At ten o'clock, and at a given signal, the masked girls went up to the group of men to choose partners. Perrin edged close to Dominic Le Mierre and scrutinized painfully the girl who laid her hand on the "jerseyed" arm of the master. She was of middle height and extremely thin. Her emaciated hand trembled; it looked almost discoloured in the uncertain light. The border of her face that could be seen round the mask was ghastly in its whiteness. She wore a close fitting bonnet which hid all trace of her hair.

With partially glazed eyes, Dominic peered at her.

"You don't look much of a beauty!" he cried, "but I'll soon see who you are, my girl!"

When the masks had all chosen, a circle was formed round the bonfire, the men holding their partners tightly by the hand. Faster and faster flew the circle till the masked faces shewed like a black band, while the outside throng of people cheered and clapped, and encouraged the dancers to madder whirling. Then, suddenly, as by one impulse, the circle was broken up, and a new spectacle was provided for the onlookers.

Each girl seized her partner by the hand and together they leapt across the flaming bonfire. Wild excitement was the order of the night. It was the festival of the rude, primitive elements of human nature. It was a pageant of black shadow and brilliant light. It answered to the spirit of the bleak moorland, to the steeps of the cliffs, to the mystery of the sea.

Only one man in the whole throng was utterly unmoved by the abandonment around him. Perrin kept his deep set, keen eyes fixed on Dominic and his partner. He watched them leap with perfect skill, across the roaring flame of the bonfire. He saw the master bend down, and once more peer into the white face of the girl. He followed, very stealthily, the two, as they drew apart into a shadowed place, where, nevertheless, the light from the bonfire could reach and bring their faces into relief. He watched the girl unfasten her mask and throw it on the grass. He drew a deep breath. Her face was pitifully ugly. It was covered with the pits and dents and scars that small-pox had left. The skin was coarse and rough and of a yellowish white. Her eyes were dim and red and bleared. Her eyebrows and lashes were gone. Her expression was like that of a furtive, crouching creature who dreaded the lash.

And it came.

"Who are you, I'd like to know!" cried the master in a towering rage, "that has dared to choose me only to cheat me. Do you know, woman, that you are as ugly as sin!"

He seized her bonnet and dragged it off. Then he burst into a brutal laugh.

"Almost bald, the old crone! I'll pay you out for this trick. Who the devil are you? Quick, out with it, or else I'll call the other fellows in to help me to find out!"

Perrin moved quite close behind the master, who was too angry to notice him. The girl lifted her eyes to Dominic. She spoke quietly.

"I am Ellenor Cartier."

"I might have guessed it, fool that I am! And you are a greater to think I would even look at you now! You must be quite mad. All I ever cared for in you was your devilry, and your eyes that used to set me all on fire with love. And now you look like a scared rabbit, a white, pinched thing! And your eyes are hideous! And your hair is gone! How dare you cheat me, you ugly creature!"

She had clasped her hands together; and gazed at him in stupefaction.

Suddenly, he turned on his heel and cried in a loud, far-carrying voice—

"Come here, you men, all of you, and help me to throw the witch, Ellenor Cartier, into the bonfire! She's too devilish ugly to live."

The lower sort of the throng laughed uproariously, and turned to stare at the poor girl. But cries of "Shame! shame!" rent the air. Perrin stepped forward, and, with a well-planted blow and a skilful twist of his leg, he threw Dominic to the ground.

"See to the drunken brute!" he cried.

Then he turned to the trembling girl.

"Come, Ellenor," he said, with tender reverence, "come with me, I will take you home."

He led her to his mother, who took her up to her own attic and helped her to get into bed, for the girl shivered with cold one minute and was in a fever the next. Perrin, meanwhile, went off to Les Casquets to tell her people that she was safe; and he gave Jean the story of the evening, for fear he should hear it from strangers. When he came back to the cottage, Mrs. Corbet was in the kitchen.

"She's asleep at last! But she's cried till I thought she would die. I asked her how it was she made herself in such a state; and then she told me all the tale. Silly girl! the very way to upset any man, and still more, Le Mierre, to show how ugly she is now before all them people. And, besides, it was all like play acting, to my mind!"

"Oh, no, not like that, mother!"

"Wait a bit, wait a bit, till you hears all! It seems, she told me, that she planned she'd do this, there's weeks ago, while Le Mierre was yet to Jersey, and she had heard he was making love to girls there."

"But why?"

"Well, listen! She's a strange creature, not like others! It's my belief she comes from those fairies that built Les Casquets. You remember Perrin?"

"No, tell me."

