In a few minutes the black shadow re-appeared close to her.
"If My Lady will lean on my shoulder, I shall lead her to the boat." And after a few steps, the voice out of the darkness proceeded in explanation: "I have not taken a lantern, I have put out those of the carriage, for I must tell My Lady, that since what arrived this morning, there may be gabelous—they call them the preventive here—in every corner, and the light might bring them, as it does the night papilions, and ... as I thought Mademoiselle was to accompany you—they might have frightened her. These people want to know so much!"
"I know nothing of what has happened this morning, that you speak of as if the whole world must know," retorted Lady Landale coolly. "You are all hatching plots and sitting on secrets, but nobody confides in me. It seems then, that you expected Mademoiselle, my sister, here for some purpose and that you regret she did not come; may I ask for an explanation?"
A few moments elapsed before the man replied, and then it was with embarrassment and diffidence: "For sure, I am sorry, My Lady ... there have been misfortunes on the island this morning—nothing though to concern her ladyship—and, as for Mademoiselle, mother Margery would have liked to see her, no doubt ... and Maggie the wife also—and—and no doubt also Mademoiselle would have liked to come.... What do I know?"
"Oh, of course!" said Molly with her little note of mocking laughter.
Then again they walked a while in silence. As René lifted his mistress in his arms to carry her over the licking hissing foam, she resumed: "It is well, René, you are discreet, but I am not such a fool as people seem to think. As for her, you were right in thinking that she might easily be frightened. She was afraid even to come out!"
René shoved his boat off, and falling to his sculls, suddenly relapsed into the old vernacular: "Ah Madame," he sighed, "c'est bien triste—un gentilhomme si beau—si brave!"
During the crossing no further words passed between them.
"So brave—so handsome?" The echo of the words came back to the woman in every lap of the water on the sides of the boat, in every strain of the oars.
The keel ground against the beach, and René leaped out to drag the boat free of the surf. As he did so, two blacker outlines segregated themselves from the darkness and a rough voice called out, subdued but distinct: "Savenaye, St. Malo!"