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 Orvillière, 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.