"Well, once my great-grandfather was on the beach to Portelet, and he saw, a long, long way off a big ship. It came nearer and nearer, and it was so big that great-grandfather expected to see it smashed on hidden rocks. But, lo and behold, the ship got smaller and at last, bah, it looked like the toy of a child, and it ran in on the sand, close to great-grandfather. Out of the boat stepped a little chap, and would you believe it, the boat was turned into the blade-bone of a sheep, all tangled in sea-weed."

"Quick, what happened?"

"Have patience, my son, and don't hurry an old woman. Well, great-grandfather asked the little chap where he was going and what was his name. And all he would say was "Je vais cheminant." But he stopped to Guernsey after all and he married a girl from near here—and it was him built Les Casquets. There! that's where she gets her queer ways, Ellenor!"

"And now tell me about her plan."

"Well, it seems she thought, foolish girl, she'd find out, for sure, if Le Mierre really loves her or only her looks. And she couldn't think of no better way than this mad one. She can't know much of men and their ways, her!"

"It's the best thing that could have happened, if only it makes her see Le Mierre in his true colours."

"Well, we must hope for the best. And, look here, Perrin! Nothing he could do before, no wickedness, no cruelty, could make her leave off caring! But we women, if our looks are held up to scorn—well!—that's the worst of all. So who can tell what may happen! Come, I must make her and give her a cup of tea. She told me she hadn't eaten or drank all day."



CHAPTER VIII.

It was a wild wet night in March. Dominic Le Mierre had just finished supper, and he sat by the fire in the kitchen of Orvilliere; he was in a particularly good mood, owing to the excellence of the tobacco he was smoking. As he puffed at his second pipe he congratulated himself on his long acquaintance with Frenchmen, who had no scruples in giving him whole packages of this excellent tobacco; and no conditions attached except the fun of helping to hide it in the caves below the Haunted House, till it could be conveyed to Brittany!

Then he laughed aloud at the idea of the countryside about this very Haunted House. He had added two or three ghost tales to those current; and, though he believed firmly in every weird story of the two parishes, he had not felt a single scruple in inventing others to terrify people from the spot. His love of lawlessness and danger was infinitely stronger than his inherited faith in the supernatural. The Haunted House brought to his mind the festival of Les Brandons, when the dreaded place had lost its horror for the time being, owing to the safety that is supposed to lie in numbers. He chuckled as he remembered what a fool he had made of Ellenor. Bah! Once and for all he had done with her! Who cared to look at her now, fright that she was! And how dared that pious idiot of a fisherman throw him down before all the company! Ah! he would soon teach him better manners! he would thrash him well next time they met!

So he plotted and thought and smoked, and the night wind howled and the rain beat against the windows. All at once, he got up, and from the rack fastened across the beamed ceiling he took an old black book, his friend and evil counsellor, the Grand-Mele which had been in his family for generations. It was a book of magic, containing spells to be used on every conceivable occasion, and Dominic Le Mierre was past-master in the black art. Turning over the pages with knitted brows, he searched for a spell to be used against Perrin Corbet. At last he found it.

"Ah, it is quite easy to draw blood, and it need be but a drop!" he muttered, "scratch his hand with my knife and it is done! Then, he will walk in his sleep to the Haunted House. There I will meet him! Ah, Perrin Corbet, it will be your turn to be down on the ground! I will see him to-morrow, and the spell will work for the night. Bon, nothing could be better!"

He took up his pipe again and smoked in full contentment. A sudden stillness had fallen over the wild night. It seemed to Dominic that he could hear the moan of the sea. He listened. His blood crept at the weird stillness.

Hark! Hush! What was that?

The wild sad cry of a sea-gull. Nearer and nearer it came, and Dominic's eyes were fixed in horror upon the uncurtained window. The sea-gull came at last quite close, with wilder, sadder cries. It flapped its wings and circled round and round the casement. Dominic was cold and stiff with terror. He knew who the sea-gull was, but what did it mean? Some dreadful thing was drawing near Orvilliere.

"Blaisette!" he cried, "I know you well enough! Why do you come here?"

Wilder, more despairing grew the cries. Closer and closer the bird drew to the panes, striking them with a twang like the sound of wild music.

With a curse the master roused himself from the freezing spell. He took his loaded gun from its place over the chimney piece. He fired. One of the panes of glass was broken. Outside, on the cobbled yard, the gull lay dead, its glazed eyes fixed on the house.

With a laugh of triumph, Dominic re-lighted his pipe and sat down again by the fire. He had just settled once more to the reading of Grand-Mele when a very tempest of wind and hail shook the house, and in the midst of it, a low, sharp knock fell on the house door.

This time, the master was not under a spell. He recognized the knock. In an instant he was in the entrance hall and had flung open the door. A rough, unkempt fisherman stood on the threshold.

