the courtyards, instead of clanking swords and spurred heels, the peaceful step of the tourist alone resounds. the château has rendered a long and loyal service, and to-day as a reward enjoys a glorious repose. to visit the castle, you pass over a draw-bridge giving entrance to the châtelet, and no sooner have you set foot on it than the concierge emerges from a little room in the tower dedicated to the service of the lodge-holder. she is a very up-to-date chatelaine, trim and neat, holding a great bunch of keys in her hand. she takes you into a huge grass-grown courtyard in the interior, whence you look up at the twin towers, capped with pointed gray turrets, and see them in all their immensity. the height and strength and thickness of the walls are almost terrifying. she shows you a huge nail-studded door, behind which is a stone spiral staircase leading to an underground passage eight miles long. this door conjures up to the imaginative mind all kinds of romantic and adventurous stories. we are taken into the salle des guardes, an octagonal stone room on an immense scale, with bay windows, the panes of which are of stained glass, and a gigantic chimneypiece. one can well imagine the revels that must have gone on round that solid oak table among the waiting guards. the chatelaine leads us up a steep spiral staircase built of solid granite, from which many rooms branch, all built in very much the same style--octagonal and lofty, with low doorways. one must stoop to enter. on the stairway, at intervals of every five or six steps, there are windows with deep embrasures, in which one can stand and gain a commanding view of the whole country. these, it is needless to say, were used in the olden days for military purposes. [illustration: idle hours] as the chatelaine moves on, ever above us, with her clanking keys, one can take one's self back to the middle ages, and imagine the warrior's castle as it was then, when the chatelaine, young, sweet, and pretty, wending her way about the dark and gloomy castle, was the only humane and gentle spirit there. easier still is it to lose yourself in the dim romantic past when you are shown into a room which, though no fire burns on the hearth, is still quite warm, redolent of tapestry and antiquity. this room is now used as a kind of museum. it is filled with fine examples of old china, sufficient to drive a collector crazy, enamels, old armour, rubies, ornaments, sculpture, medals, firearms, and instruments of torture. sitting in a deep window-seat, surrounded by the riches of ancient days, with the old-world folk peering out from the tapestried walls, one can easily close one's eyes and lose one's self for a moment in the gray past, mystic and beautiful. it is delightful to summon to your mind the poetical and pathetic figure of (let us say) a knight imprisoned in the tower on account of his prominent and all-devouring love for some unapproachable fair one; or of that other who, pinning a knot of ribbon on his coat,--his lady's colour--set out to fight and conquer. but, alas! no chronicle has been left of the deeds of the castle prisoners. any romantic stories that one may conjure to one's mind in the atmosphere of the château can be but the airiest fabrics of a dream. at the top of the spiral staircase is a rounded gallery, with loopholes open to the day, through which one can gain a magnificent, though somewhat dizzy, view over town and country. it was from this that the archers shot their arrows upon the enemy; and very deadly their aim must have been, for nothing could be more commanding as regards position than the château of vitré. also, in the floor of the gallery, round the outer edge, are large holes, down which the besieged threw great blocks of stone, boiling tar, and projectiles of all kinds, which must have fallen with tremendous violence on the assailants. wherever one goes in vitré one sees the fine old château, forming a magnificent background to every picture, with its grand ivy-mantled towers and its huge battlemented walls, belittling everything round it. unlike most french châteaus, more or less showy and toy-like in design, the castle of vitré is built on solid rock, and lifted high above the town in a noble, irresistible style, with walls of immense thickness, and lofty beyond compare. all that is grandest and most beautiful in nature seems to group itself round about the fine old castle, as if nature herself felt compelled to pay tribute of her best to what was noblest in the works of man. in the daytime grand and sweeping white clouds on a sky of eggshell blue group themselves about the great gray building. at twilight, when the hoary old castle appears a colossal purple mass, every tower and every turret strongly outlined against the sunset sky, nature comes forward with her brilliant palette and paints in a background of glorious prismatic hues: great rolling orange and pink clouds on a sky of blue--combination sufficient to send a colourist wild with joy. every inch of the castle walls has been utilized in one way or another to economize material. houses have been built hanging on to and clustering about the walls, sometimes perched on the top of them, like limpets on a rock. often one sees a fine battlemented wall, fifty or sixty feet in height, made of great rough stone, brown and golden and purple with age--a wall which, one knows, must have withstood many a siege--with modern iron balconies jutting out from it, balconies of atrocious pattern, painted green or gray, with gaudy venetian blinds. it is absolute desecration to see leaning from these balconies, against such a background, untidy, fat, dirty women, with black, lank hair, and peasants knitting worsted socks, where once fair damsels of ancient times waved their adieux to departing knights. then, again, how terrible it is to see glaring advertisements of _le petit journal_, benedictine liqueur, singer's sewing machines, and byrrh, plastered over a fine old sculptured doorway! [illustration: la vieille mÈre perot] there are in certain parts of the town remains of the ancient moat. sometimes it is a mere brook, black as night, flowing with difficulty among thick herbage which has grown up round it; sometimes a prosperous, though always dirty, stream. you come across it in unexpected places here and there. in one part, just under the walls of the castle, where the water is very dirty indeed, wash-houses have been erected; there the women kneel on flat stones by the banks. the houses clustering round about the moat are damp and evil-smelling; their slates, green with mould, are continually slipping off the roofs; and the buildings themselves slant at such an angle that their entry into the water seems imminent. at the base of the castle walls the streets mount steeply. this is a very poor quarter indeed. the houses are old, blackened, decayed, much-patched and renovated. yet the place is extremely picturesque; in fact, i know no part of vitré that is not. at any moment, in any street, you can stop and frame within your hands a picture which will be almost sure to compose well--which in colouring and drawing will be the delight of painters and etchers. in these particular streets of which i speak antiquity reigns supreme. here no traffic ever comes; only slatternly women, with their wretched dogs and cats of all breeds, fill the streets. many of the houses are half built out of solid slate, and the steps leading to them are hewn from the rock. one sees no relics of bygone glory here. this must ever have been a poor quarter; for the windows are built low to the ground, and there are homely stone settles outside each door. pigs and chickens walk in and out of the houses with as much familiarity as the men and women. on every shutter strings of drying fish are hung; and every window in every house, no matter how poor, has its rows of pink and red geraniums and its pots of hanging fern. birds also are abundant; in fact, from the first i dubbed this street 'the street of the birds,' for i never before saw so many caged birds gathered together--canaries, bullfinches, jackdaws, and birds of bright plumage. by the sound one might fancy one's self for the moment in an african jungle rather than in a breton village. the streets of vitré are remarkable for their flowers. wherever you may look you will see pots of flowers and trailing greenery, relieving with their bright fresh colouring the time-worn houses of blackened woodwork and sombre stone. not only do moss and creepers abound, but also there are gardens everywhere, over the walls of which trail vines and clematis, and on every window-ledge are pots of geranium and convolvulus. it is impossible in mere words to convey any real impression of the fine old town of vitré: only the etcher and the painter can adequately depict it. the grand old town will soon be of the past. every day, every hour, its walls are decaying, crumbling; and before long vitré will be no more than a memory. [illustration: a vieillard] chapter iv vannes a dear old-world, typically breton town is vannes. we arrived at night, and gazed expectantly from our window on the moonlit square. we plied with questions the man who carried up our boxes. his only answer was that we should see everything on the morrow. that was market-day, and the town was unusually busy. steering for what we thought the oldest part of vannes, we took a turning which led past ancient and crazy-looking houses. very old houses indeed they were, with projecting upper stories, beams, and scaly roofs slanting at all angles. at morlaix some of the streets are ancient; but i have never seen such eccentric broken lines as at vannes. at one corner the houses leant forward across the street, and literally rested one on the top of the other. these were only the upper stories; below were up-to-date jewellers and _pâtisseries_, with newly-painted signs in black and gold. in the middle of these houses, cramped and crowded and hustled by them, stood the cathedral. inside it was a dim, lofty edifice, with faintly burning lamps. hither the market-women come with their baskets, stuffed to the full with fresh green salad and apples, laying them down on the floor that they may kneel on praying-chairs, cross their arms, and raise their eyes to the high-altar, pouring out trouble or joy to god. it was delightful to see rough men with their clean market-day blue linen blouses kneeling on the stone floor, hats in hand and heads bowed, repeating their morning prayers. the people were heavily laden on this bright autumn morning, either with baskets or with sacks or dead fowls, all clattering through the cobbled streets on their way to market. following the crowd, we emerged on a triangular-shaped market-place, wherein a most dramatic-looking _mairie_ or town-hall figured prominently, a large building with two flights of steps leading up to it, culminating in a nail-studded door, with the arms of morbihan inscribed above it. [illustration: place henri quatre, vannes] one can well imagine such a market-place, let us say, in the days of the revolution: how some orator would stand on these steps, with his back to that door, haranguing the crowd, holding them all enthralled by the force of rhetoric. now nothing so histrionic happens. there is merely a buzzing throng of white-capped women, haggling and bargaining as though their lives depended on it, with eyes and hearts and minds for nothing but their business. here and there we saw knots of blue-bloused men, with whips hung over their shoulders and straws in their mouths, more or less loafing and watching their womenfolk. the square was filled with little wooden stalls, where meat was sold--stringy-looking meat, and slabs of purple-hued beef. how these peasant women bargained! i saw one old lady arguing for quite a quarter of an hour over a piece of beef not longer than your finger. chestnuts were for sale in large quantities, and housewives were buying their stocks for the winter. the men of the family had been pressed into the service to carry up sack after sack of fine brown glossy nuts, which were especially plentiful. no one seemed over-anxious to sell; no one cried his wares: it was the purchasers who appeared to do most of the talking and haggling. there were more frenchwomen here than i have seen in any other town; but they were not fine ladies by any means. they did not detract from the picturesqueness of the scene. they went round with their great baskets, getting them filled with apples or chestnuts, or other things. most of the saleswomen were wrinkled old bodies; but one woman, selling chestnuts and baskets of pears, was pretty and quite young, with a mauve apron and a black cross-over shawl, and a mouth like iron. i watched her with amusement. i had never seen so young and comely a person so stern and businesslike. not a single centime would she budge from her stated price. she was pestered by women of all kinds--old and young, peasants and modern french ladies, all attracted by the beauty of her pears and the glossiness of her chestnuts. hers were the finest wares in the market, and she was fully conscious of it, pricing her pears and chestnuts a sou more a sieveful than anyone else. the customers haggled with her, upbraided her, tried every feminine tactic. they sneered at her chestnuts and railed at her pears; they scoffed one with the other. eventually they gave up a centime themselves; but the hard mouth did not relax, and the pretty head in the snow-white coif was shaken vigorously. at this, with snorts of disgust, her customers turned up their noses and left. ere long a smartly-dressed woman came along, and all unsuspectingly bought a sieveful of chestnuts, emptying them into her basket. when she came to pay for them, she discovered they were a sou more than she had expected, and emptied them promptly back into the market-woman's sack. i began to be afraid that my pretty peasant would have to dismount from her high horse or go home penniless; but this was not the case. several women gathered round and began to talk among themselves, nudging one another and pointing. at last one capitulated, hoisted the white flag, and bought a few pears. instantly all the other women laid down their bags and baskets and began to buy her pears and chestnuts. very soon this stall became the most popular in the market-place, and the young woman and her assistant were kept busy the whole day. the hard-mouthed girl had conquered! 'sept sous la demi-douzaine! sept sous la demi-douzaine!' cried a shrill-voiced vendor. it was a man from paris with a great boxful of shiny tablespoons, wrapped in blue tissue-paper in bundles of six, which he was offering for the ridiculous sum of seven sous--that is, threepence halfpenny. naturally, with such bargains to offer, he was selling rapidly. directly he cried his 'sept sous la demi-douzaine--six pour sept sous!' he was literally surrounded. men and women came up one after the other; men's hands flew to their pockets under their blouses, and women's to their capacious leather purses. it was amusing to watch these people--they were so guileless, so childlike, so much pleased with their bargains. still, it would break my heart if these spoons doubled up and cracked or proved worthless, for seven sous is a great deal of money to the breton peasants. i never saw merchandise disappear so quickly. 'solide, solide, solide!' cried the merchant, until you would think he must grow hoarse. 'this is the chance of a lifetime,' he declared: 'a beautiful half-dozen like this. c'est tout ce qu'il y a de plus joli et solide. voyez la beauté et la qualité de cette merchandise. c'est une occasion que vous ne verrez pas tous les jours.' the people became more and more excited; the man was much pressed, and selling the spoons like wildfire. then, there were umbrellas over which the women lost their heads--glossy umbrellas with fanciful handles and flowers and birds round the edge. first the merchant took up an umbrella and twisted it round, then the spoons, and clattered them invitingly, until people grew rash and bought both umbrellas and spoons. [illustration: gossips] there is nothing more amusing than to spend a morning thus, wandering through the market-place, watching the peasants transact their little business, which, though apparently trivial, is serious to them. i never knew any people quite so thrifty as these bretons. you see them selling and buying, not only old clothes, but also bits of old clothes--a sleeve from a soldier's coat, a leg from a pair of trousers; and even then the stuff will be patched. in this market-place you see stalls of odds and ends, such as even the poorest of the poor in england would not hesitate to throw on the rubbish heap--old iron, leaking bottles, legs of chairs and tables. a wonderful sight is the market on a morning such as this. the sun shines full on myriads of white-capped women thronging through the streets, and on lines of brown-faced vegetable vendors sitting close to the ground among their broad open baskets of carrots and apples and cabbages. there are stalls of all kinds--butchers' stalls, forming notes of colour with their vivid red meat; haberdashery stalls, offering everything from a toothbrush or a boot-lace to the most excruciatingly brilliant woollen socks; stalls where clothes are sold--such as children's checked pinafores and babies' caps fit for dolls. most brilliant of all are the material booths, where every kind of material is sold--from calico to velvet. they congregate especially in a certain corner of the market-square, and even the houses round about are draped with lengths of material stretching from the windows down to the ground--glorious sweeps of checks and stripes and flowered patterns, and pink and blue flannelette. it is amusing to watch a breton woman buying a length of cloth. she will pull it, and drag it, and smell it, and almost eat it; she will ask her husband's advice, and the advice of her husband's relations, and the advice of her own relations. in this market i was much amused to watch two men selling. i perceived what a great deal more there is in the individuality of the man who sells and in the manner of his selling than in the actual quality of the merchandise. one man, a dull, foolish fellow, with bales and bales of material, never had occasion to unwrap one: he never sold a thing. another man, a born salesman, with the same wares to offer, talked volubly in a high-pitched voice. he called the people to him; he called them by name--whether it was the right one or not did not matter: it was sufficient to arrest their attention. 'dépêchons nous. here, lucien; here, jeanne; here, babette; here, my pigeon. dépêchons nous, dépêchons nous!' he cried. 'que est ce qu'il y a? personne en veux plus? mais c'est épatant. je suis honteux de vous en dire le prix. flannel! the very thing for your head, madam,--nothing softer, nothing finer. how many yards?--one, two, three? there we are!' and, with a flash of the scissors and a toss of the stuff, the flannel is cut off, wrapped up and under the woman's arm, before the gaping salesman opposite has time to close his mouth. the stall was arranged in a kind of semicircle, and very soon this extraordinary person had gathered a crowd of people, all eager to buy; and the way in which he appeared to attend to everyone at once was simply marvellous. 'what for you, madam?' he would ask, turning to a young breton woman. 'pink flannel? here you are--a superb article, the very thing for nightgowns.' then to a man: 'trousering, my lord? certainly. touchez moi ça. isn't that marvellous? isn't that quality if you like? ah! but i am ashamed to tell you the price. you will be indeed beautiful in this to-morrow.' as business became slack for the moment, he would take up some cheap print and slap it on his knee, crying: 'one sou--one sou the yard! figure yourself dancing with an apron like that at one sou the yard!' and so the man would continue throughout the day, shouting, screaming, always inventing new jokes, selling his wares very quickly, and always gathering more and more people round him. once he looked across at his unfortunate rival, who was listening to his nonsense with a sneering expression. 'yes: you may sneer, my friend; but i am selling, and you are not,' he retorted. endless--absolutely endless--are the peeps of human nature one gains on a market-day such as this in an old-world breton town. i spent the time wandering among the people, and not once did i weary. at every turn i saw something to marvel at, something to admire. we had chanced on a particularly interesting day, when the whole town was turned into a great market. wherever we went there was a market of some sort--a pig market, or a horse market, or an old-clothes market; almost every street was lined with booths and barrows. [illustration: a cattle-market] outside almost every drinking-house, or café breton, lay a fat pig sleeping contentedly on the pavement, and tied to a string in the wall, built there for that purpose. he would be waiting while his master drank--for often men come in to vannes from miles away, and walk back with their purchases. i saw an old woman who had just bought a pig trying to take it home. she had the most terrible time with that animal. first he raced along the road with her at great speed, almost pulling her arms out of the sockets, and making the old lady run as doubtless she had never run before; then he walked at a sedate pace, persistently between her feet, so that either she must ride him straddle-legs or not get on at all; lastly, the pig wound himself and the string round and round her until neither could move a step. a drunken man reeled along, and, seeing the hopeless muddle of the old lady and the pig, stopped in front of them and tried to be of some assistance. he took off his hat and scratched his head; then he poked the pig with his cane, and moved round the woman and pig, giving advice; finally, he flew into a violent rage because he could not solve the mystery, and the old lady waved him aside with an impatient gesture. the air was filled with grunts and groans and blood-curdling squeaks. everyone seemed to possess a pig: either he or she had just bought one or had one for sale. you saw bunches of the great fat pink animals tied to railings while the old women gossiped; you saw pigs, attached to carts, comfortably sleeping in the mud; you saw them being led along the streets like dogs by neatly-dressed dames, holding them by their tails, and giving them a twist every time they were rebellious. vannes is the most beautiful old town imaginable. everywhere one goes one sees fine old archways of gray stone, ancient and lofty--relics of a bygone age--with the arms of brittany below and a saint with arms extended in blessing above. when once you reach the outskirts of the town you realize that at one time vannes must have been enclosed by walls: there are gateways remaining still, and little bits of broken-down brickwork, old and blackened, and half-overgrown with moss and grasses. there is a moat running all round--it is inky black and dank now--on the banks of which a series of sloping slate sheds and washhouses have been built, where the women wash their clothes, kneeling on the square flat stones. how anything could emerge clean and white from such pitch-black water is a marvel. seen from outside the gates, this town is very beautiful--the black water of the moat, the huddled figures of the women, with their white caps and snowy piles of linen, and beyond that green grass and apple-trees and flowers, and at the back the old grayish-pink walls, with carved buttresses. there is hardly a town in the whole of brittany so ancient as vannes. these walls speak for themselves. they speak of the time when vannes was the capital of the rude venetes who made great cæsar hesitate, and retarded him in his conquest of the gauls. they speak of the twenty-one emigrants, escaped from the battle of quiberon, who were shot on the promenade of the garenne, under the great trees where the children play to-day. what marvellous walls these are! with what care they have been built--so stout, so thick, so colossal! it must have taken men of great strength to build such walls as these--men who resented all newcomers with a bitter hatred, and built as if for their very