PART II.

When Annette brought the fallen man (who was already recovering consciousness when she reached him) safe back in the cart to the auberge, she found a little crowd of peasants, men and women, gathered there, talking loud and eagerly over the news, who looked at her with a reverent curiosity as she entered. The injured man was assisted to a bed, but none spoke to Annette: only silent, awe-struck glances were turned on her: for they had gradually realized the fact that a voice had been given to the dumb girl, and Annette's quiet, familiar presence had become charged with mystery for them. They had no doubt that the blessed St. Yvon, the patron saint of mariners, had himself uttered the warning through her, at the moment when the safety of the fishing fleet depended on a spoken word: and the miracle now occupied their attention almost to the exclusion of the false lights and the return of the boats.

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

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

All her faculties seemed quickened, and she kept repeating aloud to herself the words she heard in the crowd, to make sure that she could articulate as clearly as she had done in the first moment that her voice was given to her.

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

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

He did not wait for her to reply, believing her to be speechless as usual, but placed her in a chair and began to feel her pulse. She was trying to speak all the time, but from excitement and a strange dizziness that had come over her, she could not at once use her new faculty. At last she got out the words, that it was not for herself she had come; that a fermier who had ridden fast from the village of St. Jean, further up the coast, to bring the news of the false light on the Geant, had been thrown from his horse—but before she had finished the sentence, the doctor, still absorbed in the contemplation of her own case, interrupted her, exclaiming with astonishment at her new power of speech, and demanding to know by what means it had come, and how long she had possessed it.

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

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

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

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

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

The whole village seemed gathered at the harbour-side; children and old men, lads and women, eager, yet with the patient quietness that is the way with the Breton folk. Here a demure group of white-coiffed girls stood waiting with scarce a word passing among them, waiting at the quay-side for the fathers, brothers, or sweethearts, that for months had been facing the perils of the northern seas. There a dark-eyed, loose-limbed Breton peasant, the wildness of whose look bewrayed the gentleness of his nature, was arguing with a white-haired patriarch about the probable value of this year's haul: while quaint-looking children in little tight-fitting bonnets and clattering sabots clung patiently to their mother's skirts, their mothers, who could remember many a home-coming of the boats, and knew that it would be well if to some of those now waiting at the harbour, grief were not brought instead of joy.

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

Victorine sought in vain for Annette in the darkness, dressed, as she was, like all the other peasant girls; but her eye lighted on the tall, powerful figure of Jules Leroux, Annette's father, standing at the door of the bureau du port, where he and some others were discussing the signals.

Victorine approached the group, and announced in her emphatic way that Annette was ill, very ill, and had gone out alone into the crowd, when the doctor had bidden her not leave her bed. Jules, who had been down at the harbour since midday, and had heard nothing of Annette's recovered voice, or of her riding to the village, started off without waiting for more, along the quay and on to the very end of the mole, where the light guarded the entrance to the harbour, saying to himself, "It is there she will be—if she have feet to carry her—it is there she will be—when the boat comes in."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Annette clung convulsively to her father during the few minutes' delay, and once, as he saw the light flash on her face, he suddenly remembered something Victorine had said about the doctor. He watched her with a pang of alarm, and at the same time felt that she was stringing herself up for some effort. Everyone was greeting Jean, the first of the boat's crew that appeared, as he clambered up the quay-side, but Annette did not stir; then the second dark, sea-beaten figure emerged from below, and Annette darted forward. She clasped both Paul's hands and gazed into his face, while she seemed to be struggling with herself for something a spasm passed over her face, which was as white as her coiffe: her father and the others gathered round, but some instinct bade them be silent. Annette's lips opened more than once as if she were about to speak, but no sound came forth: then she turned to her father with a look of despairing entreaty, and at the same moment tottered and would have fallen, had he not darted forward and caught her in his arms.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But when the fainting fit had lasted nearly an hour, and in the wild eyes of Paul, who stood leaning on the foot of the bed, a gleam of fear was beginning to show itself; there was a stir in the lifeless form, a struggle of the breath, a flicker of the eyelids: they opened, and a glance, in which all Annette's pure and loving spirit seemed to shine forth, fell direct on Paul's face at the end of the bed. She smiled brightly, and said distinctly "Au revoir:" then turned on her side, and died.