"You must come at once, Monsieur," he cried, "there's been great luck! A lot of brandy has been brought, unexpected. It's to the cave below the Haunted House. We could have got it up the cliffs alone. But we all agreed that you must have your share in the fun."

"Quick! where did the stuff come from?"

"From France, from les Messieurs ——."

"Bon! Will you wait for me?"

"No, my horse is here—tied to the gate. He's impatient, him! I'll be off to tell the rest you're coming."

"I'll ride too," and Dominic slammed the door, and hurried to the back of the house where his horses were stabled for the night. He chose out a fleet white one that was used to wild rushes through the dark. Before he mounted, he fastened a pistol to the saddle; but he laughed as he did this, it was such a useless precaution. Never once yet had the excisemen appeared within miles of the Haunted House. With a dark lantern swinging from the saddle bow, he rode out of the farmyard and cantered up the hill. Then, urging the white mare to her swiftest pace, he flew through steep lanes, past Torteval Church, and along the high road to Pleinmont.

The rain poured in torrents. The wind roared and howled. Several times the mare paused, trembling. But Dominic lashed her on, and in pain and terror she tore across the moorland, striking fire from the stones as she flew. He reined her in at last and fastened her to a hook in the side wall of the Haunted House. He laughed as he thought what a help she would be in keeping all comers away, for she seemed to shed a white dim light from her drenched skin, and her loud breathing might easily be taken for groans.

He scrambled down the face of the cliff. Fortunately, the wind blew in from the sea, and in safety he reached a large cave, brilliant with the light of many torches. His boon companions, the roughest gangs of the two parishes, greeted him with shouts and jests, and an hour of drinking and feasting followed. Then, with no little difficulty, kegs of brandy were hauled up the cliffs and deposited in the Haunted House. With wonderful skill, the men worked almost all the while in the dark, only using lanterns when it was absolutely necessary. At last, all the kegs were stowed away. The men scattered to fetch their horses from various sheds belonging to friendly people, and the master of Orvilliere was left alone.

He looked carefully round at the precious kegs stowed half way up the walls. Ah—what was that! One of the barrels leaked! Brandy, velvety fragrant brandy was oozing out on the earthen floor! He knelt down and caught a few drops in his hand. It was superfine, the best stuff he had ever tasted. Greedily he drank again and again from his hand. But that process was too slow. Catching up a hatchet, he enlarged the leak, and throwing himself flat on the ground, he lapped the golden spirit that filled him with ecstasy. At last, he had had enough. He fumbled at the leak, making futile efforts to stop it. But he was too drunk to know what he was about. He had just sense enough to darken his lantern, to reel out of the Haunted House and fling himself on the drenched grass beside his shivering mare. Presently his debauch turned into a heavy sleep, and the hours passed. Suddenly he woke and sat up. He heard, quite distinctly, the sharp click of a horse's hoof. It had rung through his drunken sleep like a knell. He had dreamt he heard again the passing bell that had tolled for Blaisette.

All at once the click passed into a smothered sound of pounding and slushing. The horse had left the high road and must be on the moorland!

Sobered, Le Mierre leapt to his feet, unloosened the mare and jumped on her back. He turned her inland and urged her forward. But, trembling in every limb, the mare refused to move. Nearer and nearer came the pounding of the horse. It stopped. A lantern flashed out. Le Mierre saw the figure of a well known exciseman riding a powerful black horse. A voice cried above the howling of the wind.

"Give yourself up, and all will be well! I've looked for you far and wide. At last I find you. Come, Le Mierre, don't be a fool about this. It will only be a fine, and perhaps not even that, if you give up the other chaps."

But the master of Orvilliere was not to be reasoned with. He was in a towering rage. He wrenched the pistol from the saddle. He fired it at the exciseman. It missed him. But he, too, lost his temper. In an instant he was beside Le Mierre and had dragged the pistol away and flung it against the house. Dominic, beside himself and unnerved with the night's carouse, grappled with the exciseman and tried to throttle him.

A terrible struggle. A wild pounding of hoofs. Cries and oaths. The fall of the lantern. Gusts of rain, and wind that shrieked as if an agony of warning. Then, the mare broke away at last, in a frenzy of terror, and made straight for the edge of the cliffs behind the Haunted House.

Not one word came from Dominic Le Mierre as the mare stumbled, fell, and, with a horrible, almost human cry, rolled over and over down the precipitous height.

The exciseman dismounted, groped for the lantern, lit it, and fought his way half down the cliff, at the risk of his life, as the wind had changed and was blowing out to sea. But there was not a sign of the mare and her rider.