lives, determined to erect something which should be impregnable. still they stand, gray and battered, with here and there remains of their former grandeur in carved parapets, projecting turrets, and massive sculptured doorways. at one time the town must have been well within the walls; but now it has encroached. the white and pink and yellow-faced tall houses perch on the top of, lean against and cluster round, the old gray walls. it seems strange to live in a town where the custom of _couvre-feu_ is still observed by the inhabitants--in a town where no sooner does the clock strike nine than all lights are out, all shutters closed, and all shops shut. this is the custom in vannes. it is characteristic of the people. the vanntais take a pride in being faithful to old usages. they are a sturdy, grave, pensive race, hiding indomitable energy and hearts of fire under the calmest demeanour. the women are fine creatures. i shall never forget seeing an old woman chopping wood. all day long she worked steadily in the open place, wielding an immensely heavy hatchet, and chopping great branches of trees into bundles of sticks. there she stood in her red-and-black checked petticoat, her dress tucked up, swinging her hatchet, and holding the branches with her feet. she seemed an amazon. [illustration: bread stalls] in vannes, as in any part of brittany, one always knows when there is anything of importance happening, by the clatter of the sabots on the cobble stones. on the afternoon when we were there the noise was deafening. we heard it through the closed windows while we were at luncheon--big sabots, little sabots, men's nail-studded sabots, women's light ones, little children's persistent clump, clump, clump, all moving in the same direction. it was the foire des oignons, observed the waiter. i had imagined that there had been a _foire_ of everything conceivable that day; but onions scarcely entered into my calculations. i should not have thought them worthy of a _foire_ all to themselves. the waiter spoiled my meal completely. i could no longer be interested in the very attractive menu. onions were my one and only thought. i lived and had my being but for onions. mother and i sacrificed ourselves immediately on the altar of onions. we rushed from the room, much to the astonishment of several rotund french officers, who were eating, as usual, more than was good for them. everybody was concerned with onions. we drew up in the rear of a large onion-seeking crowd. it was interesting to watch the back views of these peasants as they mounted the hill. there were all kinds of backs--fat backs, thin backs, glossy black backs, and faded green ones; backs of men with floating ribbons and velveteen coats; plump backs of girls with neat pointed shawls--some mauve, some purple, some pink, some saffron. at the top of the hill was the market-square--a busy scene. the square was packed, and everyone was talking volubly in the roughest breton dialect. now and then a country cart painted blue, the horse hung round the neck with shaggy black fur and harnessed with the rough wooden gear so general in brittany, would push through the crowd of busily-talking men and women. everything conceivable was for sale. at certain stalls there were sweets of all colours, yet all tasting the same and made of the worst sugar. i saw the same man still selling his spoons and umbrellas; but he was fat and comfortable now. he had had his _déjeuner_, and was not nearly so excited and amusing. fried sardines were sold with long rolls of bread; also sausages. they cook the sardines on iron grills, and a mixed smell of sausages, sardines, and chestnuts filled the air. everyone was a little excited and a little drunk. long tables had been brought out into the place where the men sat in their blue blouses and black velvet hats,--their whips over their shoulders, drinking cider and wine out of cups,--discussing cows and horses. there was a cattle market there that day. this was soon manifest, for men in charge of cows and pigs pushed their way among the crowd. on feeling a weight at your back now and then, you discovered a cow or a pig leaning against you for support. a great many more animals were assembled on a large square--pigs and cows and calves and horses. one could stay for days and watch a cattle market: it is intensely interesting. the way the people bargain is very strange. i saw a man and a woman buying a cow from a young breton. the man opened its eyelids wide with his finger and thumb; he gazed in the gentle brown eyes; he stroked her soft gray neck; he felt her ribs, and poked his fingers in her side; he lifted one foot after the other; he punched and probed her for quite a quarter of an hour; and the cow stood there patiently. the woman looked on with a hard, knowing expression, applauding at every poke, and talking volubly the while. she drew into the discussion a friend passing by, and asked her opinion constantly, yet never took it. all the while the owner stood stroking his cow's back, without uttering a word. he was a handsome young man, as bretons often are--tall and slim, with a face like an antique bronze, dark and classic;--he wore a short black coat trimmed with shabby velvet, tightly-fitting trousers, and a black hat with velvet streamers. the stateliness of the youth struck me: he held himself like an emperor. these bretons look like kings, with their fine brown classic features; they hold themselves so haughtily, they remind one of figure-heads on old roman coins. they seem men born to command; yet they command nothing, and live like pigs with the cows and hogs. the breton peasant is full of dirt and dignity, living on coarse food, and rarely changing his clothes; yet nowhere will you meet with such fine bearing, charm of manner, and nobility of feature as among the peasants of brittany. on entering the poorest cottage, you are received with old-world courtesy by the man of the house, who comes forward to meet you in his working garments, with dirt thick upon his hands, but with dignity and stateliness, begging that you will honour his humble dwelling with your presence. he sets the best he has in the house before you. it may be only black bread and cider; but he bids you partake of it with a regal wave of his hand which transforms the humble fare. [illustration: in a breton kitchen] these peasants remind me very much of sir henry irving. some of the finest types are curiously like him in feature: they have the same magnificent profile and well-shaped head. it is quite startling to come across sir henry in black gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, and long hair streaming in the wind, ploughing in the dark-brown fields, or chasing a pig, or, dressed in gorgeous holiday attire, perspiring manfully through a village gavotte. surely none but a breton could chase a pig without losing self-respect, or count the teeth in a cow's mouth and look dignified at the same time. no one else could dance up and down in the broiling sunshine for an hour and preserve a composed demeanour. the breton peasant is a person quite apart from the rest of the world. one feels, whether at a pig market or a wayside shrine, that these people are dreamers living in a romantic past. unchanged and unpolished by the outside world, they cling to their own traditions; every stone in their beloved country is invested by them with poetic and heroic associations. brittany looks as if it must have always been as it is now, even in the days of the phoenicians; and it seems impossible to imagine the country inhabited by any but medieval people. there were many fine figures of men in this cattle market, all busy at the game of buying and selling. a frenchman and his wife were strolling round the square, intent on buying a pony. the man evidently knew nothing about horses--very few frenchmen do;--and it was ridiculous to watch the way in which he felt the animal's legs and stroked its mane, with a wise expression, while his wife looked on admiringly. bretons take a long time over their bargains: sometimes they will spend a whole day arguing over two sous, and then end by not buying the pig or the cow, whatever it is, at all. the horses looked tired and bored with the endless bargains, as they leant their heads against one another. now and then one was taken out and trotted up and down the square; then two men clasped hands once, and went off to a café to drink. if they clasp hands a third time the bargain will be closed. market-day in vannes is an excuse for frivolity. we came upon a great crowd round two men under a red umbrella, telling fortunes. one man's eyes were blindfolded. he was the medium. the people were listening to his words with guileless attention and seriousness. then a man and a woman, both drunk, were singing songs about the japanese and russian war, dragging in 'france' and 'la gloire,' and selling the words, forcing young frenchmen and soldiers to buy sheets of nonsense for which they had no use. there were stalls of imitation flowers--roses and poppies and chrysanthemums of most impossible colours--gazed at with covetous eyes by the more well-to-do housewives. hats were sold in great numbers at the foire des oignons. it seemed to be fashionable to buy a black felt hat on that day. the fair is held only once a year, and farmers and their families flock to it from miles round. it is the custom, when a good bargain is made, to buy new hats for the entire family. probably there will be no opportunity of seeing a shop again during the rest of the year. the trade in hats is very lively. women from auray, in three-cornered shawls and wide white-winged caps, sit all day long sewing broad bands of velvet ribbon on black beaver hats, stretching it round the crown and leaving it to fall in two long streamers at the back. they sew quickly, for they have more work than they can possibly accomplish during the day. it is amusing to watch the customers. i sat on the stone balustrade which runs round the open square of the hôtel de ville, whither all the townswomen come as to a circus, bringing their families, and eating their meals in the open air, that they may watch the strangers coming and going about their business, either on foot or in carts. it was as good as a play. a young man, accompanied by another man, an old lady, and three young girls, had come shyly up to the stall. it was obvious that he was coming quite against his will and at the instigation of his companions. he hummed and hawed, fidgeted, blushed, and looked as wretched and awkward as a young man could. one hat after another was tried on his head; but none of them would fit. he was the object of all eyes. the townswomen hooted at him, and his own friends laughed. he could stand it no longer. he dashed down his money, picked up the hat nearest to him, and went off in a rage. i often thought of that young man afterwards--of his chagrin during the rest of the year, when every sunday and high day and holiday he would have to wear that ill-fitting hat as a penalty for his bad temper. these great strapping breton men are very childish, and dislike above all things to be made to appear foolish. towards evening, when three-quarters drunk, they are easily gulled and cheated by the gentle-faced needle-women. without their own womenfolk they are completely at sea, and are made to buy whatever is offered. they look so foolish, pawing one another and trying on hats at rakish angles. it is ridiculous to see an intoxicated man trying to look at his own reflection in a hand-glass. he follows it round and round, looking very serious; holds it now up and now down; and eventually buys something he does not want, paying for it out of a great purse which he solemnly draws from under his blouse. [illustration: a rainy day at the fair] i saw a man and a child come to buy a hat. the boy was the very image of his father--black hat, blue blouse, tight trousers and all--only that the hat was very shabby and brown and old, and had evidently seen many a ducking in the river and held many a load of nuts and cherries. his father was in the act of buying him a new one. the little pale lad smiled and looked faintly interested as hat after hat was tried on his head; but he was not overjoyed, for he knew quite well that, once home and in his mother's careful hands, that hat would be seen only on rare occasions. another boy who came with his father to buy a hat quite won my heart. he was a straight-limbed, fair-haired, thoroughly english-looking boy. a black felt hat was not for him--only a red tam-o'-shanter;--and he stood beaming with pride as cap after cap was slapped on his head and as quickly whisked off again. women came to purchase bonnets for their babies; but, alas! instead of buying the tight-lace caps threaded with pink and blue ribbons characteristic of the country, they bought hard, round, blue-and-white sailor affairs, with mangy-looking ostrich feathers in them--atrocities enough to make the most beautiful child appear hideous. the sun was fading fast. horses and cows and pigs, drunken men and empty cider barrels, women with heavy baskets and dragging tired children, their pockets full of hot chestnuts--all were starting on their long walk home. when the moon rose, the square was empty. [illustration: in the porch of the cathedral, quimper] chapter v quimper 'c'était à la campagne près d'un certain canton de la basse bretagne appelé quimper corentin. on sait assez que le destin adresse là les gens quand il veut qu'on enrage. dieu nous préserve du voyage.' so says la fontaine. the capital of cornouailles is a strange mixture of the old world and the new. there the ancient spirit and the modern meet. the odet runs through the town. on one side is a mass of rock metres high, covered by a forest so dark and dense and silent that in it one might fancy one's self miles away from any town. as one wanders among the chestnuts, pines, poplars, and other trees, a sadness falls, as if from the quiet foliage in the dim obscurity. on the other side of the narrow river is a multitude of roofs, encircled by high walls and dominated by the two lofty spires of the cathedral. gray and full of shadows is the quiet little town, with its jumble of slanting roofs and its broken lines. quimper seems to have changed but little within the last six years. we arrived as the sun was setting. a warm light gilded the most ordinary objects, transforming them into things of beauty. we flashed by in the hotel omnibus, past a river resembling a canal, the odet. the river was spanned by innumerable iron-railed bridges. the sky was of a fresh eggshell blue, with clouds of vivid orange vermilion paling in the distance to rose-pink, and shedding pink and golden reflections on the clear gray water, while a red-sailed fishing-boat floated gently at anchor. a wonderful golden light bathed the town. you felt that you could not take it all in at once, this glorious colouring--that you must rush from place to place before the light faded, and see the whole of the fine old town under these exceptional circumstances, which would most probably never occur again. you wanted to see the water, with its golden reflections, and the warm light shining on the lichen-covered walls, on the gardens sloping down to the river, on the wrought-iron gateways and low walls over which ivy and convolvulus creep, on the red-rusted bridges. you wanted to see the cathedral--a purple-gray mass, with the sun gilding one-half of the tower to a brilliant vermilion, and leaving the other half grayer and a deeper purple than ever. you wanted to see the whole place at once, for very soon the light fades into the gray and purple of night. my first thought on waking next morning in the 'city of fables and gables,' as quimper is called, was to see my old convent--the dear old convent where as a child i spent such a happy year. only twelve more months, and the nuns will be ousted from their home--those dear women whom, as the hotel proprietress said with tears in her eyes, 'fassent que du bien.' how bitterly that cruel act rankles, and ever will rankle, in the hearts of the breton people! 'on dit que la france est un pays libre,' said my hostess; 'c'est une drôle de liberté!' the inhabitants of quimper were more bitter, more rebellious, than those of any other town, for they greeted the officers with stones and gibes. and no wonder. the nuns had ever been good and generous and helpful to the people of quimper. i remember well in the old days what a large amount of food and clothing went forth into the town from those hospitable doors, for the retraite du sacré coeur was a rich order. it was with a beating heart and eager anticipation that i knocked at the convent door that morning, feeling like a little child come home after the holidays. i heard the sound of bolts slipped back, and two bright eyes peeped through the grille before the door was opened by a sister in the white habit of the order. i knew her face in an instant, yet could not place it. directly she spoke i remembered it was the sister who changed our shoes and stockings whenever we returned from a walk. i asked for the mother superior. she had gone to england. i asked for one of the english nuns. she also had gone. names that had faded out of my mind returned in the atmosphere of the convent. yes: three of the nuns i had named were still at the convent. what was my name? the sister asked. who was i? i gave my name, and instantly her face lit up. 'why, it is mademoiselle dorothé!' she exclaimed, raising her hands above her head in astonishment. 'entréz, mademoiselle et madame, entréz!' [illustration: the vegetable market, quimper] through all these years, among all the girls who must have passed through the convent, she remembered me and bade me welcome. in the quiet convent so little happens that every incident is remembered and magnified and thought over. we were taken upstairs and shown into a bare room with straight-backed chairs--a room which in my childish imagination had been a charmed and magic place, for it was here that i came always to see my mother on visiting days. we had not long to wait before, with a rustle and clinking of her cross and rosary, mère b. appeared, a sweet woman in the black dress and pointed white coif that i knew so well. she had always been beautiful in my eyes, and she was so still, with the loveliness of a pure and saintly life shining through her large brown eyes. her cheeks were as soft and pink as ever, and her hands, which i used to watch in admiration by the hour, were stretched out with joy to greet me. 'o la petite dorothé!' she cried,'quel bonheur de vous revoir! est-ce vraiment la petite dorothé?' as i sat watching her while she talked to my mother, all the old thoughts and feelings came back to me with a rush. i was in some awe of her: i could not treat her as if she were an ordinary person. all the old respectful tricks and turns of speech came back to me, though i imagined i had forgotten them. my mother was telling mère b. of how busy i had been since i had left the convent--of the books i had written and all about them;--but i felt as small and insignificant as the child of ten, and could only answer in monosyllables--'oui, ma mère,' or 'non, ma mère.' at our request, we were shown over the convent. many memories it brought back--some pleasant, some painful; for a child's life never runs on one smooth level--it is ever a series of ups and downs. we were taken into the refectory. there was my place at the corner of the table, where at the first meal i sat and cried because, when asked if i would like a _tartine_ instead of pudding, i was given a piece of bread-and-butter. naturally, i had thought that _tartine_ meant a tart. and there was the very same sister laying the table, the sister who used to look sharply at my plate to see that i ate all my fat and pieces of gristle. she remembered me perfectly. many were the tussles, poor woman, she had had with me. mère b. showed us the chapel, where we used to assemble at half-past six every morning, cold and half-asleep, to say our prayers before going into the big church. many were the beautiful addresses the mother superior had read to us; many were the vows i had made to be really very good; many were the resolves i had formed to be gentle and forbearing during the day--vows and resolves only to be broken soon. we wandered through the garden between the beds of thyme and mint and late roses, and mère b. spoke with tears in her eyes of the time when they would have to leave their happy convent home and migrate to some more hospitable land. 'it is not for ourselves that we grieve,' she said: 'it is for our poor country--for the people who will be left without religion. personally, we are as happy in one country as in another.' i picked a sprig of sweet-smelling thyme as i passed, and laid it tenderly between the pages of my pocket-book. if the garden were to be desecrated and used by strangers, i must have something to remember it by. what memories the dear old convent garden brought back to me! there was the gravelled square where we children skipped and played and sang breton _chansons_ all in a ring. there was the avenue of scanty poplars--not so scanty now--down which i often paced in rebellious mood, gazing at the walls rising high above me, longing to gain the farther side and be in the world. outside the convent gates was always called 'the world.' there was the little rocky shrine of the virgin--a sweet-faced woman in a robe of blue and gold, nursing a baby with an aureole about his head. many a time i had thrown myself on the bench in front of that shrine in a fit of temper, and had been slowly calmed and soothed by that gentle presence, coming away a better child, with what my mother always called 'the little black monkey' gone from my back. very soon the convent atmosphere wraps itself about you and lulls you to rest. you feel its influence directly you enter the building. you are seized by a vague longing to stay here, just where you are, and leave the world, with its ceaseless strivings and turmoils and unrest, behind you. yet how soon the worldly element in you would come to the fore, teasing you, tormenting you back into the toils once more! it was with a feeling of sorrow and a sensation that something was being wrenched from me that i bade good-bye to sweet mère b. at the garden gate, with many embraces and parting injunctions not to forget the convent and my old friends. [illustration: outside the cathedral, quimperle] wherever one goes in quimper one sees the stately cathedral, that wondrous building which, with its two excellent pyramids and gigantic portal, is said to be the most beautiful in all brittany. it would take one days and days to realize its beauty. the doorway itself is as rich in detail as a volume of history. there are lines of sculptured angels joining hands over the porch, breton coats of arms, and the device of jean x.