"Certainly," I replied; "you will only discover, as I have, that the school was broken up a month ago, and Ellen Martineau has disappeared."
I kept no very strict watch over her during the day, for I felt sure she would find no trace of Olivia in Noireau. At night I saw her again. She was worn out and despondent, and declared herself quite ready to return to Falaise by the omnibus at five o'clock in the morning. I saw her off, and gave the driver a fee, to bring me word for what town she took her ticket at the railway-station. When he returned in the evening, he told me he had himself bought her one for Honfleur, and started her fairly on her way home.
As for myself, I had spent the day in making inquiries at the offices of the octrois—those local custom-houses which stand at every entrance into a town or village in France, for the gathering of trifling, vexatious taxes upon articles of food and merchandise. At one of these I had learned, that, three or four weeks ago, a young Englishwoman with a little girl had passed by on foot, each carrying a small bundle, which had not been examined. It was the octroi on the road to Granville, which was between thirty and forty miles away. From Granville was the nearest route to the Channel Islands. Was it not possible that Olivia had resolved to seek refuge there again? Perhaps to seek me! My heart, bowed down by the sad picture of her and the little child leaving the town on foot, beat high again at the thought of Olivia in Guernsey.
I set off for Granville by the omnibus next morning, and made further inquiries at every village we passed through, whether any thing had been seen of a young Englishwoman and a little girl. At first the answer was yes; then it became a matter of doubt; at last everywhere they replied by a discouraging no. At one point of our journey we passed a dilapidated sign-post with a rude, black figure of the Virgin hanging below it. I could just decipher upon one finger of the post, in half-obliterated letters, "Ville-en-bois." It recurred to me that this was the place where fever was raging like the pest.
"It is a poor place," said the driver, disparagingly; "there is nothing there but the fever, and a good angel of a curé, who is the only doctor into the bargain. It is two leagues and a kilometre, and it is on the road to nowhere."
I could not stop in my quest to turn aside, and visit this village smitten with fever, though I felt a strong inclination to do so. At Granville I learned that a young lady and a child had made the voyage to Jersey a short time before; and I went on with stronger hope. But in Jersey I could obtain no further information about her; nor in Guernsey, whither I felt sure Olivia would certainly have proceeded. I took one day more to cross over to Sark, and consult Tardif; but he knew no more than I did. He absolutely refused to believe that Olivia was dead.
"In August," he said, "I shall hear from her. Take courage and comfort. She promised it, and she will keep her promise. If she had known herself to be dying, she would have sent me word."
"It is a long time to wait," I said, with an utter sinking of spirit.
"It is a long time to wait!" he echoed, lifting up his hands, and letting them fall again with a gesture of weariness; "but we must wait and hope."
To wait in impatience, and to hope at times, and despair at times, I returned to London.