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

Along the straight, white road there came, in the early dawn, a little silent procession: the silent road, that was ever bringing tidings, good or evil, to the auberge: though now no white-coiffed girl with a patient face was waiting at the door. All the road was deserted, for the villagers were still asleep, as the little procession wound its way along: wrapped in the same silence in which Annette's own young life had been passed. A cart with a plain coffin in it, was drawn by the old horse that had carried Annette to the harbour the night before, and who stepped as though he knew what burden he was bringing: Paul led the horse; and beside the cart, with his head bowed on his breast, walked Annette's father.

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



THE HALTING STEP.

CHAPTER I.

On the Western coast of one of the islands in the Channel group is a level reach of salt marshes, to which the sea rises only at the highest spring tides, and which at other times extends as far as the eye can see, a dreary waste of salt pools, low rocks, and stretches of sand, yielding its meagre product of shell-fish, samphire, and sea-weed to the patient toil of the fisher-folk that dwell in scattered huts along the shore. One arm of the bay, at the time of which I am writing, extended inland to the left, being nearly cut off from the sea by a rocky headland, behind which it had spread itself, so as almost to present the appearance of an isolated pond or lake, encircled by low black rocks, within which the water rose and sank at regular intervals, as if under the influence of some strange, unknown power. On the borders of the lake stood a low, one-roomed cabin, such as the island fishermen in the wilder districts inhabit; and in the plot of ground beside the cabin, one September evening, in the mellow, westering light, a woman might have been seen busying herself by tying up into bundles the sea-weed that had been spread out to dry in the sun. She wore a shade bonnet with a large projecting peak and an enveloping curtain round the neck, quite concealing her face, as she bent over her work. Presently, although no sound had been heard, she looked up, with that apparently intuitive sense of what is happening at sea, which sea-folk seem to possess, and perceived an orange-sailed fishing boat just rounding the headland and making for the open sea. The face that appeared under the bonnet, as she looked up, had the colourless and haggard look frequently seen among fisher-women, and which is perhaps due to too much sea-air, added to hard living. But one was prevented from noticing the rest of the face by the expression of the two grey eyes, peering out from under the shade of the bonnet-peak; they were eyes that seemed always expecting: they seemed to have nothing to do with the pallid face, and the sea-weed, and the hut: they belonged to a different life. As she looked out over the sea, their glance was almost stern, as though demanding something which the sea did not give. But she only remarked to herself, in the island patois:—"I suppose the fish have gone over to the south-west again, and he'll make a night of it. Mackerel is such an aggravating fish, one day here, t'other there—you never know where you'll find them."

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

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

Suddenly Josef, the dog, started up in his corner, and barked. He was a large mastiff, with a dangerous temper, who was chained up at night in the rough lean-to that was built against the side of the cabin. He barked again furiously, dragging at his chain with all his might, and quivering in every nerve of his body. The woman lighted a torch at the dying embers on the hearth, and unfastening the dog, waited to see what would happen. He dashed forward furiously a few steps, then suddenly stopped, sniffed the air, made one or two uncertain darts hither and thither, and stood still, evidently puzzled. She called to him to encourage him, but he dropped his tail and returned to his shed, where he curled himself up in a comfortable corner, like a dog that was not going to be troubled by womanish fancies. The woman went round the cabin, and the pig-stye, and the patch of meagre gooseberry-bushes, throwing the uncertain torch-light on every dark hole or corner; but no one was to be seen. She was none the less convinced that someone had approached the cottage, for the dog was not likely to have been deceived as well as herself; so she kept the light burning, called Josef to lie down at the foot of the bed, barred the door, and went to sleep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER II.