--'malo au riche duc.' there are two windows above the doorway, crowned by a gallery, with an equestrian statue of the king of grallon. according to tradition the cathedral must have been built on the site of the royal palace. there are many legends about the church of st. corentin. one is that of a man who, going on a pilgrimage, left his money with a neighbour for safety. on returning, the neighbour declared that he had never had the money, and proposed to swear to the same before the crucifix of st. corentin. they met there, and the man swore. instantly three drops of blood fell from the crucifix to the altar, which, the legend runs, are preserved to this day. it is also said that there is in the fountain of quimper a miraculous fish, which, in spite of the fact that st. corentin cuts off half of it every day for his dinner, remains whole. a quaint ceremony is held at the cathedral on the feast of st. cecile. at two o'clock the clergyman, accompanied by musicians and choir-boys, mounts a platform between the great towers, and a joyous hymn is sung there, on the nearest point to the sky in all quimper. it is a strange sight. scores of beggars gather round the porch of the cathedral--the halt, the lame, the blind, and the diseased--all with outstretched hats and cups. [illustration: by the side of a farm] chapter vi st. brieuc st. brieuc, although it has lost character somewhat during the last half-century, is still typically breton. its streets are narrow and cobbled, and many of its houses date from the middle ages. it was market-day when we arrived, and crowds of women, almost all of whom wore different caps--some of lace with wide wings, others goffered with long strings--were hurrying, baskets over their arms, in the direction of the market-place. suddenly, while walking in these narrow, tortuous streets of st. brieuc, i saw stretched before me, or rather below, many feet below, a green and fertile valley. it resembled a picturesque scene magically picked out of switzerland and placed in a breton setting. through the valley ran a small glistening stream, a mere ribbon of water, threading its way among rocks and boulders and vivid stretches of green grass. on either side were steep hills covered with verdure, gardens, and plots of vegetables. on the heights a railway was being cut into the solid rock--a gigantic engineering work, rather spoiling the aspect of this wooded valley full of flowers and perfumes and the sun. we were told that there was nothing further to be seen in st. brieuc, but that we must go to binic, which is described in a certain guide-book as 'a very picturesque little fishing village.' this sounded inviting, and, although we had not much time to spare, we set off in a diligence with about eighteen windows, each of which rattled as we sped along at a terrific pace over the cobbles of st. brieuc. on we went, faster and faster, rattling--out into the country, past the valley again, the beautiful valley, and many other valleys like it. craggy purple mountains half-covered with green flew by us; and here and there was an orchard with gnarled and spreading apple-trees weighted with heavy burdens of red and golden fruit--the very soil was carpeted with red and gold. what a fertile country it is! here, where a river flows between two mountains, how vividly green the grass! peasant women by its banks are washing linen on the flat stones, and hanging it, all white and blue and daintily fresh, on yellow gorse bushes and dark blackberry thorns. i have never seen blackberries such as those on the road to binic. tall and thick grew the bushes, absolutely black with berries, so large that they resembled bunches of grapes. not a single breton in all the length and breadth of brittany will pick this ripe and delicious fruit--not a schoolboy, not a starving beggar on the wayside--for does not the bush bear the accursed thorns which pierced the saviour's forehead? it is only when english and american children invade brittany that the blackberries are harvested. a diligence causes excitement in a small breton town. it carries the mails between the villages. whenever the inhabitants hear the horn, out they rush from their homes with letters and parcels to be given into the hands of the courier. the courier's duties, by the way, are many. not only are the mails given into his safe keeping: he is entrusted with commissions, errands, and messages of all kinds. a housewife will ask him to buy her a bar of soap; a girl will entrust him with the matching of a ribbon; a hotel-keeper will order through him a cask of beer; and so on. the courier is busy throughout the day executing his various commissions, now in one shop, now in another; and on the return journey his cart, hung all over with bulky packages and small,--here a chair, there a broom, here a tin of biscuits--resembles a christmas-tree. the courier's memory must needs be good and his hand steady, for it is the custom to give him at each house as much as he likes to drink. his passengers are kept for hours shivering in the cold, becoming late for their appointments and missing their trains; but the courier cares not. he drinks wherever he stops, and at each fresh start becomes more brilliant in his driving. at one of the villages, during the tedious wait while the driver was imbibing, i was much interested in watching a man, a little child, and a dog. the man was a loafer, but neatly and even smartly dressed, wearing a white peaked yachting cap. the child was small and sickly, with long brown hair curling round a deathly-white and rather dirty face, weak blue eyes with red rims, and an ominously scarlet mouth. long blue-stockinged legs came from beneath a black pinafore, so thin and small that it seemed impossible that they could bear the weight of those heavy black wooden sabots. i thought that the child was a girl until the pinafore was raised, revealing tiny blue knickers and a woollen jersey. the boy seemed devoted to his father, and would hold his hand unnoticed for a long while, gazing into the unresponsive eyes. now and then he would jump up feverishly and excitedly, pulling his father's coat to attract attention, and prattling all the while. the man took not the slightest notice of the child. he was glancing sharply about him. by-and-by he bent down towards his son, and i heard him whisper, 'allez à ses messieurs la.' without a word the boy trotted off towards the men, his hands in his pockets, and began talking to them, the father watching attentively. he returned, but was immediately sent off again with a frown and a push. then he came back with several sous, clasped in his fist, which he held up proudly to his father. over and over again he was sent off, and every time he came back with a few sous. had the child appealed to me i could not have resisted him. there was something about the pathetic pale face that tugged at the heart-strings. one felt that the boy was not long for this world. his father was absolutely callous. he did not reward the lad by word or smile, although the child pulled at his coat and clamoured for attention. at last the boy gave up in despair, and, sitting down on the pavement, drew the old black poodle towards him, hiding his face in the tangled wool, while the animal's eyes, brown and sad, seemed to say that he at least understood. [illustration: on the road to bannalec] at length we arrived in binic, cold, windy, composed of a few slate-gray, solid houses, a stone pier, and some large sailing vessels, with nothing picturesque about them. the courier's cart set us down, and went rattling on its way. we were in a bleak, unsympathetic place. i felt an impulse to run after the diligence and beg the driver to take us away. this was 'the picturesque little fishing village'! we dived into the most respectable-looking _débit de boissons_ we could find, and asked for tea. an old lady sitting before the fire dropped her knitting, and her spectacles flew off. the sudden appearance of strangers in binic, combined with the request for tea, of all beverages, seemed trying to her nervous system. it was quite five minutes before she was in a fit condition to ask us what we really required. with much trepidation, she made our tea, holding it almost at arm's length, as if it were poisonous. the tea itself she had discovered on the top of a shelf in a fancy box covered with dust and cobwebs; she had measured it out very carefully. when poured into our cups the fluid was of a pale canary colour, and was flavourless. we lengthened out the meal until the carrier's cart arrived, with a full complement of passengers. it had begun to rain and hail, and the driver cheerfully assured us his was the last diligence that day. the proprietress of the _débit_ had begun to rub her hands with glee at the thought of having us as customers; but i was determined that, even if i had to sit on the top of the cart, we should not stay in the terrible place an hour longer. to the surprise of the courier, and the disgust of the passengers, whose view we completely blocked, we climbed to the driver's seat and sat there. the driver, a good natured man, with consideration for his purse, shrugged his shoulders at the proprietress, and we started on our way. i have never heard such language as that which issued from the back of the cart. many and terrible were the epithets hurled at the heads of 'ses affreuses anglaises.' [illustration: dÉbit de boissons] [illustration: church of st. mody] chapter vii paimpol wherever one travels one cannot but be impressed by the friendliness and sympathy of the people. on the day we were starting for paimpol we found, on arriving at the station, that we had an hour to wait for our train. we happened to be feeling rather depressed that day, and at this intimation i was on the verge of tears. the porter who took our tickets cheered us up to the best of his ability. he flung open the door of the _salle d'attente_ as if it had been a lordly reception-room, flourished round with his duster over mantelpiece and table and straight-backed chairs, and motioned us to be seated. 'voilà tout ce qu'il y a de plus joli et confortable,' he said, with a smile. perceiving that we were not impressed, he drew aside the curtains and pointed with a dirty forefinger. 'voilà un joli petit jardin,' he exclaimed triumphantly. there, he added, we might sit if we chose. also, he said there was a buffet close at hand. as this did not produce enthusiasm, he observed that there was a mirror in the room, that he himself would call us in time to catch our train, and that we were altogether to consider ourselves _chez nous_. then he bowed himself out of the room. the scenery along the railway from guingamp to paimpol was beautiful. i hung my head out of the window the whole way, so anxious was i not to miss a single minute of that glorious colouring. there were hills of craggy rocks, blue and purple, with pines of brilliant fresh green growing thickly up their sides. on the summit, standing dark against the sky, were older pines of a deeper green. between the clumps of pines grew masses of mustard-yellow gorse and purple heather, in parts faded to a rich pinky-brown. now and then there were clefts in the hills, or valleys, where the colouring was richer and deeper still, and bracken grew in abundance, pinky-brown and russet. paimpol itself is a fishing village, much frequented by artists, attracted by the fishing-boats with their vermilion sails, who never tire of depicting the gray stone quay, with its jumble of masts and riggings. in the _salle à manger_ of the little hotel where we had luncheon the walls were literally panelled with pictures of fishing-boats moored to the quay. every man sitting at that long table was an artist. this was a pleasant change from the commercial travellers who hitherto had fallen to our lot at meal-times. there was no englishman among the artists. [illustration: reflections] the english at this time of the year in brittany are few, though they swarm in every town and village during summer. these were frenchmen--impressionists of the new school. it was well to know this. otherwise one might have taken them for wild men of the woods. such ruffianly-looking people i had never seen before. some of them wore corduroy suits, shabby and paint-besmeared, with slovenly top-boots and large felt hats set at the back of their heads. others affected dandyism, and parted their hair at the back, combing it towards their ears, in the latest latin quarter fashion. their neckties were of the flaming tones of sunset, very large and spreading; their trousers excessively baggy. the entrance of my mother and myself caused some confusion among them, for women are very rare in paimpol at this season. hats flew off and neckties were straightened, while each one did his best to attend to our wants. frenchmen are nothing if not polite. the young man sitting next to me suffered from shyness, and blushed every time he spoke. on one occasion, airing his english, he said, 'vill you pass ze vutter?' i passed him the butter; but he had meant water. the poor youth rivalled the peony as he descended to french and explained his mistake. the people of paimpol are supposed to be much addicted to smuggling. my mother and i once imagined that we had detected a flagrant act. one afternoon, walking on a narrow path above the sea, we saw three boys crouching behind a rock. they were talking very earnestly, and pointing, apparently making signals, to a little red-sailed boat. the boat changed her course, and steered straight for a small cove beneath our feet. we held our breath, expecting to witness the hiding of the loot. suddenly, just as the little craft drew to within a yard or so of the shore, we saw from behind a rock a red and white cockade appear. there stood a gendarme! instantly the boat went on her way once more, and the boys fell to whispering again behind the rock. after a while, to our great disgust, the gendarme walked at leisure down the path and chatted in a friendly way with the conspirators. he had been out for an afternoon stroll. nothing really dramatic or interesting in the smuggling line seems to happen outside books. the paimpolais are a vigorous people. fathers and sons dedicate their lives to the sea. with all their roughness, the people are strictly religious. the bay of paimpol is under the protection of the virgin, and st. anne is patron saint. all prayers for those at sea are directed to these two saints, whose statues stand prominently in the village. at the end of every winter, before starting their dangerous life anew, the fishermen are blessed before the statues. the patron saint of the mariners gazes down with lifeless eyes on generation after generation of men--on those whose luck will be good and lives happy; on those who are destined never to return. at the opening of the fishing season there is a ceremonial procession, attended by the fathers, mothers, sisters, and _fiancées_ of the fisher folk. each man as he embarks is blessed by the priest and given a few last words of advice. then the boats move away, a big flotilla of red-sailed fishing craft, the men singing in loud vibrating voices, as they busy themselves about their boats, the canticles of mary, star of the sea. [illustration: a sabot stall] chapter viii guingamp on the way to guingamp we travelled second-class. in the first-class carriages one sits in solitary state, with never a chance of studying the people of the country. half-way on our journey the train stopped, and i was amused by the excitement and perturbation of the passengers. they flew to the windows, and heaped imprecations on the guard, the engine-driver, and the railway company. as the train remained stationary for several minutes, their remarks became facetious. they inquired if _un peu de charbon_ would be useful. should they provide the porter with a blade of straw wherewith to light the engines? they even offered their services in pushing the train. one fat, red-faced commercial traveller, who, by way of being witty, declared that he was something of an engineer himself, descended the steep steps of the carriage in order to assist the officials. the french are born comedians--there is no doubt about it. they manage to make themselves extremely ridiculous. this man's behaviour was like that of a clown in the circus. in attempting to unlock a carriage he got in the way of everyone. the wait was long and tedious. 'il faut coucher sur la montagne ce soir, mademoiselle,' said an old breton who was puffing contentedly at a clay pipe in the corner of the carriage. he was very fat, and smothered up to his chin in a loose blue blouse; but he had a classic head. it was like that of some roman emperor carved in bronze. his eyes were of cerulean blue. his was the head of a man born to command. there was something almost imperial in the pose and set of it. nevertheless, this peasant lived, no doubt, in the depth of the country, probably in some hovel of a cottage, with a slovenly yellow-faced wife (women in the wilds of brittany grow old and plain very early), dirty children, and a few pigs and cows. he had been attending a market, and he spoke with great importance of his purchases there. he descended at a minute station on the line, and i watched him as he started on his fifteen-mile drive in a ramshackle wooden cart. [illustration: la vieillesse] we were cold and sleepy when we arrived at guingamp, so much so that we forgot to be nervous as we crossed the line with our many bags and bandboxes. when you arrive at a station in brittany, you are met by a bevy of men in gold-lace caps, who instantly set up a noisy chatter. you assume that they must be advertising various hotels; but it is quite impossible to distinguish. travellers, especially the english, are rarities at this season. as a rule i carefully chose the omnibus which was cleanest, and the driver who was most respectful, in spite of many persuasions to the contrary; but on this occasion i was so limp and tired that i allowed my traps to be snatched from my hands and followed our guide meekly. it might have been the dirtiest hovel of an inn towards which we were going rapidly over the cobbled stones of the town--it was all one to me. by great good luck we happened to chance on the hôtel de france, where we were greeted by the _maîtresse d'hôtel_, a kindly woman, and without further delay, although it sounds somewhat _gourmande_ to say so, sat down to one of the best dinners it has ever been my lot to eat. the kitchen was exactly opposite the _salle à manger_, the door of which was open for all to see within. there we could observe the chef, rotund and rosy-cheeked, in spotless white cap and apron, busy among multitudinous pots and pans which shone like gold. his assistants, boys in butcher-blue cotton, flew hither and thither at his command, busily chopping this and whipping up that. the various dishes i do not remember distinctly; i only know that each one (i once heard an epicure speak thus) was a 'poem.' of all that glorious menu, only the _escalopes de veau_ stands out clearly, laurel-wreathed, in my memory. at the table there were the usual commercial travellers. also there were several glum, hard-featured englishwomen and one man. how is it that one dislikes one's own countrymen abroad so much? it is unpatriotic to say so, but i really think that the continental travelling portion of britishers must be a race apart, a different species; for a more unpleasant, impolite, plain, and badly-dressed set of people it has never been my lot to meet elsewhere. the word 'english' at this rate will soon become an epithet. all the women resemble the worst type of schoolmistress, and all the men retired tradesmen. guingamp, by the light of day, is a pretty town, with nothing particularly imposing or attractive, although at one time it was an important city of the duchy of penthièvre. its only remnant of ancient glory consists in the church of nôtre dame de bon secours, a bizarre and irregular monument, dating from the fifteenth century. in the cool of the evening the environs of guingamp are very beautiful. it is delightful to lean over some bridge spanning the dark river. only the sound of washerwomen beating their linen, and the splash of clothes rinsed in the water, disturb the quiet. the scenery is soft and silvery in tone, like the landscape of a corot. slim, bare silver birches overhang the blackened water, and on either side of the river grow long grasses, waving backwards and forwards in the wind, now purple, now gray. down a broad yellow road troops of black and red cows are being driven, and horses with their blue wooden harness are drawing a cart laden with trunks of trees, led by a man in a blue blouse, with many an encouraging deep-voiced 'hoop loo!' everyone is bringing home cows, or wood, or cider apples. the sky is broad and gray, with faint purple clouds. three dear little girls, pictures every one of them, are walking along the road, taking up the whole breadth of it, and carrying carefully between them two large round baskets full to overflowing with red and green apples. each little maid wears on her baby head a tight white lace cap through which the glossy black hair shines, a bunchy broad cloth skirt, a scarlet cross-over shawl, and heavy sabots. they are miniatures of their mothers. they look like old women cut short, as they come toddling leisurely along the road, a large heavy basket suspended between them, singing a pretty breton ballad in shrill trebles: 'j'ai mangé des cerises avec mon petit cousin, j'ai mangé des cerises, des cerises du voisin.' i caught the words as they passed, and remembered the melody. i had as a child known the ballad in my old convent. when they were past they tried to look back at the _demoiselle anglaise_, and, unheeding, tripped over a large heap of stones in the roadway. down tumbled children, baskets, and all. what a busy quarter of an hour we all spent, on our knees in the dust, rubbing up and replacing the apples, lest mother should guess they had been dropped! finally, we journeyed on into guingamp in company. [illustration: a beggar] chapter ix huelgoat to reach huelgoat one must take the hotel omnibus from the railway-station, and wind up and up for about an hour. then you reach the village. the scenery is mountainous, and quite grand for brittany. the aspect of this country is extraordinarily varied. on the way to huelgoat one passes little ribbon-like rivers with bridges and miniature waterfalls, and hills covered by bracken and heather. the air is bracing. at the top of one of the hills the carriage was stopped, and a chubby boy in a red beré and sabots presented himself at the door, with the request that we should descend and see the 'goffre.' not knowing what the 'goffre' might be, we followed our imperious guide down a precipitous path, all mud and slippery rocks, with scarcely sufficient foothold. at length we found ourselves in a dark wood, with mysterious sounds of rushing water all about us. when our eyes became accustomed to the darkness we discovered that this proceeded from a body of water which rushed, dark-brown and angry-looking, down the rocks, and fell foaming, amber-coloured, into a great black hole. plucking at our skirts, the child drew us to the edge, whispering mysteriously, as he pointed downwards, 'c'est la maison du diable.' a few planks had been lightly placed across the yawning abyss, and over the rude bridge the peasants passed cheerfully on their way to work or from it--woodcutters with great boughs of trees on their shoulders, and millers with sacks of flour. one shuddered to think what might happen if a sack or a bough were to fall and a man were to lose his balance. even the child admitted that the place was _un peu dangereux_, and led us rapidly up the muddy path to the road. there we found to our astonishment that the carriage had gone on to the hotel. as my mother is not a good walker and dislikes insecure places and climbing of any kind, we felt rather hopeless; but the child assured us that the distance was not great. he seemed rather disgusted at our feebleness and hesitation. without another word, he crossed the road and dived into a forest, leaving us to follow as best we might. soon we were in one of the most beautiful woods imaginable, among long, slim pines, of which you could see only the silver stems, unless you gazed upwards, when the vivid green of the leaves against the sky was almost too crude in its brilliancy. the path was covered with yellow pine-needles, which, in parts where the sun lit upon them through the trees, shone as pure gold. on either side grew bracken, salmon, and red, and tawny-yellow; here and there were spots of still more vivid colour, formed by toadstools which had been changed by the sun to brightest vermilion and orange. i have never seen anything more beautiful than this combination--the forest of slim purple stems, the bracken, the golden path, and, looking up, the vivid green of the trees and the blue of the sky. the child led us on through the wood, never deigning to address a word to us, his hands in his pockets, and his beré pulled over his eyes. sometimes the path descended steeply; sometimes it was a hard pull uphill, and we were forced to stop for breath. always the merciless child went on, until my mother almost sobbed and declared that this was not the right way to the hotel. now and then we emerged into a more open space, where there were huge rocks and boulders half-covered with moss and ivy, some as much as twenty feet high, like playthings of giants thrown hither and thither carelessly one on the top of the other. over some of these, slippery and worn almost smooth, we had to cross for