After three days of minute search, the band of men gave up in despair; and Jean and Perrin went back to the routine of daily work in dogged and patient despair. The fisherman wondered if Le Mierre had heard the news, shut up in Lihou Island, where his wife lay very ill of small-pox, which was raging in different parts of Guernsey.

Finally Jean unburdened his mind to his friend and talked with him of Ellenor's infatuation for Dominic. Would it be that she had drowned herself to be rid of the torture of her life?

Perrin was haunted perpetually by this idea: it was with him by day and by night. He went about like a man who was half asleep, and people began to complain that he did not even nod to his acquaintances when he met them. So the Christmas season pa.s.sed and it was the last day of the Old Year. The cold and the snow disappeared, and the weather was mild and calm as Perrin rowed homewards about four o'clock in the afternoon. He had been to pull up his lobster pots which had been put down not far from Lihou island. Buried in thought, he did not notice how close he was rowing to the reef of rocks off the north of the island, till a loud cry startled him and he saw that someone was signalling to him from a jutting rock close to his boat. It was a woman. It was Ellenor Cartier.

Mad with joy, Perrin brought his boat into a tiny creek, moored it and scrambled up the rocks to the girl's side.

"Don't come near me!" she cried, "for the sake of your mother! I am minding Blaisette. She is ill, dreadfully, dreadfully ill. If she gets well, the doctor says it will be a miracle. But even _he_ is afraid to come much. Since Christmas Eve he hasn't been here. It was then I came, just after his visit."

She had gradually edged away from Perrin, and now placed herself behind a boulder. Over its edge her pale face looked sadly at her lover.

"Do you know," she went on, "perhaps you won't believe me, but till I saw you just now in your boat, I didn't even feel sorry I left you on Christmas Eve. Are you very angry with me?"

"I couldn't be angry with you, my darling! Even now, it seems I can't believe you're alive. We found your white roses, all wet and spoilt, in a hedge close to Rocquaine Bay; and, ah, how we feared, your father and me ... But, Ellenor, tell me, how is it you came here? And how was it you were on the rocks just when my boat pa.s.sed."

"I was on the rocks to try to see if I could let one of you men know we want food, and to tell the doctor he _must_ come again. I've given her all the medicine he left. It would be no use for me to go over to Rocquaine at low tide, because not a soul would help me; all would run away from me."

"Set your heart at rest, my Ellenor. I'll go for all you want. But, quick, tell me, how is it you came here?"

She buried her face in her hands, and broke into bitter weeping. And Perrin could not clasp her in his arms. Presently she spoke, in a low voice, full of anguish.

"It was like this. On Christmas Eve, when I was coming back from Saint Pierre Port, I met Monsieur Le Mierre. He stopped me and wanted me to go back to the town with him. I had nearly decided to do as he wished. It was no use, I couldn't say 'No.' There was long I hadn't seen him; and he was so handsome and tall. And, and, I believe he loves me true, whatever happens! But, just as I said I'd go back with him, I thought of Blaisette, her that I hated and yet her that I pitied. And I asked him who was with her on lonely Lihou Isle. Him, he only laughed, and said she was all right; he'd be back before midnight. But there wasn't a soul in Guernsey would go to mind her, for love or money, so it was no use bothering, he said, and again he laughed. And then I was frightened. He seemed like the devil, so cruel about his poor wife. And, all of a sudden, I thought only of her, and I told him _I'd_ go to mind her, not for love or money, but because I was _so_ sorry, oh, so sorry, for her!"

"My brave girl! My own sweetheart!" Perrin cried, stretching out eloquent hands to the sad, pale face.

"Listen, there's more yet to tell! I don't know how I got back to Saint Pierre du Bois, it was snowing fast and yet faster; but, at last I was to L'Eree. I forgot all about everything except poor Blaisette. I threw away the roses for my wedding bonnet. I got to the beach before the tide was quite down. The sea was black. The sky was black. Just here and there was a dreadful line of white, where the waves were breaking over the rocks. And on Lihou Isle not a light was to be seen. I shivered when I thought of Blaisette in the dark, ill with small-pox of a Christmas Eve."