At the earliest streak of dawn, the two parishes were roused, and long and careful search went on for days. But it was all in vain. Somewhere, in the deep seas, perhaps, the body of the master was at rest, but, after "life's fitful fever," did he, indeed "sleep well?"

Orvilliere Farm was shut up. The finding of the dead gull, with a red wound in its white breast, proved conclusively that foul play and magic had been at work on the night of the storm. The servant and the housekeeper had been all the evening at a wedding feast, and when they returned at five o'clock next morning they found excited groups of people all about the farm, and they heard the story of the death of Dominic Le Mierre.

No one would dream of living henceforth at Orvilliere. It was haunted. People who were compelled to pass through the valley at nightfall, saw flickering lights moving from window to window of the farm, and heard the sudden firing of a gun, and the plaintive cry of a wounded bird.

The wind sighed about the lonely spot. The moan of the sea penetrated to the solitary farm. But no human creature wept for the departed soul of the master of Orvilliere. All shuddered at his end. Two prayed, in defiance of their scruples, for his wicked, wild soul. And these were only an old woman and her fisherman son.



CHAPTER IX.

It was a still, beautiful evening in summer. Perrin Corbet was free till ten o'clock, when he would go fishing with Jean Cartier. It was very lonely now in the cottage, for Perrin's mother was dead, and he spent very little time at home. This special evening he decided to make a pilgrimage to the churchyard of St. Pierre du Bois where his mother was buried. Her grave was close to the church in a place of long grass and overshadowing trees. As Perrin entered the churchyard he saw that a woman was bending over the grave: he knew at once who it was, and his heart beat quicker. It was so long since he had seen her and spoken with her!

When he was quite close, she turned round, and he saw that she had been crying. On the grave she had put a rude cross of immortelles.

"Ellenor," he said quietly, "I did not expect to see you. I thought you were yet in Sark."

"I came back this morning by the early cutter. I was longing to get back home."

"And we have been longing for you to come back! It is kind of you to put flowers here. Ah, it is always a woman who thinks of those things! We are such stupid creatures, we men! She who lies here so often said that to me. I miss her more and more, Ellenor."

"Poor Perrin!" she said softly, and for one long moment she looked into the faithful face bent over his mother's grave; then she turned away with a bitter sigh. Perrin lifted his head; not a thing she did, not a movement, not a sigh of hers ever escaped him.

"What is it?" he asked, in his low, kind voice, "are you fretting still?"

"No, no, but it seems I can't forget quickly all that has passed."

She covered her face with her hands and shuddered. Perrin touched her arm.

"Come and sit in the church porch," he said, "and tell me all about it."

Still with her hands covering her face, she let him lead her to the old stone seat in the grey porch. Presently, with an evident effort, her hands fell from her face, and she clasped them in her lap.

"I am selfish," she said, "never once have I told you how sorry I was to hear of your mother's death, it seems I could only think of myself."

"I have understood all the time. I knew you would be sad for me. But, of course, you could not help thinking most of yourself and of what you have lost."

"Ah, how it hurts to hear you say that! Tell me, am I very ugly! I know I will get the truth from you."

"Ugly!" he repeated, "ugly, to me you are the prettiest woman in Guernsey. Your hair, all growing again in dear little dark rings, like the curls of a baby! Your eyes once more beautiful with long eyelashes; your sad mouth! Ah, Ellenor, how can I speak to you like this quietly! I love you more than ever! But I know it is useless! Did you think I meant your looks when I spoke of what you had lost? Oh, no, I mean something else."

"What is it you mean?"

"That you have lost him you love, Dominic Le Mierre."

For a long while Ellenor did not speak: then she said wearily,

"But it seems to me I don't love him any more. It seems he killed my love the night of Les Brandons. It was awful when he died. And all I could think of was to get away from Guernsey and all the people I knew. In Sark, I forgot about him a little. But now I'm back, it seems I can't think of nothing else. I am so frightened of him. Perhaps, some day, when I'm going by the road to Orvilliere, he'll come back from the dead and laugh and jeer at me. Because, as for him, he didn't love me no more after Les Brandons. No, I don't care for him now. But I've no heart left, I am only tired, and oh, so frightened of him!"

She looked at Perrin like a child asking for protection, and in an instant his strong arm was round her. She drew a deep sigh of relief and smiled a little.

"Let me take of you, my own girl," he said, "I won't bother you to try to love me. Please God, that will come in time."

"Yes, please take care of poor me, poor wicked, stupid me," she whispered, "you're such a good man. I'm so safe with you. There's nobody in all the world I'd trust like you, Perrin."

He drew her head down to his breast, and the still evening breathed a benediction over the woman who had sinned and suffered and over the man who had loved her throughout with a tender reverence which is the very heart of the divinest love.

THE END.