“I understand she has not been seen for three days.”
Bayre rose from the table with a strange look on his face and walked straight towards the door.
“Where are you going, monsieur?” asked his hostess, rather alarmed by the effect of her words.
She knew of the relationship between him and the recluse of Creux, and she felt uneasy lest the young man should take some aggressive action against the magnate, which might possibly get her into bad odour among her neighbours. For, like all the inhabitants of small islands, the natives were clannish, and strongly resented any interference from outsiders.
Bayre had his fingers upon the handle.
“I’m going to try to find out what has become of her,” said he, “and to see the Creux people about it.”
“Oh, nobody fears a tragedy,” she said quickly, though her tone was not particularly reassuring. “It is some girlish freak, no doubt. And in a few days she will return to her guardian’s house, satisfied with having given this little proof of spirit.”
But this suggestion did not satisfy Bayre, who knew more of the sensitive and emotional girl, after two or three short interviews, than the majority of the islanders would have found out in a couple of years’ acquaintance. Remembering as he did the change which came over her after her introduction to her proposed husband, he could not even feel that her disappearance was a matter of great surprise. That she could conceive the idea of running away, either back to the school she had left in France, or to friends in England, seemed to him a perfectly possible thing. Yet surely, if she had followed such a course, she would have been recognised on the journey! The boats were not crowded at that early season of the year, and she was of course well-known by sight to the people whom she must meet on such a journey.
Full of fears which he dared not define, Bayre left the house and made his way towards the harbour. As luck would have it, one of the very first persons who attracted his attention as he approached the quay was the peasant girl who had placed the baby in its basket among the luggage of the three friends. She was some distance away from him, sauntering towards him with a market basket on her arm, and chatting with another girl of about the same age and class. He saw her before she saw him; but as soon as he attracted her attention by quickening his pace to meet her, she stopped, turned pale, uttered a frightened exclamation, then turned and ran away at the top of her speed, her sabots clanking noisily on the ground as she went.
Of course he gave chase. But in a locality where she was at home and he was not, it was easy for her to escape him.