Perrin ground his teeth.

"d.a.m.n that brute! He's not fit for h.e.l.l itself."

She drew a long breath.

"Listen, Perrin, I've not finished! I began to cross the rocks and found myself on the causeway at last, but I was deep in water. The horrible waves, like black walls, was all around me. The wind pushed me on every side. The snow was falling thicker and thicker. But at last, at last, I was to Lihou. I climbed the beach, ran across the gra.s.s, and, pushing open a door in the wall of the garden--we all know the farm well, eh, Perrin? I went up the steps to the house. I opened the door. The house was like ice. In the kitchen was a poor little bit of fire. I made it up; and then I tried to get courage to go upstairs.... Well, somehow I was in the bedroom. I had taken a candle with me. I can't tell you how she looked. It would make you wish you could kill _him_. She looked at me with her poor glazed eyes. Her lips were black with fever. She cried, in a voice like a thread, for water, water!"

"G.o.d in heaven! and you love this brute yet?"

She hid her face for a moment.

"Hush, I've not finished! I did my best for her, poor Blaisette. For a minute she knew me and she tried to thank me; and very soon she fell asleep."

"And he came back at midnight?"

"No, not till the middle of Christmas Day; and then he was half drunk. Since then he has hardly been near the house; but he has not left Lihou. He has been about the stables, and come into the kitchen to get his meals once or twice; and he is drinking, drinking all the time. I can see he is afraid of the small-pox, and afraid of death.

And yet, I believe, I am sure, he loves me yet; only I will not speak to him nor look at him, because of _her_, lying upstairs all unconscious."

Perrin stared at her, aghast. Was it possible a woman could love, actually love, the devil! Bah, it seemed so!

"Look here," he cried, almost in a rude voice, "he loves you so much that he lets you run the risk of getting the small-pox! Very well!

I'm decided what to do. I'll go back to tell my mother I am coming here to look after you twice a day, perhaps more, and I'll give _him_ a piece of my mind. My mother will go to Les Casquets. I'll stop the mouths of the two parishes, so will my mother and your parents, or I'll know why. Now, go back, and I'll be off for the doctor and for food."

"Wait, just a minute, Perrin! There is something more I must say, to cast it off my mind. It is all my fault that Blaisette has the small-pox. It was me that went to the witch to Saint Pierre Port to cast a spell on my rival the day after the _Grand' Querrue_. I didn't tell no names, but that's why she's bad, and oh, Perrin, it's all my fault."

"Yes, I suppose it's that, in a way. But it's my belief there's another reason for her sickness. You remember she came the wrong way to church on her wedding day? Ah, we all know what _that_ means--trouble--as sure as her name is Blaisette. But I must be off!"

In a few hours Perrin returned with a store of food and the unwilling doctor, who was obliged to go up to see the patient he dreaded so horribly, for Perrin took him by the arm and did not leave him till he had landed him in the sick room. Then the fisherman sought out Le Mierre, and the coward and scoundrel tried to hold his own. But Perrin's threats of appeal to the Royal Court awed him into a promise to give out money to pay for the expenses of his wife's illness. Corbet, himself utterly fearless of disease, frightened the drunkard into further dread of the house: and Ellenor had it all her own way. But it was of no avail. Pretty, frail Blaisette could not battle with a terrible illness, neglected at the very first; and two days after Perrin came to Lihou, she died, without a look or a sign.

There was no thought of taking her poor body across to the other island for burial in the sweet quiet churchyard of Saint Pierre du Bois. She was laid to rest in a grave dug hastily in a corner beside a dark boulder. No hymns were sung over her. Only the grey sea moaned and the wind sighed, as her rough coffin was lowered into the grave. No messenger, mounted on a black horse, bore the news of her death from house to house, up and down the two parishes. Only a poor fisherman repeated the sad tidings as he trudged, first to Colomberie Farm and then to Orvilliere, where Dominic's aunt kept house in state while her graceless nephew was away. No _Messieurs_ of distinguished Torteval families were honoured bearers, but a good man and a bad man had carried her coffin to the dark place of burial. No weird feasting followed the unconsecrated ceremony: only Dominic took refuge from sickening terror in a drunken bout.