For several days the halting step was not heard again, and Louise had nearly forgotten her fright, when one morning, about six o'clock, when Peter was out getting up his lobster pots, Louise, with her head still buried in the bed-clothes, suddenly heard—or thought she heard—the sound again. She started up and listened: there could be no doubt about it; someone was approaching the cottage at the back—some one who was lame. She hurried on some clothes and looked out of the door (the cabin had no window). In the glittering morning light, the expanse of level shore and common was as desolate as ever. She turned the corner of the cottage to the left, where Jenny and the pigs were. There was no one there; then she went round to the right, and, as she did so, distinctly perceived a shadow vanishing swiftly round the corner of the stack of sea-weed. She uttered a cry, and for a moment seemed like one paralysed; then moved forward hastily a few steps; stopped again, listening with a strange expression on her countenance to the sound of the limp, as it grew fainter and fainter; then advanced, as if unwillingly, to the back of the cottage, whence no one was visible. A corner of rock, round which wound the path that ascended to the top of the cliff, projected at no great distance from the cottage. She stood and looked at the rock, half as if it were a threatening, monster, half as if it were the door of hope: then she went slowly back to the cottage.

She did not tell Peter this time about the step.

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

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

Peter turned round and stood still to consider the question.

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

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

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

Mesurier, a thick-set, vigorous-looking man, shorter than Peter, stood still a moment, looking at him rather queerly out of his keen, grey eyes.

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

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

"Best send Louise instead, hey?"

Peter wheeled his huge frame round in a moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, mate," said the other man. "You go and see Jean, and ask him what company he's had of late." Then seeing Peter's face becoming livid, he added briefly, "There's been a queer-looking fish staying with him the last three weeks—walks all on one side—and Louise was talking to him t'other evening under the church wall. 'Twas my wife saw her. That's the truth. Nobody else has said nought about her."

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

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

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

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

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

They walked home without a word, Louise crying and moaning a little, but not daring to speak. When they got inside the cabin, he stood and faced her.

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

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

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

She knelt in silence, shaken with sobs.

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

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

"Since when hast thou known him?"

Again she made no answer, but inarticulate moans.

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

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

CHAPTER III.

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

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

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

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

He went down the cliff to the place where, a week ago, he had found his wife and the stranger, and stood under the rock, and looked at the book. He looked at it still closed in his hand, as if it were some venomous creature, which might, the next moment, dart forth a poisoned fang to sting him. From the cover it appeared to be a little, much-worn prayer-book. Presently he opened it gingerly, and read something written on the fly-leaf. He spelled it out with some difficulty and slowly, and yet he looked at it as if the page were a familiar vision to him. Then he remained immovable for a long time, gazing out to sea, with the little book crunched to a shapeless mass in his huge fist. When at last he turned to ascend the cliff again, his face was ashen pale, and his step was that of an old man. He trudged heavily across the common and along the road inland, five or six miles, till he reached the town, inquired for a certain auberge, entered the kitchen, and found himself face to face with the man he sought. A spasm of fear passed swiftly over the face of Jacques, as he beheld Peter, and he instinctively started up from the bench on which he was sitting, and shrank backwards. As he did so, he showed himself a disfigured paralytic, one side of his face being partly drawn, and one leg crooked. He was an undersized man, with sandy hair, quick, intelligent, grey eyes, and a well-cut profile.

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

Jacques kept his eyes on him, still distrustfully.

"I did not know," continued Peter, speaking thickly and slowly, "the other day, what I know now. I had never seen you but once—and you have changed."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, there's Mr. Boucher, that took me on as house-servant at first in New Zealand, he being in the sailing ship when I was picked up. And when the paralytics came on, resulting from the injury I got in the wreck, he never let me want for nothing, the four years that I lay helpless. He's got money to spare, you see"—with a wink—"he's well off, and he's what I call easy-going; and if we could manage to get the right side of him"—with another wink—"I reckon he'd help us a bit."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She glanced up with an irrepressible start of eagerness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



TABITHA'S AUNT.

