“If they do, they won’t own it. You don’t understand these cunning peasants as well as I do. As long as they get a living here they’ll be content to know nothing, to see nothing, but what they are told to hear and to see. Now, let me give you back your coat. I’m going back to the château.”
She had assumed a very precise, matter-of-fact manner, which Bayre had to accept as a sign that all sentimental subjects were to be shelved for the present. He submitted in silence to take his coat. Then she held out her hand.
“When are you going back?”
“I don’t know yet. In the meantime, I’m staying at the house by the landing-place.”
The look of joy that flashed over her face showed him how much relieved she was to find that a friend upon whom she could rely was to be so near.
But she would not give him time to profit by this discovery. With one quick, shy, blushing glance at him she fled away in the direction of the château, leaving him strangely excited, and yet comforted, too.
CHAPTER XIV.
TAKE THE BULL BY THE HORNS
Bayre went straight back to the landing-place, where, as he had expected, he found that Monsieur Blaise had pushed off without him and was now some distance on his way back to Guernsey. He could even see the recumbent figure of the fickle lover in the stern of the boat; for Monsieur would not undertake the management of the tiller, but left the business of the boat to the two men, and displayed the better part of valour by lying with his head upon the seat and his eyes closed, subduing qualms, both physical and mental, with what success he could.
Bayre found lodgings, as he had proposed, at the little house of a man who lived close to the landing-place, who made money in the summer by bringing visitors to Creux, and filled up his time in the winter and autumn by fishing.
The young man had only a few days’ leave from his duties in town, and was doubtful as to whether he should be able to get an extension, which indeed he scarcely dared to ask for. But he could not tear himself away from the islands without some clearer knowledge than he yet possessed on the subject of the mystery which surrounded his uncle, on account of the effect it might have upon Olwen Eden.