miles until we reached the hotel, tired. [illustration: a wayside shrine, huelgoat] luncheon was a strange meal. no one spoke: there was silence all the time. about thirty people were seated at a long table, all lodgers in the hotel; but they were mute. two young persons of the bourgeois class, out for their yearly holiday, came in rather late, and stopped on the threshold dumbfounded at sight of the silent crowd, for french people habitually make a great deal of noise and clatter at their meals. they sat opposite to us, and spent an embarrassed time. when you visit huelgoat you are told that the great and only thing to do is to take an excursion to st. herbot. this all the up-to-date guide-books will tell you with _empressement_. but my advice to you is--'don't!' following the instructions of messrs. cook, we took a carriage to st. herbot. it was a very long and uninteresting drive through sombre scenery, and when we arrived there was only a very mediocre small church to be seen. the peasants begged us to visit the grand cascade; our driver almost went down on his bended knees to implore us to view the cascade. we would have no cascades. cascades such as one sees in brittany, small and insignificant affairs, bored us; we had visited them by the score. the driver was terribly disappointed; tears stood in his eyes. he had expected time for a drink. the peasants had anticipated liberal tips for showing us the view. they all swore in the breton tongue. our charioteer drove us home, at break-neck speed, over the most uneven and worst places he could discover on the road. [illustration: fishing-boats, concarneau] [illustration: at the fountain, concarneau] chapter x concarneau this little town, with its high gray walls, is very important. in olden days its possession was disputed by many a valiant captain. the fortress called the 'ville close' has been sacrificed since then to military usage. the walls of granite, which are very thick, are pierced by three gates, doubled by bastions and flanked by machicolated towers. at each high tide the sea surrounds the fortress. tradition tells us that on one occasion at the fête dieu the floods retired to make way for a religious procession of children and clergy, with golden banners and crosses, in order that they might make the complete tour of the ramparts. this fortress, a little city in itself, is joined to concarneau by a bridge, and it is on the farther side that industry and animation are to be found. there is a fair-sized port, where hundreds of sardine-boats are moored, their red and gray nets hanging on their masts. the activity of the port is due to the sardines, and its prosperity is dependent on the abundance of the fish. towards the month of june the sardines arrive in great shoals on the coast of brittany. for some time no one knew whence they came or whither they went. an approximate idea of their journeyings has now been gained. their route, it seems, is invariable. during march and april the sardines appear on the coasts of the adriatic and the mediterranean; they pass through the straits of gibraltar, skirting spain and portugal; they reach france in may. in june they are to be found on the coast of morbihan and concarneau, in august in the bay of douarnénez, in september by the isle de batz, and later in england or in scotland. [illustration: concarneau harbour] it is to be hoped that the fish will always abound about the coast of concarneau. the women population is engaged in industries connected with sardines. the making and mending of the nets and the preparation and packing of the fish are in themselves a labour employing many women. when the sardines have been unloaded from the ships, they are brought to the large warehouses on the quay and submitted to the various processes of cleaning and drying. rows of women sit at long deal tables cutting off the heads of the fish, and singing at their work. the fish are then cleaned of the salt which the fishermen threw on them, and dried in the open air on iron grills. during this time other workmen are employed in boiling oil in iron basins. the sardines, once dried, are plunged into the oil for about two minutes, sufficient to cook them, and are afterwards dried in the sun. they are then placed in small tin boxes, half-filled with oil, which are taken to be soldered. the solderers, armed with irons at white heat, hermetically close the boxes, which are then ready to be delivered to the trade. this simple process is quite modern; it was instituted at the end of the last century. the nets, which cost the fishermen thirty francs, take thirty days to make. the machine-made nets are less expensive; but it is said that they are not sufficiently elastic, and the meshes enlarged by the weight of fish do not readily close up again. each sardine-boat is manned by four or five men armed with an assortment of nets. the bait consists of the intestines of a certain kind of fish. the fishermen plunge their arms up to the elbow in the loathsome mixture, seizing handfuls to throw into the water. if the sardines take to the bait, one soon sees the water on either side of the vessel white and gray with the scales of the fish. then the men begin to draw in the nets. two of them seize the ends and pull horizontally through the water; the others unfasten the heads of the fish caught in the meshes. the sardines are tumbled into the bottom of the boat, and sprinkled with salt. the sardines, delicate creatures, die in the air in a few seconds. in dying they make a noise very like the cry of a mouse. after the first haul the fishermen have some idea of the dimensions of the fish, and adjust the mesh of their nets,--for the sardines vary in size from one day to another according to the shoals on which the fishermen chance. [illustration: the sardine fleet, concarneau] [illustration: watching for the fishing fleet, concarneau] chapter xi morlaix 's'ils tu te mordent, mords les,' is the proud device of the town of morlaix, and the glorious pages of her chronicles justify the motto. morlaix has from all time been dear to the hearts of the dukes of brittany for her faithfulness, which neither reverse nor failure has ever altered. even during the wars of the succession, after the most terrible calamities, she still maintained a stout heart and a bold front. she espoused the cause of charles of blois, which cost her the lives of fifty of her finest men, whom the duc de monfort hanged under false pretences. morlaix is a quaint little town--all gables, pointed roofs, and projecting windows. there are streets so narrow that in perspective the roofs appear to meet overhead. they are of wonderful colours. you will see white houses with chocolate woodwork, and yellow houses, stained by time, with projecting windows. in some cases there are small shops on the ground-floor. the town seems to be built in terraces, to which one mounts by steps with iron railings. you are for ever climbing, either up or down, in morlaix; and the only footgear that seems to be at all appropriate to its roughly cobbled streets is the thick wooden nail-studded sabot of the breton. most of the houses on the outskirts have gardens on the tops of the roofs; it is odd, when looking up a street, to see scarlet geraniums nodding over the gray stonework, and, sometimes, vines meeting in a green tracery above your head. there are in morlaix whole streets in which every house has a pointed roof, where all the slates are gray and scaly, and each story projects over another, the last one projecting farthest, with, on the ground-floor, either a clothier's shop or a _quincaillerie_ bright with gleaming pots and pans and blue enamelled buckets. this lowest story has always large wooden painted shutters flung back. the houses are unlike those of any other town i have seen in brittany. there are always about five solid square rafters under each story, and each rafter is carved at the end into some grotesque little image or flower. there is much painted woodwork about the windows, and criss-cross beams sometimes run down the whole length of the house. there are still many strange old blackened edifices, sculptured from top to bottom, which have remained intact during four centuries with a sombre obstinacy. at the angles you often see grotesque figures of biniou-players, arabesques, and leaves, varied in the most bizarre manner, and so delicately and beautifully executed that they would form material for six 'musées de cluny.' these vast high houses are very dirty, crumbling like old cheeses, and almost as multitudinously alive. each story is separated by massive beams, carved in a profusion of ornaments; each window has small leaded panes. the rest of the façade is carved with lozenge-shaped slates. morlaix, of course, has her maison de la reine anne, of which she is proud. it is a characteristic house, with straight powerful lines. the door, greenish-black, is of fluted wood. the whole building is covered with an infinity of detail--ludicrous faces, statuettes, and carved figures of saints. inside it has almost no decoration. the white walls rise to the top of the house plain and unadorned, save for a very elaborate staircase of rich chestnut-coloured wood very beautifully carved, with bridges, branching off from right to left, leading to the various apartments. at the top is a sculptured figure--either of the patron saint of the house or of some saint especially beloved in brittany. the town is a mixture of antiquity and modernity. though her houses and streets are old, morlaix possesses the most modern of viaducts, metres long, giving an extraordinary aspect to the place. when you arrive at night you see the town glistening with myriads of lights, so far below that it seems incredible. you do not realize that the railway is built upon a viaduct: it seems as if you were suspended in mid-air. when we arrived at morlaix, a man with a carriage and four horses offered to drive us to huelgoat for a very modest sum; but i vowed that all the king's horses and all the king's men would not tear me away that day. there was much to be seen. one never wearies of wandering through the streets of this fine old town, gazing up at the houses, and losing one's way among the ancient and dark by-ways. morlaix is in a remarkable state of preservation. the houses generally do not suggest ruin or decay. the town seems to have everlasting youth. this is principally owing to the great love of the people for art and the picturesque, which has led them to renovate and rebuild constantly. for this reason, some of the structures are of great archæological value. [illustration: mediÆval house at morlaix] the religious edifices are few. indeed, i saw only the little church of st. milaine, its belfry dwarfed by the prodigious height of the viaduct. it is a gem of architecture. the stonework is carved to resemble lace, and both inside and out the building is in the pure gothic style. storms are very sudden in morlaix. sometimes on a sunny day, when all the world is out of doors, the wind will rise, knocking down the tailors' dummies and scattering the tam-o'-shanters hanging outside the clothiers'. then comes rain in torrents. how the peasants scuttle! what a clatter of wooden-shod feet over the cobbles as they run for shelter! umbrellas appear like mushrooms on a midsummer-night. once i saw some old women in the open square with baskets of lace and crotchet-work and bundles of clothes stretched out for sale. when the rain began they fell into a great fright, and strove to cover their wares with old sacks, baskets, umbrellas--anything that was ready to hand. i felt inclined to run out of the hotel and help. as suddenly as the storm had risen, the sun came out, clear and radiant. i never knew the air to be so invigorating and bright anywhere in brittany as it is in morlaix. [illustration: outside the smithy, pont-aven] chapter xii pont-aven pont-aven is associated with agreeable memories. this village in the south of finistère draws men and women from all over europe, summer after summer. many of them stay there throughout the winter, content to be shut off from the world, allowing the sweet and gentle lassitude of the place to lull their cares and troubles. is it climatic--this soothing influence--or is it the outcome of a spell woven over beautiful pont-aven by some good-natured fairy long ago? i have often wondered. certain it is that intelligent men, many of them painters, have been content to spend years in pont-aven. some time ago mother and father, touring in brittany, came to this delightful spot, and determined to spend three weeks there. they stayed three years. all my life i have heard stories of this wonderful place, and of their first visit. it was when my father had only just begun his career as a painter. the experience, he says, was a great education. there he found himself in an amazing nest of french and american painters, all the newer lights of the french school. he was free to work at whatever he liked, yet with unlimited chances of widening, by daily argument, his knowledge of technical problems. for the three years that he remained on this battlefield of creeds conflicts of opinion raged constantly. everyone was frantically devoted to one or another of the dominating principles of the moderns. there was a bevy of schools there. one, called the stripists, painted in stripes, with vivid colour as nearly prismatic as possible, all the scenery around. then, there were the dottists, who painted in a series of dots. there were also the spottists--a sect of the dottists, whose differentiation was too subtle to be understood. men there were who had a theory that you must ruin your digestion before you could paint a masterpiece. no physically healthy person, they declared, could hope to do fine work. they used to try to bring about indigestion. one man, celebrated for his painting of pure saints with blue dresses, over which paris would go crazy, never attempted to paint a saint until he had drunk three glasses of absinthe and bathed his face in ether. another decided that he was going to have, in paris, an exhibition of merry-go-rounds which should startle france. he had a theory that the only way to get at the soul of a thing was to paint when drunk. he maintained that the merry-go-rounds whirled faster then. one day my father went to his studio. he was dazed. he did not know whether he was standing on his head or his heels. it was impossible to see 'black bess' or any of the pet horses he knew so well. the pictures were one giddy whirl. then, there was the bitumen school, a group of artists who never painted anything but white sunlit houses with bitumen shadows. a year or two afterwards a terrible thing invariably happened. without any warning whatsoever, the pictures would suddenly slide from off their canvases to the floor. the bitumen had melted. the primitives afforded joy. their distinctive mark was a walking-stick, carved by a new zealand maori, which they carried about with them. it gave them inspiration. so powerful was the influence of these sticks that even the head of a breton peasant assumed the rugged aspect of the primitive carvings in their paintings. the most enthusiastic disciple of the sect was a youth who was continually receiving marvellous inspirations. once, after having shut himself up for three days, he appeared looking haggard and ravenous. without a word, he sat down heavily near a table, called for absinthe, and, groaning, dropped his head in his hands, and murmured, 'ah, me! ah, me!' all beholders were in a fever to know what the mystery was. after some minutes of dead silence the young man rose majestically from his chair, stretched forth one arm, and, with a far-away look in his eyes, said, 'friends, last night, when you were all asleep, a beautiful creature came to me in spirit form, and taught me the secret of drawing; and i drew this.' then he brought out a picture. it was far above his usual style, and the more credulous envied his good fortune. some weeks afterwards, however, it was discovered by a painter with detective instincts that the marvellous vision was in reality a _chambre au clair_--that is to say, a prism through which objects are reflected on paper, enabling one to trace them with great facility. [illustration: in an auberge, pont-aven] such are the extraordinary people among whom mother and father found themselves on their first visit to pont-aven--geniuses some of them, mere daubers others, all of them strange and rough and weird. more like wild beasts they looked than human beings, mother told me; for very few women came to pont-aven in the early days, and those were bohemians. the artists allowed their hair and beards to grow long. day after day they wore the same old paint-stained suits of corduroys, battered wide-brimmed hats, loose flannel shirts, and coarse wooden sabots stuffed with straw. mother, who was very young at the time, has often told me that she will never forget their arrival at the little hôtel gleanec. they were shown into a _salle à manger_, where rough men sat on either side of a long table, serving themselves out of a common dish, and dipping great slices of bread into their plates. mother was received with great courtesy by them. she found it very amusing to watch the gradual change in their appearance day by day--the donning of linen collars and cuffs and the general smartening up. many of the men who were then struggling with the alphabet of art have reached the highest rungs of the ladder of fame, and their names have become almost household words; others have sunk into oblivion, and are still amateurs. the chief hotel in the village was the hôtel des voyageurs, to which mother and father soon migrated. it was kept by a wonderful woman, called julia. originally a peasant girl, she had by untiring energy become the proprietress of the great establishment. her fame as hostess and manager was bruited all over france. everyone seemed to know of julia, and year after year artists and their families came back regularly to stay with her. she is a woman with a strong individuality. she gathered a large custom among artists, who flocked to the hôtel des voyageurs as much because of the charm of mdlle. julia, and the comfort of her house, as for the beauty of the scenery. there was a delightful intimacy among the guests, most of whom were very intelligent. mdlle. julia took a sincere interest in the career of each. all went to her with their troubles and their joys, certain of sympathy and encouragement. many are the young struggling painters she has helped substantially, often allowing them to live on in the hotel for next to nothing. many are the unpaid bills of long standing on the books of this generous woman. i fear that she has never made the hotel pay very well, for the elaborate menu and good accommodation are out of all proportion to her charges. a strong woman is mdlle. julia. she has been known to lift a full-grown man and carry him out of doors, landing him ignominiously in the mud. there was one man, a retired military officer, whom no one else could manage. he had come to stay in pont-aven because he could live there for a few francs a day and drink the rest. he suffered from hallucinations, and took great pleasure in chasing timid artists over the countryside, challenging them to duels, and insulting them in every way possible. he was the terror of the village. he had a house on the quay, and early one morning when the snow was thick upon the ground, just because a small vessel came into the river and began blowing a trumpet, or making a noise of some kind, he sprang out of bed in a towering rage, rushed in his nightshirt into the street, and began sharpening his sword on a rock, shouting to the ship's captain to come out and be killed if he dared. the captain did not dare. the only person of whom this extraordinary person stood in awe was mdlle. julia. her he would obey without a murmur. no one knew why. perhaps there had been some contest between them. at any rate, they understood each other. the friends of mdlle. julia ranged from the mayor of the town to batiste, the butcher, who sat outside his door all day and watched her every movement. 'if i want to remember where i have been, and what i did at a certain hour, i have only to ask batiste,' she was wont to say. all the artists worshipped the ground she trod upon; and well they might, for they would never have a better friend than she. her _salle à manger_ and _grand salon_ were panelled with pictures, some of which are very valuable to-day. tender-hearted she was, and strong-minded, with no respect for persons. mother told me that once when my brother and sister, babies of three and four years old, were posing for father on the beach with only their linen sunbonnets on, their limbs were somewhat sunburnt and blistered. when they returned to the hotel, mdlle. julia applied sweet oil and cold cream to the tender skin, and rated my parents soundly between her tears of compassion for the little ones. it was of no use explaining that it was in the cause of art. she bade them in unmeasured terms to send art to the devil, and scolded them as if they were children. i doubt not she would have reprimanded the king of england with as little compunction. [illustration: a sand-cart on the quay, pont-aven] mdlle. julia made the reputation of pont-aven by her own overpowering individuality. if she went to paris or elsewhither for a few days, everyone in the village felt her absence. things were not the same. pont-aven seemed momentarily to have lost its charm. the meals were badly cooked and worse served; the _bonnes_ were neglectful. all missed the ringing laugh and cheery presence of julia. how soon one knew when she had returned! what a flutter there was among the _bonnes_! what a commotion! how everyone flew hither and thither at her command! she seemed to fill the hotel with her presence. i went to pont-aven when i was ten years old, and i remember well how mdlle. julia came to meet us, driving twenty miles through the deep snow. what happy days those were in the dear little village! we lived as wild things, and enjoyed life to the full. m. grenier, the schoolmaster, acted as tutor to us. he was lenient. we spent our time mainly in rambling over the countryside, making chocolate in mdlle. julia's wood, bird-nesting, and apple-stealing. m. grenier taught us to row, and we learnt all the various intricate currents and dangerous sandbanks so thoroughly that after a time we could almost have steered through that complicated river blindfold. we learnt how to make boats out of wood, and how to carve our names in a professional manner on trees. we became acquainted with a large selection of breton ballads and a good deal of rough botany. more advanced lessons have faded from my mind. of actual book-learning we accomplished very little. many a time m. grenier pulled himself together, brought us new copybooks, fine pens, his french grammar and readers, and settled us down in the salon to work; but gradually the task would pall on both master and scholars, and before the morning was half over we would be out in the fields and woods again, 'just for a breath of fresh air.' children have the power of making themselves at home in a foreign country. within a week my brother and i knew everyone in the village. we became acquainted with all their family affairs and troubles. in many households we were welcome at any time of the day. there was the sabot-maker, whom we never tired of watching as he cleverly and rapidly transformed a square block of wood into a rounded, shapely sabot. he was always busy, and sometimes turned out a dozen pairs in a day. to my great joy, he presented me with a beautiful little pair, which i wore painfully, but with much pride. although when you become accustomed to them sabots are comfortable and sensible gear, at first they are extremely awkward. of course, you can kick them off before you enter a house, and run about in the soft woollen _chausson_ with a leather sole which is always worn underneath. round the hotel doorway there is always a collection of sabots awaiting their owners. in a country such as brittany, where it rains a good deal, and the roads are often deep in mud, they are the only possible wear. the sabot is a product of evolution. in that