But Perrin stood long beside her grave: and prayed for the poor little woman so soon to be left alone in the island, henceforth to be haunted by her sad spirit.

An hour after Blaisette's burial, Ellenor fainted while she was making preparations for leaving the house. Perrin, guessing what would follow, rowed her across to the main island, as soon as she was able. His mother had returned to her home, and Jean and poor weak Mrs. Cartier prepared to nurse their child through an attack of small-pox. The doctor shook his head. It was a particularly bad case, he said, and it was doubtful if he could save Ellenor.

CHAPTER VII.

"So you've made up your mind to lose her, Perrin?" said Mrs. Corbet, as she and her son were at supper one spring evening.

"Yes, there is nothing else to be done. Ellenor isn't a girl to treat me like that just for a bit of fun. At first, when she was just well of the small-pox, she was very kind to me. But when I spoke of our wedding day that had been put off and asked her if she wouldn't tell me it would be soon again, she turned away and didn't say another word for a long time."

"And you left her alone, I hope?"

"Indeed, but, no! I begged and prayed of her to speak to me, till she turned round. She looked white and tired. She was crying, but she was vexed, too. She told me, quite sharp, to leave her alone.

She said she wasn't going to marry n.o.body, and she must have been mad to promise to be my wife before. And then she said she was glad she'd had the small-pox, because it had put off the wedding."

"Perrin, my son, you are far too good for her, and far too simple!

If you'd have left her then and there, it's my belief she'd have come looking after me the very next day, just to see what you'd told me. And if you'd have seemed you didn't care _she'd_ have cared a good bit more than she does."

The fisherman shook his head.

"No, it isn't like what you think. It's like this--Ellenor only cares for one man, and that's the master of Orvilliere."

Mrs. Corbet shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, well, she must be _ensorchelai_ herself to love him that's such a devil and has so much to do with the Prince of devils. Bah, it was only yesterday I was told of some of Le Mierre's doings! It was Judie Roussel, and _she_ heard it from one of the maids at Orvilliere. Just you listen to me, Perrin Corbet, and see what you think of it!--Le Mierre, he wanted a bit of fun, him, and you may depend it wasn't nothing good, so he fetched some of his fine friends to go to the Vale. But they wasn't going to walk, them, no such thing! They makes up their minds they'll use the horse of Le Mierre's neighbour, Langlois. They find a good strong white one in a meadow. What do they do but all jump on his back and be off! Wait a bit! He begins to gallop and to gallop, over hedges and brambles; they couldn't stop him, and and when he gets nearly to the Vale, he throws them off his back in a fine muddy place, and then he's out of sight in a minute. And yet, would you believe it, Langlois swore the white horse had been in the meadow all the time! Of course it was the _devil_ that was the gallopping white horse! And he must be on pretty good terms with Le Mierre to play off such a joke with him, eh, Perrin!"

"I can't say, mother, I'm sure, and, in case even he is good friends with the devil, it's all the worse for the girl that loves him."

"Bah! I've no patience with Ellenor. Le Mierre is a bad man. She knows that as well as you and me do, and yet ... she loves him.

Well, well, women are poor fools. But, come, Perrin, isn't there any other girl that would do except Ellenor? There's hundreds nicer than her, and hundreds prettier--specially now."

"If she won't have me, I'll never marry. That's the end of it, mother."

Mrs. Corbet sighed as she heaped up the supper things for Perrin to wash. Such a good, kind son as he was, and to be made a fool of by a self-willed girl like Ellenor!

"It seems I haven't seen Le Mierre for a long time," she went on.