"He went to Little Sark last night to see her"—with a beck of distaste towards Julie—"and he's never come home."
The men looked from the speaker to Julie, as though the next word necessarily lay with her.
"I never set eyes on him. I was out after that girl. I came here to tell him about Gard. Has he been to the harbour?"
"No, he hasn't. We are from there now."
"He's maybe with some of them arranging about going to L'Etat," said Julie. "I'll go and find out;" and she set off along the road past the windmill.
The morning passed in fruitless enquiries. She asked this one and that, every one she could think of, if they had seen Peter, and was met everywhere with meaning grins and point-blank denials. Apparently no one had set eyes on Peter, and every one seemed to imply that she ought io know more about him than any one else.
It was past mid-day before she was back at Vauroque, but Mrs. Guilie was still standing in the doorway of Peter's empty house as if she had been looking out for news of him ever since.
"Eh b'en? Have you found him?" she cried.
"Not a finger of him!" snapped Julie savagely, tired out with her fruitless labours.
"Then he's come to some ill, bà sú. And if he has—ma fé, it's you!—it's you!" The old lady's scream of denunciation choked itself with its own excess, and the neighbours came running out to learn the news.