respect it is like the hansom cab which is a thing of beauty simply because it has been thought out with regard to its usefulness and comfort alone. batiste, the butcher, was a great friend of ours. with morbid fascination we witnessed his slaughter of pigs and cows. then, soon we knew where to get the best _crêpes_. these are pancakes of a kind, so thin that you can see through them, made on a round piece of metal over a blazing fire. eaten hot, with plenty of butter and sugar, they are equal to anything in our english cookery. there was one particular old lady living down by the bridge who made _crêpes_. we saw her mixing the ingredients, mostly flour and water, and spreading the dough over the round piece of metal. it became hard in an instant, and curled up brown and crisp, as thin as a lace handkerchief. likewise, we knew where to buy bowls of milk thick with cream for one sou. we had to tramp over several fields and to scale several fences before we found ourselves in the kitchen of a large farm, where the housewife was busy pouring milk into large copper vessels. seated at the polished mahogany table, we drank from dainty blue bowls. i went back to pont-aven recently, and found it very little changed. we travelled by diligence from concarneau; but, as the conveyance left only once a day, we had several hours to while away. the concarneau and pont-aven diligence is quaint and primitive, devoid of springs, and fitted with extremely narrow and hard seats. we passed through villages in which every house seemed to be either a _buvette_ or a _débit de boisson_. at these our driver--a man in a blue blouse and a black felt hat--had to deliver endless parcels, for which he dived continually under the seat on which we were sitting. for discharging each commission he received several glasses of cider and wine. he stopped at every place to drink and talk with the host, quite oblivious of his passengers. with every mile he became more uproarious. [illustration: playing on the 'place,' pont-aven] our only travelling companion was an old woman in the costume of the country, with a yellow and wrinkled face. on her arm she carried a large basket and a loaf of bread two yards long. ruthlessly she trod on our toes with her thick black sabots in getting in. although i helped her with her basket and her bread, she never volunteered a word of thanks, but merely snatched them from my hands. many bretons are scarcely of higher intelligence than the livestock of the farms. they live in the depths of the country with their animals, sleeping in the same room with them, rarely leaving their own few acres of ground. the women work as hard as the men, digging in the fields and toiling in the forests from early morning until night. at one of the villages where the diligence stopped, a blacksmith, a young giant, handsome, dark, came out from the smithy with his dog, which he was sending to some gentleman with hunting proclivities in pont-aven. the animal--what is called a _chien de la chasse_--was attached by a long chain to the step, and the diligence started off. the blacksmith stood in the door of his smithy, and watched the dog disappear with wistful eyes. the bretons have a soft spot in their hearts for animals. the dog itself was the picture of misery. his moans and howls wrung one's heart. i never saw an animal more wily. he tried every conceivable method of slipping his collar. he pulled at the chain, and wriggled from one side to another. once he contrived to work his ear under the collar, and my fingers itched to help him. had the truant escaped, i could not have informed the driver. strange that one's sympathies are always with the weakest! in novels, an escaping convict, no matter how terrible his guilt, always has my sympathy, and i am hostile to the pursuing warder. as we drew near to pont-aven the scenery became more and more beautiful. on either side of the road stretched miles and miles of brilliant mustard-yellow gorse, mingled with patches of dried reddish bracken, and bordered by rows of blue-green pines. here and there one saw great rocks half-covered with the velvet-green of mosses thrown hither and thither in happy disorder. sometimes ivy takes root in the crevices of the rocks where a little earth has gathered, and creeps closely round about them, as if anxious to convey life and warmth to the cold stone. the sun, like a red ball, was setting behind the hills, leaving the sky flecked with clouds of the palest mauves and pinks, resembling the fine piece of marbling one sometimes sees inside the covers of modern well-bound books. now and then we passed a little ruined chapel--consecrated, no doubt, to some very ancient saint (it was impossible to make out the name), a saint whose cult was evidently lost, for the little shrine was tumbling to ruins. we saw by the wayside little niches sheltering sacred fountains, the waters of which cure certain diseases; and passed peasants on the roadside, sometimes on horseback, sometimes walking--large, well-proportioned, fine-featured men of proud bearing. in brittany the poorest peasant is a free and independent man. he salutes you out of politeness and good nature; but he does not cringe as if recognising himself to be lower in the social scale. the breton, howsoever poor, is no less dignified under his blue blouse than his ancestors were under their steel armour. a long straight road leads from concarneau to pont-aven, and at the end of it lies the pretty village among hills of woods and of rocks bathed in a light mist. one could almost imagine that it was a swiss village in miniature. by the time we arrived it was night. we could only discern clean white houses on either side, and water rushing under a bridge over which we passed. the hôtel des voyageurs looked much the same as ever, except that over the way a large building had been added to the _annexe_. to our great disappointment, we discovered that mdlle. julia had gone to paris; but we recognised several of the _bonnes_ and a hoary veteran called joseph, who had been in julia's service for over twenty years. gladly i rushed out next morning. there is nothing more delightful than to visit a place where one has been happy for years as a child, especially such a place as pont-aven, which changes little. my first thought was to see the bois d'amour. i found it quite unchanged. to be sure, i had some difficulty in finding the old pathway which led to the wood, so many strange houses and roadways had been built since we were there; but at length we found it--that old steep path with the high walls on either side, on which the blackberries grew in profusion. there are two paths in the forest--one, low down, which leads by the stream, and the other above, carpeted with silver leaves. a wonderful wood it is--a joyous harmony in green and gold. giant chestnuts fill the air with their perfumed leaves, forming an inextricable lattice-work overhead, one branch entwining with the other, the golden rays of the sun filtering through. the ground is carpeted with silver and salmon leaves left from last autumn; the pines shed thousands of brown cones, and streams of resin flow down their trunks. it is well-named the bois d'amour. below runs a little stream. now it foams and bounds, beating itself against a series of obstacles; now it flows calmly, as if taking breath, clear, silver, and limpid, past little green islands covered with flowers, and into bays dark with the black mud beneath. low-growing trees and bushes flourish on the banks, some throwing themselves across the stream as barricades, over which the laughing water bounds and leaps unheedingly, scattering diamonds and topaz in the sunlight. everything in the bois d'amour seems to join in the joyous song of nature. the little stream sings; the trees murmur and rustle in the wind; and the big black mill-wheel, glistening with crystal drops, makes music with the water. [illustration: on the quay at pont-aven] by the riverside, women are washing their clothes on square slabs of stone, which stretch across the water. it was on these stepping-stones, i remember, that my brother and i lost our shoes and stockings. at one place the stream is hidden from sight by thick bushes, and you find yourself in a narrow green lane, a green alley, walled on either side and roofed overhead by masses of trees and bushes, through which the sun filters occasionally in golden patches. whenever i walk down that lane, i think of the song that my bonne marie taught me there one day; it comes back as freshly now as if it had been but yesterday. the refrain begins, 'et mon coeur vol, vol et vol, et vol, vers les cieux.' one meets the river constantly during this walk, and every mile or so you come across a little black mill. the mills in pont-aven are endless, and this saying is an old one: 'pont-aven ville de renom, quatorze moulins, quinze maisons.' picturesque little mills they are. the jet-black wheels form a delightful contrast to the vivid green round about; and small bridges of stones, loosely put together and moss-grown here and there, cross the river at intervals. [illustration: on the steps of the mill house, pont-aven] i love this rough, wild country. how variable it is! you may sit in a wood with the stream at your feet, and all about you will be great hills half-covered with gorse and bracken, and here and there huge blocks of granite, which seem ready to fall any moment. the bois d'amour is a happy hunting-ground of artists. this particular view of the mill at which i gazed so long has been a stock-subject with painters for many years. you never pass without seeing at least one or two men with canvases spread and easels erected, vainly trying to reproduce the beautiful scene. artists are plentiful in this country. wherever you may wander within a radius of fifteen miles, you cannot stop at some attractive prospect without hearing an impatient cough behind you, and, turning, find yourself obstructing the view of a person in corduroys and flannel shirt, with a large felt hat, working, pipe aglow, at an enormous canvas. the artists, who are mostly english, are thought very little of by the people about. i once heard a commercial traveller talking of pont-aven. 'pshaw!' he said, 'they are all english and americans there. everything is done for the english. at the hôtel des voyageurs even the cuisine is english. it is unbearable! at the table the men wear clothes of inconceivable colour and cut. they talk without gestures, very quickly and loudly, and they eat enormously. the young _mecs_ are flat-faced, with long chins, white eye-lashes, and fair hair. many are taciturn, morose, and dreamy. occasionally they make jokes, but without energy. they mostly eat without interruption.' this is the french view, and it is natural. pont-aven does not have the right atmosphere for the frenchman: the bretons and the english are supreme. nothing is more delightful than to spend a summer there. you find yourself in a colony of intelligent men, many of them very clever, as well as pretty young english and american girls, and university students on 'cramming' tours. picnics and river-parties are organized by the inimitable mdlle. julia every day during the summer, and in the evening there is always dancing in the big salon. the hotel is full to overflowing from garret to cellar. within the last few years mdlle. julia has opened another hotel at porte manec, by the sea, to which the visitors may transfer themselves whenever they choose, going either by river or by mdlle. julia's own omnibus. it is built on the same lines as mme. bernhardt's house at belle isle, and is situated on a breezy promontory. the river lies between pont-aven and porte manec, which is at the mouth of the sea. how beautiful this river is--the dear old browny-gray, moleskin-coloured river, edged with great rocks on which the seaweed clings! on the banks are stretches of gray-green grass bordered by holly-bushes. the scenery changes constantly. sometimes it is rugged and rocky, now sloping up, now down, now covered with green gorse or a sprinkling of bushes, now with a wilderness of trees. here and there you will see a cleft in the mountain-side, a little leafy dell which one might fancy the abode of fairies. silver streams trickle musically over the bare brown rocks, and large red toadstools grow in profusion, the silver cobwebs sparkling with dew in the gorse. it is delightful in the marvellous autumn weather to take the narrow river-path winding in and out of the very twisty aven, and wander onwards to your heart's content, with the steep hillside at the back of you and the river running at your feet. you feel as if you could walk on for ever over this mountainous ground, where the heather grows in great purple bunches among huge granite rocks, which, they say, were placed there by the druids. down below flows the river--a mere silver ribbon now, in wastes of pinky-purple mud, for it is ebb tide; and now and then you see the battered hulk of a boat lying on its side in the mud. on the hill are lines of fir-trees standing black and straight against the horizon. night falls in a bluish haze on the hills and on the river, confusing the outline of things. at the foot of the mountains it is almost dark. through the open windows and doors of the cottages as one passes one can see groups round the tables under the yellow light of candles. one smells the good soup which is cooking; the noise of spoons and plates mingles with the voices of the people. pewter and brass gleam from the walls. it is a picture worthy of rembrandt. the end of the room is hidden in smoky shadow, now and then lit up by a flame escaping from the fireplace, showing an old woman knitting in the ingle-nook, and an old white-haired peasant drinking cider out of a blue mug. it is strange to think of these people living in their humble homes year after year--a happy little people who have no history. [illustration: the bridge, pont-aven] not far from pont-aven is the ruined château of rustephan. one approaches it through a wood of silver birches, under great old trees; cherry-trees and apple-trees remain in what must once have been a flourishing orchard. the castle itself has fallen to decay. the wall which joined the two towers has broken down, and the steps of the grand spiral staircase, up which we used to climb, have crumbled; only the main column, built of granite sparkling with silver particles, which will not fall for many a day, stands stout and sturdy. one of the stately old doorways remains; but it is only that which leads to the castle keep--the main entrance must have fallen with the walls centuries ago. bits of the old dining-hall are still to be seen--a huge fireplace, arch-shaped, and a little shrine-like stone erection in the wall, worn smooth in parts; one can imagine that it was once a sink for washing dishes in. it is a drowsy morning; the sun shines hotly on the back of the neck; and as one sits on a mound of earth in the middle of what was once the dining-hall, one cannot resist dreaming of the romantic history of geneviève de rustephan, the beautiful lady who lived here long ago. up in one of the great rounded towers spotted with orange lichen and encircled with ivy is a room which must have been her bedchamber. an ancient chimney-stack rears itself tall and stately, and where once gray smoke curled and wreathed, proceeding from the well-regulated kitchen, long feathery grasses grow. all round the castle, in what must have been the pleasure-gardens, the smooth lawns and the bowling-green, my lady's rose-garden, etc., are now mounds of earth, covered with straggling grass, bracken, and blackberry-bushes, and loose typical breton stone walls enclosing fields. horrible to relate, in the lordly dining-hall, where once the dainty geneviève sat, is a fat pig, nozzling in the earth. naturally, rustephan is haunted. if anyone were brave enough to penetrate the large hall towards midnight (so the peasants say), a terrible spectacle would be met--a bier covered with a white cloth carried by priests bearing lighted tapers. on clear moonlight nights, say the ancients, on the crumbling old terrace, a beautiful girl is to be seen, pale-faced, and dressed in green satin flowered with gold, singing sad songs, sobbing and crying. on one occasion the peasants were dancing on the green turf in front of the towers, and in the middle of the most animated part of the feast there appeared behind the crossbars of a window an old priest with shaven head and eyes as brilliant as diamonds. terrified, the men and the girls fled, and never again danced in these haunted regions. [illustration: the village forge, pont-aven] one feels miserable on leaving pont-aven. it seems as if you had been in a quiet and beautiful backwater for a time, and were suddenly going out into the glare and the noise and the flaunting airs of a fashionable regatta. i can describe the sensation in no other way. there is something in the air of pont-aven that makes it like no other place in the world. [illustration: the village cobbler] chapter xiii quimperlÉ quimperlé is known as the arcadia of basse bretagne, and certainly the name is well deserved. i have never seen a town so full of trees and trailing plants and gardens. every wall is green with moss and gay with masses of convolvulus and nasturtium. flowers grow rampant in quimperlé, and overrun their boundaries. every window-sill has its row of pink ivy-leafed geraniums, climbing down and over the gray stone wall beneath; every wall has its wreaths of trailing flowers. there are flights of steps everywhere--favourite caprices of the primitive architects--divided in the middle by iron railings. up these steps all the housewives must go to reach the market. on either side the houses crowd, one above the other, with their steep garden walls, sometimes intercepted by iron gateways, and sometimes covered by blood-red leaves and yellowing vines. some are houses of the middle ages, and some of the renaissance period, with sculptured porches and panes of bottle-glass; a few have terraces at the end of the gardens, over which clematis climbs. here and there the sun lights up a corner of a façade, or shines on the emerald leaves, making them scintillate. down the steps a girl in white-winged cap and snowy apron, with pink ribbon at her neck, carrying a large black two-handled basket, is coming on her way from market. having scaled this long flight of steps, you find yourself face to face with the old gothic church of st. michael, a grayish-pink building with one great square tower and four turrets. the porch is sculptured in a rich profusion of graceful details. here and there yellow moss grows, and there are clusters of fern in the niches. inside, the church was suffused with a purple light shed by the sun through the stained-glass windows; the ceiling was of infinite blue. everything was transformed by the strange purple light. the beautiful carving round the walls, the host of straight-backed praying-chairs, and even the green curtain of the confessional boxes, were changed to royal purple. only the altar, with its snowy-white cloths and red and gold ornaments, retained its colour. jutting forth from the church of st. michael are arms or branches connecting it with the village, as if it were some mother bird protecting the young ones beneath her wings. under these wings the houses of the village cluster. it is five o'clock in the afternoon, the sociable hour, when people sit outside their cottage doors, knitting, gossiping, watching the children play, and eating the evening meal. most of the children, who are many, are very nearly of the same age. clusters of fair curly heads are seen in the road. the youngest, the baby, is generally held by some old woman, probably the grandmother, who has a shrivelled yellow face--a very tender guardian. over the doorways of the shops hang branches of withered mistletoe. through the long low windows, which have broad sills, you catch a glimpse of rows and rows of bottles. these are wine-shops--no rarities in a breton village. another shop evidently belonged to the church at one time. it still possesses a rounded ecclesiastical doorway, built of solid blocks of stone, and the walls, which were white originally, are stained green with age. the windows, as high as your waist from the ground, have broad stone sills, on which are arranged carrots and onions, coloured sweets in bottles, and packets of tobacco. this shop evidently supplies everything that a human being can desire. above it you read: 'café on sert a boire et a manger.' while we were in quimperlé there were two musicians making a round of the town. one, with a swarthy face, was blind, and sang a weird song in a minor key, beating a triangle. the other, who looked an italian, was raggedly dressed in an old fur coat and a faded felt hat. his musical performance was a veritable gymnastic feat. in his hands he held a large concertina, which he played most cleverly; at his back was a drum with automatic sticks and clappers, which he worked with his feet. it was the kind of music one hears at fairs. wherever we went we heard it, sometimes so near that we could catch the tune, sometimes at a distance, when only the dull boom of the drum was distinguishable. whenever i think of quimperlé this strange music and the spectacle of those two picturesque figures come back to memory. the men are well known in brittany. they spend their lives travelling from place to place, earning a hard livelihood. when i was at school in quimper i used to hear the same tune played by the same men outside the convent walls. [illustration: the blind piper] quimperlé is a sleepy place, changing very little with the years. in spite of the up-to-date railway-station, moss still grows between the pavings of the streets. the houses have still their picturesque wooden gables; the gardens are laden with fruit-trees; the hills are rich in colour. flowers that love the damp grow luxuriantly. it is an arcadian country. the place is hostile to work. in this tranquil town, almost voluptuous in its richness of colour and balminess of atmosphere, you lose yourself in laziness. there is not a discordant note, nothing to shock the eye or grate on the senses. far from the noise of paris, the stuffy air of the boulevards, the never-ending rattle of the fiacres, and the rasping cries of the camelot, you forget the seething world outside. in the rue du château, the aristocratic quarter, are many spacious domains with doorways surmounted by coats of arms and coronets. most of them have closed shutters, their masters having disappeared, alienated for ever by the revolution; but a few great families have returned to their homes. one sees many women about the church, grave and sad and prayerful, who still wear black, clinging to god, the saints, and the priests, as to the only living souvenirs of better times. in no other place in finistère was the revolution so sudden and so terrible as in this little town, and nowhere were the nobility so many and powerful. this old rue du château must have rung with furious cries on the day when the federators returned from the fête of the champs de mars after the abolition of all titles and the people took the law into their own hands. the bretons are slow to anger; but when roused they are extremely violent. they not only attacked the living--the nobles in their seignorial hotels--but also they went to the tombs and mutilated the dead with sabre cuts. in quimperlé the painter finds pictures at every turn. for example, there are clear sinuous streams crossed by many bridges, not unlike by-canals in venice. as you look up the river the bank is a jumble of sloping roofs, protruding balconies, single-arched bridges, trees, and clumps of greenery. the houses on either side, gray and turreted, bathe their foundations in the stream. some have steep garden walls, velvety with green and yellow moss and lichen; others have terraces and jutting stone balconies, almost smothered by trailing vines and clematis, drooping over the gray water. the stream is very shallow, showing clearly the brown and golden bed; and on low stone benches at the edge girls in little close white caps and blue aprons are busily washing with bare round arms. a pretty little maid with jet-black hair is cleaning some pink