At the same moment there came from behind the screen that shut off the fire from the door, a benignant-looking, hale old man in a cassock, with long white hair on his shoulders, and a cheerful face, ruddy from sea-wind.
‘Welcome, my friends,’ he said. ‘Thanks to the saints who have guided you safely. You are drenched. Come to the fire at once.’
And as they moved on into the full light of the fire and the rude iron lamp by which he had been reading, and he saw the draggled plumes and other appurtenances that marked the two youths as gentlemen, he added, ‘Are you wrecked, Messieurs? We will do our poor best for your accommodation;’ and while both mechanically murmured a word of thanks, and removed their soaked hats, the good man exclaimed, as he beheld Berenger’s ashy face, with the sunken eyes and deep scars, ‘Monsieur should come to bed at once. He is apparently recovering from a severe wound. This way, sir; Jolitte shall make you some hot tisane.’
‘Wait, sir,’ said Berenger, very slowly, and his voice sounding hollow from exhaustion; ‘they say that you can tell me of my child. Let me hear.’
‘Monsieur’s child!’ exclaimed the bewildered curate, looking from him to Philip, and then to the guide, who poured out a whole stream of explanation before Philip had arranged three words of French.
‘You hear, sir,’ said Berenger, as the man finished: ‘I came hither to seek my wife, the Lady of Ribaumont.’
‘Eh!’ exclaimed the cure, ‘do I then see M. le Marquis de Nid de Merle?’
‘No!’ cried Berenger; ‘no, I am not that scelerat! I am her true husband, the Baron de Ribaumont.’
‘The Baron de Ribaumont perished at the St. Bartholomew,’ said the cure, fixing his eyes on him, as though to confute an impostor.
‘Ah, would that I had!’ said Berenger. ‘I was barely saved with the life that is but misery now. I came to seek her—I found what you know. They told me that you saved the children. Ah, tell me where mine is!—all that is left me.’