From the very hour that Tabitha set foot in my house, I conceived a dislike for her Aunt. In the first place I did not see why she should have an Aunt. Tabitha was going to belong to me: and why an old, invalid lady, whose sons were scattered over the face of the earth, and who had never had a daughter of her own: who had been clever enough to discover a distant relationship to Tabitha, and had promptly matured a plan by which Tabitha was to remain always with her; to take the vacant chair opposite and pour out tea, and be coddled and kissed and looked after—why she might not have Tabitha herself for her whole and sole property, I could not understand. But this Aunt was always turning up: not visibly, I mean, but in conversation. I could never say which way I liked Tabitha's veil to be fastened but I was told Aunt Rennie's opinion on the matter—(Tabitha always absurdly shortened her Aunt's surname, which was Rensworth). I never could mention a book I liked but Aunt Rennie had either read it or not read it. It did not matter which to me, the least. But the climax came when Aunt Rennie sent Tabitha a bicycle. Now I know that young women bicycle nowadays; but that is no reason why Tabitha should. I always turn away my eyes when I see a young girl pass the window on one of those ugly, muddy, dangerous machines, with her knees working like pumps, her skirt I don't know where, and an expression of self-satisfied determination on her face. I don't think I am old-fashioned, but I am sure my own dear little girl, if she had ever come to me, would not have bicycled; and though I had no wish to put any unfair restraint on Tabitha, still I did not want her to have a bicycle. And that this Aunt Rennie, as Tabitha would call her, without a word of warning, should send her one of those hideous things, as if it was her business to arrange for Tabitha's exercise—I do think it was rather uncalled for.

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

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

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

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

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

He came in just as we were having tea the next day, and the worst of it was, I had to admit at once that he was nice. Of course this proved nothing in regard to Aunt Rennie and her friends: and it was just as unreasonable that I should be expected to receive whoever happened to know her, as if he had turned out to be vulgar or odious. But, as it was, he introduced himself in a sensible, straightforward way, looked one straight in the face when he spoke, had a deep, hearty laugh that sounded manly and true, and evidently entertained the friendliest sentiments for Tabitha.

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

The light slowly dawned on my amazed intelligence. Could this—this be the formidable, grey-haired woman, with whom I had been expecting, and somewhat dreading, sooner or later, an encounter? Could this be the spectacled Committee-woman—the rampant bicyclist—the corrupter of the youth of Tabitha? I looked at her immaculate dress, and pretty, neat hair; I noted the winning expression of her eyes, and her sweetness of manner; and instead of entrenching myself in the firm, though unspoken hostility, which I had secretly cherished towards the idea of Aunt Rennie, I felt myself yielding to the charm of a personality, whose richness and sweetness were to me like a new experience of life.

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

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

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

* * * * *

Tabitha often says that she owes her present happiness to Aunt Rennie, for if it had not been for the misery of the approaching separation, John, oppressed by the sense of his poverty and humble prospects, would never have had courage to tell her of his love. And I have sometimes amused myself by reflecting how Aunt Rennie's shrewdness, intelligence and determination, instead of working out her own ends, were all the time furthering the thing that was most opposed to her wishes.

When, after those few days that followed—days for me of heart-breaking conflict of feeling, and for my two children of tears, silent misery and struggling passion, culminating at last, when the storm burst, in complete mutual understanding, and a joint determination that carried all before it—when, I say, Aunt Rennie, defeated, prepared to take her leave, she said a word to me which I often thought of afterwards. "She is choosing blindfold, tinsel for gold." I thought of it, not on account of the expression, but of Aunt Rennie herself. There was something in the pallor of her face, and in her tone, that made me ask myself whether there could be anything in this matter that concerned Aunt Rennie herself more closely than we thought—and, for the moment, a new and motherly feeling rose up in my heart towards her.

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

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

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

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

THE END