stuff on a great slab of stone, against a background of gray wall over which convolvulus and nasturtium are trailing; a string of white linen is suspended above her head. this is a delightful picture. it is a gray day, sunless; but the gray is luminous, and the reflections in the water are clear. [illustration: at the foire] chapter xiv auray when we arrived in auray it was market-day, and chatter filled the streets. there were avenues of women ranged along the pavement, their round wicker baskets full of lettuce, cabbages, carrots, turnips, chestnuts, pears, and what not--women in white flimsy caps, coloured cross-over shawls, and sombre black dresses. their aprons were of many colours--reds, mauves, blues, maroons, and greens--and the wares also were of various hues. all the women knit between the intervals of selling, and even during the discussion of a bargain, for a purchase in brittany is no small matter in the opinion of housewives, and engenders a great deal of conversation. all the feminine world of auray seemed to have sallied forth that morning. processions of them passed down the avenue of market women, most of them peasants in the cap of auray, with snuff-coloured, large-bibbed aprons, carrying bulky black baskets with double handles. now and then one saw a frenchwoman walking through the avenue of vegetables, just as good at bargaining, just as keen-eyed and sharp-tongued, as her humbler sisters. sometimes she was pretty, walking with an easy swinging gait, her baby on one arm, her basket on the other, in a short trim skirt and altogether neatly dressed. more often she was dressed in unbecoming colours, her hair untidily arranged, her skirt trailing in the mud--a striking contrast to the well-to-do young breton matron, with neatly braided black hair and clean rosy face, her white-winged lawn cap floating in the breeze, her red shawl neatly crossed over her lace-trimmed corsage. in her black velvet-braided skirt and wooden sabots the breton is a dainty little figure, her only lapse into frivolity consisting of a gold chain at her neck and gold earrings. vegetables do not engender much conversation in a breton market: they are served out and paid for very calmly. it is over the skeins of coloured wool, silks, and laces, that there is much bargaining. round these stalls you will see girls and old hags face to face, and almost nose to nose, their arms crossed, speaking rapidly in shrill voices. [illustration: mid-day] just after walking past rows of very ordinary houses, suddenly you will come across a really fine old mansion, dating from the seventeenth century, white-faced, with ancient black beams, gables, and diamond panes. then, just as you think that you have exhausted the resources of the town, and turn down a moss-grown alley homewards, you find yourself face to face with another town, typically breton, white-faced and gray-roofed, clustering round a church and surrounded by old moss-grown walls. this little town is situated far down in a valley, into which you descend by a sloping green path. we sat on a stone bench above, and watched the people as they passed before us. there were bare-legged school-children in their black pinafores and red berés, hurrying home to _déjeuner_, swinging their satchels; and beggars, ragged and dirty, holding towards us tin cups and greasy caps, with many groans and whines. one man held a baby on his arm, and in the other hand a loaf of bread. the baby's face was dirty and covered with sores; but its hair was golden and curly, and the sight of that fair sweet head nodding over the father's shoulder as they went down the hill made one's heart ache. it was terrible to think that an innocent child could be so put out of touch with decent humanity. to reach this little town one had to cross a sluggish river by a pretty gray stone bridge. some of the houses were quaint and picturesque, mostly with two stories, one projecting over the other, and low windows with broad sills, bricked down to the ground, on which were arranged pots of fuchsias, pink and white geraniums, and red-brown begonias. nearly every house had its broad stone stoop, or settle, on which the various families sat in the warm afternoon drinking bowls of soup and eating _tartines de beurre_. it is a notably provincial little town, full of flowers and green trees, and dark, narrow streets, across which hang audaciously strings of drying linen. all the children of the community appeared to be out and about--some skipping, others playing at peg-tops, and others merely sucking their fingers and their pinafores in the way that children have. one sweet child in a red pinafore, her hair plaited into four little tails tied with red ribbon, clasped a slice of bread-and-butter (butter side inwards, of course) to her chest, and was carelessly peeling an apple with a long knife at the same time, in such a way as to make my heart leap. a happy wedding-party were swinging gaily along the quay arm in arm, singing some rollicking breton chanson, and all rather affected by their visits to the various _débits de boissons_. there were two men and two women--the men fair and bearded, wearing peaked caps; the women in their best lace coifs and smartest aprons. as they passed everyone turned and pointed and laughed. it was probably a three days' wedding. a mite of a girl walking gingerly along the street carried a bottle of ink ever so carefully, biting her lips in her anxiety to hold it steadily. round her neck, on a sky-blue ribbon, hung a gorgeous silver cross, testifying to good behaviour during the week. alack! a tragedy was in store. the steps leading to the doorway of her home were steep, and the small person's legs were short and fat. she tripped and fell, and the ink was spilled--a large, indelible, angry black spot on the clean white step. fearfully and pale-faced, the little maid looked anxiously about her, and strove to put the ink back again by means of a dry stick, staining fingers and pinafore the more. it was of no avail. her mother had seen her. out she rushed, a pleasant-faced woman in a white lace cap, now wearing a ferocious expression. 'monster that thou art!' she cried, lifting the tearful, ink-bespattered child by the armpits, and throwing her roughly indoors, whence piteous sounds of sobbing and wailing ensued. the child's heart was broken; the silver cross had lost its charm; and the sun had left the heavens. the mother, busily bending over her sewing-machine, looked up at us through the window, and smiled understandingly. [illustration: a little mother] chapter xv belle isle as a rule, a country becomes more interesting as one draws near to the sea; the colouring is more beautiful and the people are more picturesque. it is strange that the salt air should have such a mellowing effect upon a town and its inhabitants; but there is no doubt that it has. this seemed especially remarkable to us, coming straight from carnac, that flat, gray, treeless country where the people are sad and stolid, and one's only interest is in the dolmens and menhirs scattered over the landscape--strange blocks of stone about which one knows little, but imagines much. when you come from a country such as this, you cannot but be struck by the warmth and wealth of colouring which the sea imparts to everything in its vicinity. even the men and women grouped in knots on the pier were more picturesque, with their sun-bleached, tawny, red-gold hair, and their blue eyes, than the people of carnac. the men were handsome fellows--some in brown and orange clothing, toned and stained by the sea; others in deep-blue much bepatched coats and yellow oilskin trousers. their complexions had a healthy reddish tinge--a warmth of hue such as one rarely sees in brittany. the colouring of the bay of quiberon on this particular afternoon was a tender pale mother-of-pearl. the sky was for the most part a broad, fair expanse of gray, with, just where the sun was setting, intervals of eggshell blue and palest lemon-yellows breaking through the drab; the sands were silvery; the low-lying ground was a dim gold; the water was gray, with purple and lemon-yellow reflections. the whole scene was broad and fair. the people on the pier and the boats on the water formed notes of luscious colour. the fishing-boats at anchor were of a brilliant green, with vermilion and orange sails and nets a gauzy blue. ahead, on the brown rocks, although it was the calmest and best of weather, white waves were breaking and sending foam and spray high into the air. there was everywhere a fresh smell of salt. [illustration: curiosity] we were anxious to go across to belle isle that night, and took tickets for a small, evil-smelling boat, the cargo of which was mostly soldiers. it was rather a rough crossing, and we lay in the stuffy cabin longing to go on deck to see the sunset, which, by glimpses through the portholes, we could tell to be painting sea and sky in tones of flame. at last the spirit conquered the flesh, and, worried with the constant opening and shutting of doors by the noisy steward, we went on deck. a fine sight awaited us. from pearly grays and tender tones we had emerged into the fiery glories of a sunset sky. behind us lay the dark gray-blue sea and the darker sky, flecked by pale pink clouds. before us, the sun was shooting forth broad streaks of orange and vermilion on a ground of venetian blue. towards the horizon the colouring paled to tender pinks and lemon-yellows. as the little steamer ploughed on, belle isle rose into sight, a dark purple streak with tracts of lemon-gold and rosy clouds. the nearer we drew the lower sank the sun, until at last it set redly behind the island, picking out every point and promontory and every pine standing stiff against the sky. each moment the island loomed larger and darker, orange light shining out here and there in the mass. we were astonished by its size, for i had always imagined belle isle as being a miniature place belonging entirely to mme. bernhardt. the entrance to the bay was narrow, and lay between two piers, with lights on either end; and it was a strange sensation leaving the grays and blues and purples, the silvery moonlight, and the tall-masted boats behind us, and emerging into this warmth and wealth of colouring. a wonderful orange and red light shone behind the dark mass of the island, turning the water of the bay to molten gold and glorifying the red-sailed fishing-boats at anchor. as we drew near the shore, piercing shrieks came from the funnel. there appeared to be some difficulty about landing. many directions were shouted by the captain and repeated by a shrill-voiced boy before we were allowed to step on shore over a precarious plank. once landed, we were met by a brown-faced, sturdy woman, who picked up our trunks and shouldered them as if they were feather-weights for a distance of half a mile or so. she led the way to the hotel. next morning was dismal; but, as we had only twenty-four hours to spend in belle isle, we hired a carriage to take us to the home of mme. bernhardt, and faced the weather. the sky was gray; the country flat and bare, though interesting in a melancholy fashion. the scenery consisted of mounds of brown overturned earth laid in regular rows in the fields, scrubby ground half-overgrown by gorse, clusters of dark pines, and a dreary windmill here and there. now and then, by way of incident, we passed a group of white houses, surrounded by sad-coloured haystacks, and a few darkly-clad figures hurrying over the fields with umbrellas up, on their way to church. the breton peasants are so pious that, no matter how far away from a town or village they may live, they attend mass at least once on sunday. a small procession passed us on the road--young men in their best black broadcloth suits, and girls in bright shawls and velvet-bound petticoats. this was a christening procession--at least, we imagined it to be so; for one of the girls carried a long white bundle under an umbrella. bretons are christened within twenty-four hours of birth. the home of mme. bernhardt is a square fortress-like building, shut up during the autumn, with a beautifully-designed terrace garden. it is situated on a breezy promontory, and the great actress is in sole possession of a little bay wherein the sea flows smoothly and greenly on the yellow sands, and the massive purple rocks loom threateningly on either side with many a craggy peak. her dogs, large danish boarhounds, rushed out, barking furiously, at our approach; her sheep and some small ponies were grazing on the scanty grass. our driver was taciturn. he seemed to be tuned into accord with the desolate day, and would vouchsafe no more than a grudging 'oui' or 'non' to our many questions, refusing point-blank to tell us to what places he intended driving us. at length he stopped the carriage on a cliff almost at the edge of a precipice. thoughts that he was perhaps insane ran through my mind, and i stepped out hurriedly; but his intention was only to show us some cavern below. mother preferred to remain above-ground; but, led by the driver, i went down some steps cut in the solid rock, rather slippery and steep, with on one side a sheer wall of rock, and the ocean on the other. the rock was dark green and flaky, with here and there veins of glistening pink and white mica. lower and lower we descended, until it seemed as if we were stepping straight into the sea, which foamed against the great rocks, barring the entrance to the cavern. [illustration: a solitary meal] the cavern itself was like a colossal railway-arch towering hundreds of feet overhead; and against this and the rocks at the entrance the sea beat with much noise and splash, falling again with a groan in a mass of spray. inside the cavern the tumult was deafening; but never have i seen anything more beautiful than those waves creaming and foaming over the green rocks, the blood-red walls of the cave rising sheer above, flecked with glistening mica. it was a contrast with the tame, flat, sad scenery over which we had been driving all the morning. this was nature at her biggest and best, belittling everything one had ever seen or was likely to see, making one feel small and insignificant. by-and-by we drove to a village away down in a hollow, a typical breton fishing-village with yellow and white-faced _auberges_, and rows of boats moored to the quay, their nets and sails hauled down on this great day of the week, the sabbath. as there was no hotel in the place, we entered a clean-looking _auberge_ and asked for luncheon. the kitchen led out of the little _salle à manger_, and, as the door was left wide open, we could watch the preparation of our food. we were to have a very good soup; we saw the master of the house bringing in freshly-caught fish, which were grilled at the open fireplace, and fresh sardines; and we heard our chicken frizzling on the spit. we saw the coffee-beans being roasted, and we were given the most exquisite pears and apples. small matter that our room was shared by noisy soldiers, and that adolphus (as we had named our driver) entered and drank before our very eyes more cognac than was good for him or reasonable on our bill. sunday afternoon in belle isle is a fashionable time. between three and four people go down to the quay, clattering over the cobble stones in their best black sabots, to watch the steamers come in from quiberon. you see girls in fresh white caps and neat black dresses, spruce soldiers, ladies _à la mode_ in extravagant headgear and loud plaid or check dresses. on the quay they buy hot chestnuts. from our hotel we could watch the people as they passed, and the shopkeepers sitting and gossiping outside their doors. opposite us was a souvenir shop, on the steps of which sat the proprietor with his boy. very proud he was of the child--quite an ordinary spoiled child, much dressed up. the father followed the boy with his eyes wherever he went. he pretended to scold him for not getting out of the way when people passed, to attract their attention to the child. he greeted every remark with peals of laughter, and repeated the witticisms to his friend the butcher next door, who did not seem to appreciate them. every now and then he would glance over to see if the butcher were amused. french people, especially bretons, are devoted to their children. i was much amused in watching the little _bonne_ at the hotel who carried our luggage the night before. she was quaint, compact, sturdy. she would carry a huge valise on her shoulder, or sometimes one in either hand. she ordered her husband about. she dressed her child in a shining black hat, cleaned its face with her pocket-handkerchief, straightened its pinafore, and sent it _en promenade_ with papa, while she herself stumped off to carry more luggage. there was apparently no end to her strength. on her way indoors she paused on the step and cast a loving glance over her shoulder at the back view of her husband in his neatly-patched blue blouse and the little child in the black _sarrau_ walking sedately down the road. she seemed so proud of the pair that we could not resist asking the woman if the child were hers, just to see the glad smile which lit up her face as she answered, 'oui, mesdames!' i have often noticed how lenient breton women are to their children. they will speak in a big voice and frown, and a child imagines that mother is in a towering rage; but you will see her turn round the next moment and smile at the bystander. if children only knew their power, how little influence parents would have over them! the french differ from the british in the matter of emotion. on the steamer from belle isle to quiberon there were some soldiers, about to travel with us, who were being seen off by four or five others standing on the quay. slouching, unmilitary figures they looked, with baggy red trousers tied up at the bottoms, faded blue coats, and postmen-shaped hats, yellow, red, or blue pom-pom on top. one of the men on shore was a special friend of a soldier who was leaving. i was on tenter-hooks lest he should embrace him; he almost did so. he squeezed his hand; he picked fluff off his clothes; he straightened his hat. he repeatedly begged that his 'cher ami' would come over on the following sunday to belle isle. tears were very near his eyes; he was forced to bite his handkerchief to keep them back. when the boat moved away, and they could join hands no longer, the soldiers blew kisses over the water to one another. they opened their arms wide, shouted affectionate messages, and called one another by endearing terms. altogether, they carried on as if they were neurotic girls rather than soldiers who had their way to make and their country to think of. [illustration: in the bois d'amour] there was one man superior to his fellows. he held the same rank, and wore the same uniform; but he kept his buttons and his brass belt bright; he wore silk socks, and carried a gold watch under his military coat; his face was intelligent. chapter xvi st. anne d'auray not far from the little town of auray is the magnificent cathedral of st. anne d'auray, to which so many thousands from all over brittany come annually to worship at the shrine of st. anne. from all parts of the country they arrive--some on foot, others on horseback, or in strange country carts: marquises in their carriages; peasants plodding many a weary mile in their wooden sabots. even old men and women will walk all through the day and night in order to be in time for the pardon of st. anne. the breton people firmly believe that their household cannot prosper, that their cattle and their crops cannot thrive, that their ships are not safe at sea, unless they have been at least once a year to burn candles at the shrine. the wealthy bourgeois's daughter, in her new dress, smart apron, and paris shoes, kneels side by side with a ragged beggar; the peasant farmer, with long gray hair, white jacket, breeches and leather belt, mingles his supplications with those of a nobleman's son. all are equal here; all have come in the same humble, repentant spirit; for the time being class distinctions are swept away. noble and peasant crave their special boons; each confesses his sins of the past year; all stand bareheaded in the sunshine, humble petitioners to st. anne. at the time of the pardon, july , the ordinarily quiet town is filled to overflowing. there is a magnificent procession, all green and gold and crimson, headed by the bishop of vannes. a medley of people come from all parts to pray in the cathedral, and to bathe in the miraculous well, the water of which will cure any ailment. it is said that in the seventh century st. anne appeared to one nicolazic, a farmer, and commanded him to dig in a field near by for her image. this having been found, she bade him erect a chapel on the spot to her memory. several chapels were afterwards built, each in its turn grander and more important, until at last the magnificent church now standing was erected. on the open place in front is a circle of small covered-in stalls, where chaplets, statuettes, tall wax candles, rings, and sacred ornaments of all kinds, are sold. [illustration: a breton farmer] directly you appear within that circle, long doleful cries are set up from every vendor, announcing the various wares that he or she has for sale. you are offered rosaries for sixpence, and for four sous extra you can have them blessed. a statue of the virgin can be procured for fourpence; likewise the image of st. anne. wherever you may go in the circle, you are pestered by these noisy traders. there is something incongruous in such sacred things being hawked about the streets, and their various merits shrieked at you as you pass. we went to a shop near by, where we could look at the objects quietly and at leisure. the church, built of light-gray stone, is full of the richest treasures you can imagine--gold, jewels, precious marbles, and priceless pictures. one feels almost surfeited by so much magnificence. every square inch of the walls is covered with slabs of costly marble, on which are inscribed, in letters of gold, thanks to st. anne for benefits bestowed and petitions for blessings. although one cannot but be touched by the worship of st. anne and the simple belief of the people in her power to cure all, to accomplish all, one is a little upset by these costly offerings. nevertheless, it is a marvellous faith, this roman catholic religion: the more you travel in a country like brittany, the more you realize it. there must be a great power in a religion that draws people hundreds of miles on foot, and enables them, after hours of weary tramping, to spend a day praying on the hard stones before the statue of a saint. chapter xvii st. malo when you are nearing the coast of france all you can see is a long narrow line, without relief, apparently without design, without character, just a sombre strip of horizon; but st. malo is always visible. a fine needle-point breaks the uninteresting line: it is the belfry of st. malo. to left and right of the town is a cluster of islands, dark masses of rock over which the waves foam whitely. st. malo is magnificently fortified. it is literally crowned with military defences. it is a mass of formidable fortresses, rigid angles, and severe gray walls. it speaks of the seventeenth century, telling of a time when deeds of prowess were familiar. the sea, which is flowing, beats furiously against the walls of defence, protected by the trunks of great trees planted in the sand. these gigantic battalions stop the inrush of the water, and would make landing more arduous to an enemy. they have a bizarre effect when seen from the distance. the town defied all the efforts of the english to capture her. on one occasion they laid mines as far as the porte of st. malo; but the virgin, enshrined above the gate, and ever watching over the people, disclosed the plot by unfolding her arms and pointing with one hand to the ground beneath her. the bretons dug where she pointed, and discovered their imminent peril. thus was the city saved. to-day the shrine receives the highest honours, and is adorned with the finest and sweetest flowers. for one reason at least st. malo is unique. it is a town of some thousand inhabitants; yet it is still surrounded by mediæval walls. of all the towns in