“Was he ever able to tell you his name?” asked M. des Graves. “I suppose not.”
“Mais si, Monsieur l’Abbé. Saint-Ermay. But you did not ask it when you came, and we never thought——”
“Nor I. I never hoped or guessed. Yet I was led here. . . . Yes, I have known and loved him always.” He was still passing his hand over the hot, damp brow, and Louis had ceased to moan and was lying quiet.
“He loves you too, that is plain,” said Madame Gloannec, coming round to the priest’s side. “See, although he does not know you, that eases the pain—your hand there! And he has suffered enough already, God knows. But I will stay with him now, mon père, if you will go down and eat some soup with Mathurin and Marie-Pierre. . . . Let us see, my child, if I cannot get you to sleep.”
She sat down by the bed, and as M. des Graves went down the rickety stairs he heard her crooning gently the old Breton song of the miller girl of Pontaro, with its strange monotonous refrain on two notes, that was like the turning of the mill-wheel—
“Ha ma mel a drei
Diga-diga-di;
Ha ma mel a ia
Diga-diga-da.”
In the kitchen Marie-Pierre, having taken off an iron pot from its tripod over the open fire, was pouring its steaming contents into a large bowl. His demeanour was serious and responsible; his father, sitting forward on the settle with his hands on his knees, watched him with something of the expression of the two oxen whose placid and magnificently-horned heads protruded into the apartment, their bodies being without, but their manger, as usual, within the cottage. The arrival of M. des Graves appeared a little to agitate father and son, for he had not as yet taken any meal with them, but finally the three sat down at the table to their soupe à choux.