"And Carette?" I asked. "I know she is well, for Aunt Jeanne told me so;" and she looked up quickly, and I hastened to add,—"We had to pass Beaumanoir, and I left Helier Le Marchant there. I only stopped long enough to ask if you were all right—and Carette." If I had told her I had kissed Aunt Jeanne before herself, I really believe she would have felt hurt, though I had never thought of it so when I did it.
But her nature was too sweet, and her heart too full of gratitude, to allow long harbourage to any such thoughts.
"Carette," she said with a smile, "has been much with me. But"—and her face saddened—"you do not know what has befallen them."
"Helier feared they were wiped out."
"Almost. Monsieur Le Marchant and Martin, the eldest boy, got home sorely wounded. They are still there on Brecqhou, and Carette is nursing them back to life. But I think"—and there was a touch of pride in her pleasure at it—"she has been here every time she has come across to see Jeanne Falla. She is a good girl ...and I think she is prettier than ever." But for myself I thought that was perhaps because she saw her with new eyes.
"And my grandfather?—and Krok?"
"Both well, only much troubled about you. I do not think they ever expected to see you again, my boy. Your grandfather has blamed himself, I think, for ever letting you go, and it has aged him. Krok gave you up too, I think, but he has never ceased to keep an eye on Carette for you. I doubt if he has missed going over to Brecqhou any single day, except when the weather made it quite impossible."
"God bless him for that!"
And even as I spoke, the door opened and Krok came in, but a Krok that we hardly knew.
He was in a state of most intense agitation. I thought at first that it was on my account,—that he had heard of my arrival. But in a moment I saw that it was some greater thing still that moved him.