brittany, st. malo is the only one which still remains narrowly enclosed within walls. it is surrounded by the sea except for a narrow neck of land joining the city to the mainland. this is guarded at low tide by a large and fierce bulldog, the image of which has been added to st. malo's coat of arms. enclosed within a narrow circle of walls, and being unable to expand, the town is peculiar. the houses are higher than usual, and the streets narrower. there is no waste ground in st. malo. every available inch is built upon. the sombre streets run uphill and downhill. there is no town like st. malo. its quaint, tortuous streets, of corkscrew form, culminate in the cathedral, which, as you draw near, does not seem to be a cathedral at all, but a strong fort. so narrow are the streets, and so closely are they gathered round the cathedral, that it is only when you draw away to some distance that you can see the beautifully-sculptured stone tower of many points. [illustration: in the eye of the sun] up and down the steep street the people clatter in their thick-soled sabots. it is afternoon, and most of the townspeople have turned out for a walk, to gaze in the shop windows with their little ones. the people are rather french; and the children, instead of being clad in the breton costume, wear smart kilted skirts, white socks, and shiny black sailor hats. still, there is a subtle difference between these people and the french. you notice this directly you arrive. there is something solid, something pleasant and unartificial, about them. the women of the middle classes are much better-looking, and they dress better; the men are of stronger physique, with straight, clean-cut features and a powerful look. very attractive are these narrow hilly streets, with their throngs of people and their gay little shops where the wares are always hung outside--worsted shawls, scarlet and blue berés, breton china (decorated by stubby figures of men and women and heraldic devices), chaplets, shrines to the virgin mary, many-coloured cards, religious and otherwise. [illustration: sunday] there are a few houses which perpetuate the past. you are shown the house of queen anne, the good duchess anne, a house with gothic windows, flanked by a tower, blackened and strangely buffeted by the blows of time. queen anne was a marvellous woman, and has left her mark. her memory is kept green by the lasting good that she achieved. from town to town she travelled during the whole of her reign, for she felt that to rule well and wisely she must be ever in close touch with her people. no woman was more beloved by the populace. everywhere she went she was fêted and adored. she ruled her province with a rod of iron; yet she showed herself to be in many ways wonderfully feminine. nothing could have been finer than the act of uniting brittany with france by giving up her crown to france and remaining only the duchess anne. in almost every town in brittany there is a queen anne house, a house which the good queen either built herself or stayed in. everywhere she went she constructed something--a church, a chapel, an oratory, a _calvaire_, a house, a tomb--by which she was to be remembered. there is, for example, the famous tower which she built, in spite of all malcontents, not so much in order to add to the defences of st. malo as to rebuke the people for their turbulence and rebellion. her words concerning it ring through the ages, and will never be forgotten: 'quic en groigneir ainsy ser c'est mon playsir.' ever since the tower has gone by the name of 'quiquengroigne.' there are three names, three figures, of which st. malo is proud; the birthplaces are pointed out to the stranger fondly. one is that of the duchess anne; another that of duguay-trouin; last, but not least, we have chateaubriand. of the three, perhaps the picturesque figure of duguay-trouin charms one most. from my earliest days i have loved stories of the gallant sailor, whose adventures and mishaps are as fascinating as those of sinbad. i have always pictured him as a heroic figure on the bridge of a vessel, wearing a powdered wig, a lace scarf, and the dress of the period, winning victory after victory, and shattering fleets. it is disappointing to realize that this hero lived in the rue jean de chatillon, in a three-storied, time-worn house with projecting windows, lozenge-paned. of chateaubriand i know little; but his birthplace is in st. malo, for all who come to see. what a revelation it is, after winding up the narrow, steep streets of st. malo, suddenly to behold, framed in an archway of the old mediæval walls, the sea! there is a greeny-blue haze so vast that it is difficult to trace where the sea ends and the sky begins. the beach is of a pale yellow-brown where the waves have left it, and pink as it meets the water. at a little distance is an island of russet-brown rocks, half-covered with seaweed; at the base is a circle of tawny sand, and at the summit yellow-green grass is growing. [illustration: the cradle] chapter xviii mont st. michel the road to mont st. michel is colourless and dreary. on either side are flat gray marshes, with little patches of scrubby grass. here and there a few sheep are grazing. how the poor beasts can find anything to eat at all on such barren land is a marvel. gradually the scenery becomes drearier, until at last you are driving on a narrow causeway, with a river on one side and a wilderness of treacherous sand on the other. suddenly, on turning a corner, you come within view of mont st. michel. no matter how well prepared you may be for the apparition, no matter what descriptions you may have read or heard beforehand, when you see that three-cornered mass of stone rising from out the vast wilderness of sand, you cannot but be astonished and overwhelmed. you are tempted to attribute this bizarre achievement to the hand of the magician. it is uncanny. just now it is low tide, and the mount lies in the midst of an immense moving plain, on which three rivers twist, like narrow threads intersecting it--le conesnon, la sée, and la seline. several dark islands lie here and there uncovered, and groups of small boats are left high and dry. it is fascinating to watch the sea coming up, appearing like a circle on the horizon, and slipping gently over the sands, the circle ever narrowing, until the islands are covered once more, the boats float at anchor, and the waves precipitate themselves with a loud booming sound, heard for miles round, against the double walls that protect the sacred mount. many are the praises that have been sung of mont st. michel by poets and artists, by historians and architects. she has been called 'a poem in stone,' 'le palais des angles,' 'an inspiration of the divine,' 'la cité des livres,' 'le boulevard de la france,' 'the sacred mount,' etc. normandy and brittany dispute her. she is in the possession of either, as you will. [illustration: soupe maigre] mont st. michel is not unlike gibraltar. as you come suddenly upon the place, rising from out the misty grayish-yellow, low-lying marshes, it appears to be a dark three-cornered mass, surrounded by stout brownish battlemented walls, flanked by rounded turrets, against a background of blue sky. at the base of the mount lies the city, the houses built steeply one above the other, some with brownish lichen-covered roofs, others of modern slate. above the city is the monastery--brown walls, angry and formidable, rising steeply, with many windows and huge buttresses. beyond, on the topmost point, is the grand basilica consecrated to the archangel, the greenish light of whose windows you can see clearly. above all rises a tall gray spire culminating in a golden figure. there is only one entrance to mont st. michel--over a footbridge and beneath a solid stone archway, from which the figure of the virgin in a niche looks down. you find yourself in a narrow, steep street, black and dark with age, and crowded with shops and bazaars and cafés. the town appears to be given up to the amusement and entertainment of visitors; and, as st. michael is the guardian saint of all strangers and pilgrims, i suppose this is appropriate. tourists fill the streets and overflow the hotels and cafés; the town seems to live, thrive, and have its being entirely for the tourists. outside every house hangs a sign advertising coffee or china or curios, as the case may be, and so narrow is the street that the signs on either side meet. your first thought on arriving is about getting something to eat. the journey from st. malo is long, and, although the sun is shining and the sky is azure blue, the air is biting. of course, everyone who comes to the mount has heard of mme. poulard. she is as distinctly an institution as the very walls and fortresses. all know of her famous coffee and delicious omelettes; all have heard of her charm. it is quite an open question whether the people flock there in hundreds on a sunday morning for the sake of mme. poulard's luncheon or for the attractions of mont st. michel itself. there she stands in the doorway of her hotel, smiling, gracious, affable, handsome. no one has ever seen mme. poulard ruffled or put out. however many unexpected visitors may arrive, she greets them all with a smile and words of welcome. we were amid a very large stream of guests; yet she showed us into her great roomy kitchen, and seated us before the huge fireplace, where a brace of chickens, steaming on a spit, were being continually basted with butter by stout, gray-haired m. poulard. she found time to inquire about our journey and our programme for the day, and directed us to the various show-places of the mount. there is only one street of any importance in mont st. michel, dark and dim, very narrow, no wider than a yard and a half; a drain runs down the middle. here you find yourself in an absolute wilderness of poulard. you are puzzled by the variety and the relations of the poulards. poulard greets you everywhere, written in large black letters on a white ground. if you mount some steps and turn a corner suddenly, poulard _frère_ greets you; if you go for a harmless walk on the ramparts, the renowned coffee of poulard _veuve_ hits you in the face. each one strives to be the right and only poulard. you struggle to detach yourselves from these poulards. you go through a fine mediæval archway, past shops where valueless, foolish curios are for sale; you scramble up picturesque steps, only to be told once more in glaring letters that poulard spells poulard. a very picturesque street is the main thoroughfare of mont st. michel, mounting higher and higher, with tall gray-stone and wooden houses on either side, the roofs of which often meet overhead. each window has its pots of geraniums and its show of curios and useless baubles. fish-baskets hang on either side of the doors. some of the houses have terrace gardens, small bits of level places cut into the rock, where roses grow and trailing clematis. ivy mainly runs riot over every stone and rock and available wall. the houses are built into the solid rock one above another, and many of them retain their air of the fourteenth or the fifteenth century. you pass a church of jeanne d'arc. a bronze statue of the saint stands outside the door. one always goes upwards in mont st. michel, seeing the dark purplish-pink mass of the grand old church above you, with its many spires of sculptured stone. stone steps lead to the ramparts. here you can lean over the balustrade and look down upon the waste of sand surrounding mont st. michel. all is absolutely calm and noiseless. immediately below is the town, its clusters of new gray-slate roofs mingling with those covered in yellow lichen and green moss; also the church of the village, looking like a child's plaything perched on the mountain-side. beyond and all around lies a sad, monotonous stretch of pearl-gray sand, with only a darkish, narrow strip of land between it and the leaden sky--the coast of normandy. sea-birds passing over the country give forth a doleful wail. the only signs of humanity at all in the immensity of this great plain are some little black specks--men and women searching for shellfish, delving in the sand and trying to earn a livelihood in the forbidding waste. [illustration: dÉjeuner] the melancholy of the place is terrible. i have seen people of the gayest-hearted natures lean over that parapet and gaze ahead for hours. this great gray plain has a strange attraction. it draws out all that is sad and serious from the very depths of you, forcing you to think deeply, moodily. joyous thoughts are impossible. at first you imagine that the scenery is colourless; but as you stand and watch for some time, you discover that it is full of colour. there are pearly greens and yellows and mauves, and a kind of phosphorescent slime left by the tide, glistening with all the hues of the rainbow. terribly dangerous are these shifting sands. in attempting to cross them you need an experienced guide. the sea mounts very quickly, and mists overtake you unexpectedly. many assailants of the rock have been swallowed in the treacherous sands. being on this great height reminded me of a legend i had heard of the sculptor gautier, a man of genius, who was shut up in the abbey of mont st. michel and carved stones to keep himself from going mad--you can see these in the abbey to this day. for some slight reason françois i. threw the unfortunate sculptor into the black cachot of the mount, and there he was left in solitude, to die by degrees. his hair became quite white, and hung long over his shoulders; his cheeks were haggard; he grew to look like a ghost. his youth could no longer fight against the despair overhanging him; his miseries were too great for him to bear; he became almost insane. one day, by a miracle, mass was held, not in the little dark chapel under the crypts, but in the church on high, on the topmost pinnacle of the mount. it was a sunday, a fête-day. the sun shone, not feebly, as i saw it that day, but radiantly, the windows of the church glistening. it was blindingly beautiful. the joy of life surrounded him; the sweetness and freshness of the spring was in the air. the irony of men and things was too great for his poor sorrow-laden brain. he cleared the parapet, and was dashed to atoms below. poor gautier! it was his only chance of escape. one realized that as one looked up at those immense prison walls, black and frowning, sheer and unscaleable, every window grated and barred. what chance would a prisoner have? if it were possible for him to escape from the prison itself, there would be the town below to pass through. only one narrow causeway joins the island to the mainland, and all round there is nothing but sea and sandy wastes. [illustration: a farmhouse kitchen] i was disturbed in my reverie by a loud nasal voice shouting, 'par ici, messieurs et dames, s'il vous plaît.' it was the guide, and willy-nilly we must go and make the rounds of the abbey among a crowd of other sightseers. an old blind woman on the abbey steps, evidently knowing that we were english by our tread, moistened her lips and drew in her breath in preparation for a begging whine as we approached. we passed through a huge red door of a glorious colour, up a noble flight of wide steps, with hundreds of feet of wall on either side, into a lofty chapel, falling to decay, and being renovated in parts. it was of a ghostly greenish stone, with fluted pillars of colossal height, ending in stained-glass windows and a vaulted roof, about which black-winged bats were flying. room after room we passed through, the guide making endless and monotonous explanations and observations in a parrot-like voice, until we reached the cloister. this is the pearl of mont st. michel, the wonder of wonders. it is a huge square court. in the middle of the quadrangle it is open to the sky, and the sun shines through in a golden blaze. all round are cool dim walks roofed overhead by gray arches supported by small, graceful, rose-coloured pillars in pairs. this is continued round the whole length of the court. let into the wall are long benches of stone, to which, in olden days, the monks came to meditate and pray. the ancient atmosphere has been well preserved; yet the building is so little touched by time, owing to the careful renovations of a clever architect, that one almost expects at any moment to see a brown-robed monk disturbed in his meditations. from the quiet courtyard we are taken down into the very heart of the coliseum--into the mysterious cells where the damp of the rock penetrates the solid stone. how gloomy it was down in these crypts! even the names of them made one tremble--'galerie de l'aquilon,' 'petit exil,' and 'grand exil.' you think of du bourg, tightly fettered hand and foot, being eaten alive by rats; of the comte grilles, condemned to die of starvation, being fed by a peasant, who bravely climbed to his window; of a hundred gruesome tales. there is the chapel where the last offices of the dead were performed--a cell in which the light struggled painfully through the narrow windows, feebly combating with the dark night of the chamber; and there is the narrow stairway, in the thickness of the wall, by which the bodies of the prisoners were taken. we were shown the cachot and the oubliette where the living body of the prisoner was attacked by rats. that, however, was a simple torture compared with the strait-jacket and the iron cage. in the oubliette the miserable men could clasp helpless hands, curse or pray, as the case might be; but in the iron cage the death agony was prolonged. even now, although the poor souls took wings long ago, the cachot and the oubliette fill you with disgust. you feel stifled there. the atmosphere is vitiated. even though centuries have passed since those terrible times, the walls seem to be still charged with iniquity, with all the sighs exhaled, with all the smothered cries, with all the tears, with all the curses of impatient sufferers, with all the prayers of saints. it seems impossible to believe, down in the heart of this world of stone, in the impenetrable darkness, that the architect that designed this thick and cruel masonry constructed those airy belfries, those balustrades of lace, those graceful arches, those towers and minarets. it is as if he had wished to shut up the sorrow and the maniacal cries of the men who had lost their reason in a fair exterior, attracting the eyes of the world to that which was beautiful, and making it forget the misery beneath. [illustration: marie] [illustration: a farm labourer] chapter xix chÂteau des rochers the name of mme. sévigné rings through the ages. vitré is full of it. inhabitants will point out, close to the ruined ramparts, the winter palace where the _spirituelle marquise_ received the breton nobility and sometimes the kings of brittany. to the south they will show you the château des rochers, the princely country residence maintained by this famous woman. she was a breton of the bretons, building and planting, often working in the fields with her farm hands. she loved her château des rochers. it was a joy to leave the town and the gaieties of court for the freshness of the fields and the woods. she especially liked to be there for the 'triomphe du mois de mai'--to hear the nightingale and the cuckoo saluting spring with song. with lafontaine, she found inspiration in the fields; but, as she preserved a solid fund of gaelic humour, she laughed also, and the country did not often make her melancholy. she felt the sadness of autumn in her woods; but she never became morose. she never wearied of her garden. she had always some new idea with regard to it--some new plan to lure her from a letter begun or a book opened. before reading the memoirs of mme. sévigné it is almost impossible to realize this side of her nature. who would have imagined that this woman of the salons, fêted in paris, and known everywhere, would be always longing for her country home? it is only when you visit the famous château des rochers that you realize to the full that she was a lover of nature and country habits. wandering through the old-world garden, you find individual touches which bring back the dainty marquise vividly to mind. there are the venerable trees, under which you may wander and imagine yourself back in the time of louis xiv. there are the deep and shady avenues planted by mme. sévigné, and beautiful to this day. the names come back to you as you walk--'la solitaire,' 'l'infini,' 'l'honneur de ma fille'--avenues in which madame sat to see the sun setting behind the trees. very quiet is this garden, with its broad shady paths, its wide spaces of green, its huge cedars growing in the grass, and its stiff flower-beds. there is mme. sévigné's sundial, on which she inscribed with her own hand a latin verse. there are the stiff rows of poplars, like noah's ark trees, symmetrical, interlacing one with the other, unnatural but dainty in design. there is her rose garden, a rounded and terraced walk planted with roses. there, too, are the sunny 'place madame,' the 'place coulanges,' and 'l'Écho,' where two people, standing on stones placed a certain distance apart, can hear the echo plainly. this garden, with its stiff little rows of trees, its sunny open squares surrounded by low walls, and its stone vases overgrown with flowers, brings back the past so vividly that one asks one's self whether indeed mme. sévigné is there no longer, and glances involuntarily down the avenues and the by-ways, half expecting to distinguish the rapid passage of a majestic skirt. what a splendid life this woman of the seventeenth century led! she knew well how to regulate mind and body. the routine of the day at les rochers was never varied, and was designed so perfectly that there was rarely a jar or a hitch. she rose at eight, and enjoyed the freshness of the woods until the hour for matins struck. after that there were the 'good-mornings' to be said to everyone on her estate. she must pick flowers for the table, and read and work. when her son was no longer with her she read aloud to broaden the mind of his wife. at five o'clock her time became her own; and on fine days, a lacquey following, she wandered down the pleasant avenues, dreaming visions of the future, of god and of his providence, sometimes reading a book of devotions, sometimes a book of history. on days of storm, when the trees dripped and the slates fell from the roof,--on days so wet and gray and wild that you would not turn a dog out of doors--you would suppose the marquise to become morbid and miserable. not at all. she realized that she must kill time, and she did so by a hundred ingenious devices. she deplored the weather which kept her indoors, but fixed her thoughts on the morrow. ladies and gentlemen often invaded her; all the nobility came to present their compliments. they assailed her from all sides. when she resisted them, and strove to shut herself away from the world, the duke would come and carry her away in his carriage. [illustration: a little water-carrier] she always longed to return to her solitude--to her dear rochers, where her good priest waited, at once her administrator, her man of affairs, her architect, and her friend. her pride of property was great, and she was constantly beautifying and embellishing her country home. each year saw some new change. on one occasion six years passed without her visiting les rochers. all her trees had become big and beautiful; some of them were forty or fifty feet high. her joy when she beheld them gives one an insight into her youthfulness. how young she was in some things! she often asked herself whence came this exuberance. she drew caricatures of the affectations of her neighbours, and the anxious inquiries of her friends as to her happiness during her voluntary exile amused her immensely. in a letter written to her daughter she said: 'i laugh sometimes at what they call "spending the winter in the woods." mme. de c---- said to me the other day, "leave your damp rochers." i answered her, "damp yourself--it is your country that is damp; but we are on a height." it is as though i said, your damp montmartre. these woods are at present penetrated by the sun whenever it shines. on the place madame when the sun is at its height, and at the end of the great