"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?"