avenue when the sun is setting, it is marvellous. when it rains there is a good room with my people here, who do not trouble me. i do what i want, and when there is no one here we are still better off, for we read with a pleasure which we prefer above everything.' the prospect of spending a winter at les rochers did not frighten her in the least. she wrote to her daughter, saying, 'my purpose to spend the winter at les rochers frightens you. alas! my daughter, it is the sweetest thing in the world.' mme. sévigné was always thinking of her daughter, and of provence, where she lived. her heart went out to her daughter. everything about les rochers helped her to remember her beloved child. even the country itself seemed to bring back memories, for the nights of july were so perfumed with orange-blossoms that one might imagine one's self to be really in provence. mme. sévigné wrote in a letter to one of her friends: 'i have established a home in the most beautiful place in the world, where no one keeps me company, because they would die of cold. the abbé goes backwards and forwards over his affairs. i am there thinking of provence, for that thought never leaves me.' [illustration: weary] the château in which this wonderful woman lived, whence started so many couriers to provence, is an important building, gray, a little heavy with towers, with high turrets of slate and great windows. resembling most houses built in the louis xiv. style, it is rather sad in design. at the side is a chapel surmounted by a cross, a rotund hexagonal building constructed in by the abbot of coulanges. inside it is gorgeous with old rose and gold. one can imagine the gentle marquise kneeling here at her devotions. visitors are shown the bedroom of mme. sévigné, now transformed into a historical little sanctuary. the furniture consists of a large four-post bed, with a covering of gold and blue, embroidered, it is said, by the countess of grignan. under a glass case have been treasured all the accessories of her toilet--an arsenal of feminine coquetry: brushes, powder-boxes, patch-boxes, autograph letters, account-books, her own ink-stand, books written in the clear, delicate, legible handwriting of the marquise herself. the walls are hung with pictures of the family and intimate friends, some of which are very remarkable. this room was called by mme. sévigné the 'green room.' it still has a dainty atmosphere. here mme. sévigné passed a great part of her life. under a large window is a marble table where she is supposed to have written those letters which one knows almost as well as the fables of lafontaine. mme. sévigné coloured the somewhat cold though pure language of the seventeenth century, but not artificially. she animated it, conveyed warmth into it, by putting into her writings much that was feminine, never descending to the 'precious' or to be a blue-stocking. the books that she loved, and her correspondence, did not take up so much of her time that she had to overlook the details of her domain. sometimes she had a little fracas with her cook; often she would be called away to listen to the complaints of pilois, her gardener, a philosopher. she knew how to feel strongly among people who could feel only their own misfortunes and disgraces. she had a true and thoughtful soul. this one can tell by her letters from les rochers, which come to us in all their freshness, as if they had been written yesterday. [illustration: the master of the house] [illustration: in the inglenook] chapter xx carnac the country round carnac is solemn and mysterious, full of strange druidical monuments, menhirs and dolmens of fabulous antiquity, ancient stone crosses, _calvaires_, and carvings. everything is grand, solemn, and gigantic. one finds intimate traces of the middle ages. the land is still half-cultivated and divided into small holdings; the fields are strewn with ancient stones. the lines of carnac are impressive. you visit them in the first place purely as a duty, as something which has to be seen; but you are amply repaid. on a flat plain of heather or gorse they lie, small and gray and ghost-like in the distance, but looming larger as you draw near. you come across several in a farmyard; but on scaling a small loosely-built stone wall you find yourself in the midst of them--lines of colossal stones planted point-downwards, some as high as twenty feet, and stretching away to the horizon, on a space of several miles, like a gigantic army of phantoms. originally the lines of carnac were composed of six thousand stones; but to-day there remain only several hundreds. they have been destroyed bit by bit, and used by the peasants as fences along the fields and in the construction of houses. we sat on a rock and gazed at these strange things, longing to know their origin. what enigmas they were, wrapped in mournful silence, solemn and still, sphinx-like! i endeavoured to become an amateur sherlock holmes. i examined the stones all over. i noticed that at the extremity of one line they were placed in a semicircle. this did not seem to lead me on the road to discovery. of what avail is it to attempt to read the mystery of these silent celtic giants? historians and archæologists have sought in vain to find a solution to the problem. some say that the stones planted in the fields are temples dedicated to the cult of the serpent; others maintain that this is a sort of cemetery, where the dead of carnac and of erderen were interred after a terrible battle. they are variously taken to be sacred monuments, symbols of divinity, funeral piles, trophies of victory, testimonies to the passing of a race, the remains of a roman encampment. innumerable are the surmises. [illustration: a blind beggar] the country people have their own versions of the origin of these stones. the peasants round about carnac firmly believe that these menhirs are inhabited by a terrible race of little black men who, if they can but catch you alone at midnight, will make you dance, leaping round you in circles by the light of the moon with great shouts of laughter and piercing cries, until you die of fatigue, making the neighbouring villagers shiver in their beds. some say that these stones have been brought here by the virgin mary in her apron; others that they are roman soldiers, petrified as was the wife of lot, and changed into rocks by some good apostle; others, again, that they were thrown from the moon by beelzebub to kill some amiable fairy. a boy was sitting on a stone near us. he had followed us, and had sat leaning his head on his hand and gazing backwards and forwards from us to the stones. out of curiosity to hear what his ideas might be, i asked the child what he imagined the menhirs were. without a moment's hesitation he said, 'soldats de st. cornely!' afterwards i discovered that st. cornely is in this country one of the most honoured saints. it is he that protects the beasts of the field. his _pardon_ used to be much attended by peasants, who took with them their flocks of sheep and cows. st. cornely had occasion to fly before a regiment of soldiers sent in pursuit by an idolatrous king. in the moment of his fear--for even saints experience fear--he went towards the sea, and soon saw that all retreat was cut off thereby. the oxen fell on their knees, their eyes full of dread. the situation was terrible. the saint appealed to heaven, where lay his only hope, and, stretching his arm towards the soldiers, changed them suddenly into stone. here, it is said, the soldiers of st. cornely have remained ever since, fixed and rigid. [illustration: la petite marie] chapter xxi a romantic land brittany is essentially a romantic country. it is full of mysteries and legends and superstitions. romance plays a great part in the life of the meanest peasant. every stock and stone and wayside shrine in his beloved country is invested with poetical superstition and romance. a nurse that we children once had, nineteen years of age, possessed an enormous stock of legends, which she had been brought up to look upon as absolute truth. some of the songs which she sang to the baby at bedtime in a low minor key were beautiful in composition--'marie ta fille,' 'le biniou,' amongst others. the village schoolmaster, who was our tutor, during our long afternoon rambles would often make the woods ring as he sang ballads in his rich, full voice. the theme changed according to his humour. now the song was a canticle, relating the legend of some saint, or a pious chronicle; at another time it was of love he sang, generally ending sadly. then, there was the historical song, recounting some sombre, or touching, or stirring event, when the little man worked himself up to a high pitch of excitement, carrying us children open-mouthed to gory battlefields and the palaces of sumptuous kings. one quite forgot the insignificant schoolmaster in the rush and swing of the music. there are many breton ballads. the lives of the people are reflected truthfully in these compositions, which have as their themes human weakness, or heartache, or happiness. the breton bards are still a large class. in almost every village there is someone who composes and sings. each one holds in his or her hand a small stick of white wood, carved with notches and strange signs, which help towards remembering the different verses. the gauls called this stick, the use of which is very ancient, the alphabet of the bards. [illustration: the little housewife] mendicity is protected in brittany. one meets beggars at all the fairs, and often on the high-roads. they earn their living by songs and ballads. they attend family fêtes, and, above all, marriage ceremonies, composing songs in celebration. no breton will refuse a bard the best of his hospitality. bards are honoured guests. 'dieu vous bénisse, gens de cette maison,' says one, announcing himself. he is installed in the ingle-nook, the cosiest corner of a breton kitchen; and after having refreshed the inner man he rewards his host with song after song, often giving him the last ballad of his composition. when he takes his leave, a large bundle of food is slung over his shoulder. unless you live for years in the same village, as i have done, sharing in the joys and sorrows of the people, you can gain very little knowledge of the tales and songs and legends. the breton is reticent on the advent of the stranger: he fears ridicule. then, again, a child can always wriggle itself into the hearts and homes of people. setting aside all racial prejudices and difficulties of language, a child will instal itself in a household, and become familiar with the little foibles of each inmate in a single day, whereas a grown-up person may strive in vain for years. i, as a child, had a breton _bonne_, and used to spend most of my days at her home, a farm some distance from the village, playing on the cottage floor with her little brothers and sisters, helping to milk the cows, and poking the fat pigs. this, i think, mother could scarcely have been aware of; for she had forbidden marie to allow me to associate with dirty children, and these were certainly not too clean. one day i was playing at dolls with a village girl under the balcony of mother's room. suddenly, on looking up, i found her gazing at me reproachfully. 'o mother,' i hastened to explain, pulling the child forward by the pinafore, 'she are clean.' we children were familiar with everyone in the village, even bosom friends with all, from stout batiste, the butcher, to lucia the little seamstress, and leontine her sister, who lived by the bridge. if a child died we attended the funeral, all dressed in white, holding lighted tapers in our hands, and feeling important and impressive. if one was born, we graciously condescended to be present at the baptismal service and receive the boxes of dragées always presented to guests on such occasions. at all village processions we figured prominently. when i returned to brittany, at the age of ten, i found things very little changed. my friends were a trifle older; but they remembered me and welcomed me, receiving me into their midst as before. my sister and i took part in all the _pardons_ of the surrounding villages. we learnt the quaint breton dances, and would pace up and down the dusty roads in the full glare of the summer sun hour after hour, dressed in the beautiful costume of the country--black broadcloth skirts, white winged caps, and sabots. often we would go with our _bonne_ and our respective partners into some neighbouring _débits de boissons_ and drink _syrops_ in true breton fashion. at one _pardon_ we won the _ruban d'honneur_--a broad bright-blue ribbon with silver tassels worn across the shoulder, and presented to the best dancer. the breton gavotte is a strange dance of religious origin. the dancers hold hands in a long line, advancing and retiring rhythmically to long-drawn-out music. underneath an awning sit the two professional biniou-players, blowing with all their might into their instruments and beating time with their feet to the measure. the _sonneur de biniou_ is blind, and quite wrapped up in his art; he lives, as it were, in a world apart. the _joueur de biniou_, the principal figure, reminding one of a highland piper, presses his elbow on the large leather air-bag, playing the air, with its many variations, clear and sweet, on the reed pipe. brittany is the land of _pardons_. during the summer these local festivities are taking place daily in one village or another. the _pardon_ is a thing apart; it resembles neither the flemish _kermesse_ nor the parisian _foire_. unlike the _foires_ of paris, created for the gay world, for the men and women who delight in turning night into day, the _pardon_ has inspiration from high sources: it is the fête of the soul. the people gather together from far and near, not only to amuse themselves, but also to pray. they pass long hours before the images of the saints; they make the tour of the 'chemin de la croix,' kneeling on the granite floor. still, it is a joyous festival. the air is filled with shouts and laughter. for example, in quimper, at the feast of the assumption, the place st. corentin is crowded. people have come from the surrounding towns, all dressed in the characteristic costume of their vicinities. pont-aven, pont l'abbé, concarmeau, fouesnant, quimperlé--all are represented. you see the tight lace wide-winged cap of the douarnénez women, hats bound with coloured chenile of the men of carhaix, white flannel coats bordered with black velvet of the peasants of guéméné, the flowered waistcoats of pleavé; the women of quimper have pyramidical coifs of transparent lace, showing the pink or blue ribbon beneath, with two long floating ends. [illustration: an old woman] the great square in front of the cathedral is a jumble of gold and silver, embroidery, ribbons, muslin, and lace--a joyous feast of colour in the sun. the crowd moves slowly, forming into groups by the porch and round the stalls, with much gossip. the square and the neighbouring streets are bordered by stalls trading in fabrics and faiences, gingerbread, sweets, lotteries, cider, and fancy-work of all kinds. young men and girls stop in couples to buy mirrors or coloured pins, surmounted with gold, that jingle, to fasten in their caps or in their bodices. others gather round the lotteries, and watch with anxious eyes the wheel with the rod of metal that clicks all the way round on its spokes, and stops at a certain number. 'c'est vingt-deux qui gagne!' cries the proprietor. a pretty little peasant woman has won. she hesitates, wavering between a ball of golden glass and a vase painted with attractive flowers. the peasants laugh loudly. there are all kinds of attractions and festivities at the _pardons_--hurdy-gurdies, swing-boats, voyages to the moon, on which you get your full and terrible money's worth of bumps and alarms; for not only are you jerked up hill and down dale in a car, but also, when you reach the moon, you are whirled round and round at a tremendous rate and return backwards. there are side-shows in which are exhibited fat women, headless men, and bodiless girls, distorted thus by mirrors, the deception of which even we children saw through plainly. there are jugglers and snake-charmers. a cobra was fed on rabbits. we children haunted that tent at feeding-times, and used to watch with fascination the little dead bunnies disappearing, fur and all, afterwards noticing with glee the strange bumps they formed in the animal's smooth and shiny coils. how bloodthirsty children are at heart! it is not always in large towns like quimperlé that _pardons_ are held. more often they are to be witnessed in the country, perhaps miles away from any town, whence the people flock on foot. there you see no grand cathedral, no magnificent basilicas and superb architecture, but some simple little gray church with moss-grown walls and trees growing thickly about it. the rustic charm of the _pardons_ it is impossible to describe. round you are immense woods and flowered prairies; in the woods the birds are singing; a mystic vapour of incense fills the air. peasants gather round this modest house of prayer, which possesses nothing to attract the casual passer-by. the saints that they have come to venerate have no speciality: they heal all troubles, assuage all griefs: they are infallible and all-powerful. inside the church it is very dim and dark. not a single candle is alight on the altar; only the lamp of the sanctuary shines out with red gleam like an ever-seeing eye. in the gray darkness of the choir the silent priests cross themselves. they look like ghosts of the faithful. the bells ring out in noisy peals, filling the air with vibrations. over the fields the people hurry--girls in their smartest clothes, accompanied by their gallants; children brought by their mothers in their beautiful new suits to attend service and to have their faces bathed in the fountain, which cures them of all diseases, and makes them beautiful for ever; old men come to contemplate the joy of the young people, to be peaceful, and to ask forgiveness before leaving this world and the short life over which their own particular saint has watched. the bells peal so loudly that one is afraid they will crack under the efforts of the ringers. still the people swarm over the fields and into the church, until at last the little edifice is full, and men and women and children are compelled to kneel outside on the hard earth; but the doors are opened, and those outside follow the service with great attention. [illustration: a pig-market] one must be a breton born and cradled in the country in order to realize the important place that the _pardon_ of his parish occupies in the peasant's mind. it is a religious festival of great significance: it is the day above all others on which he confesses his sins to god and receives absolution. throughout his life his dearest and sweetest thoughts cling round this house of prayer and pardon. here it is generally that he betroths himself. he and the girl stroll home together when the sun has set, walking side by side over the fields, holding each other by the little finger, as is the breton custom. a sweet serenity envelops the countryside; darkness falls; the stars appear. the man is shy; but the girl is at ease. when nearing home, to announce their arrival at the farm, they begin to sing a song that they have heard from the bards during the day. other couples in the distance, hearing them, take up the refrain; and soon from all parts of the country swells up into the night air a kind of alternate song, in which the high trebles and the deep basses mingle harmoniously. as the darkness deepens the figures disappear and the sounds die away in the distance. the saturday before the first sunday in july is a fête-day in most towns. pilgrims fill the towns, which are packed with stalls for the fair. there are sellers of cider and cakes, amulets, and rosaries. a statue of the madonna surrounded by archangels against a background of blue is situated at the church door to receive the homage of faithful pilgrims. when night falls the door of the porch is flung open, and a long procession of girls, like an army of phantoms, advances, each penitent holding in her hand a lighted torch, slowly swinging her rosary and repeating a latin prayer. the statue of the virgin is solemnly carried out on the open square, where bonfires are lit and young folk dance to the accompaniment of the biniou. in some places the dances are prolonged for three or four days. the bretons like songs and dances and representations; they like the heavy pomp of pilgrimages; they believe in prayer, and never lose their respect for the cross. they are a fine people, especially the men who live by the sea, sailors and fishermen--well-made, high-strung men, their faces bronzed and stained like sculptures out of old chestnut, with eyes of clear blue, full of the sadness of the sea. they have an air of robustness and vitality; but under their fierce exterior they hide a great sweetness of nature. they are kind hosts; they are frank, brave, and chaste. they have, it is true, a weakness: on fair days--market-days especially--they abuse the terrible and brutalizing _vin du feu_. then, the bretons are not a very clean people. the interiors of the cottages are dignified, with great beds made of dark chestnut and long, narrow tables, stretching the whole length of the rooms, polished and beeswaxed until you can see your face mirrored on the surface; but pigs will repose on the stone floor, which waves up and down with indentations and deep holes. the more well-to-do bretons have their clothes washed only once in six months. the soiled linen is kept above in an attic protected from the rats by a rope with broken bottles strung on it, on which the rats, as they come to gnaw the clothes, commit involuntary suicide. the poorer families have better habits. they wash their few possessions regularly and out of doors in large pools constructed for the purpose, where hundreds of women congregate, kneeling on the flagstones around the pond, beating their linen energetically on boards, with a flat wooden tool, to economize soap. this i consider a far cleaner method than that of our british cottagers, who wash their clothes in their one living-room, inhaling impure steam. [illustration: household duties] in spite of the winds and the tempests which desolate it, the bretons love their country. they live in liberty; they are their own masters. the past holds profound and tenacious root in the hearts of these men of granite, and the attachment to old beliefs is strong. the people still believe in miracles, in sorcery, and in the evil eye. the land, rich with memories of many kinds,--with its menhirs, its old cathedrals, its pilgrimages, its _pardons_--sleeps peacefully in this century of innovations. in brittany everything seems to have been designed long ago. wherever one goes one comes across a strange and ancient druidical monument, menhirs, and dolmens of fabulous antiquity, an exquisite legend, a ruined château, ancient stone crosses, _calvaires_, and carvings. it is a country full of signs and meanings. the poetical superstitions and legends have been left intact in their primitive simplicity. nowhere do you see finer peasantry; nowhere more dignity and nobility in the features of the men and women who work in the fields; nowhere such quaint houses and costumes; hardly anywhere more magnificent scenery. you have verdant islands, ancient forests, villages nestling in the mountains, country as wild and beautiful as the moors of scotland, fields and pasture-lands as highly cultivated as those of lincolnshire. brittany is especially inspiring to the painter. you find villages in which the people still wear the national dress. perhaps, however, the time is not far distant when new customs will arise and the old beliefs will be only a remembrance. little by little the influence of modern times begins to show itself upon the language, the costume, and the poetic superstitions. the iron and undecorative hand of the twentieth century is closing down upon the country. billing and sons, ltd., printers, guildford * * * * * transcriber's note: inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. obvious typographical errors have been corrected.