Shortly afterwards Madame Marais came out of her house, wearing the wonderful lace cap that had descended to her through several generations. Leaning upon the arm of Old Pol, who was likewise gorgeously arrayed, she moved off in great state to take her place in the line of the procession which, under the direction of Monsieur le Curé, was slowly forming before the porch of La Chapelle des Pêcheurs.
When all preliminaries had been satisfactorily completed, the simple-hearted peasants, with flags flying and pipes playing, set off on their pilgrimage, walking at a somewhat leisurely pace, for your true Breton is seldom in a hurry.
Idris, regretting that he could not accompany them, clambered to an eminence on the moorland, where, aided by his mother's opera-glasses, he watched the course of the procession till it faded from view.
Nearly everybody in Quilaix had gone off to this Pardon. All the shops were closed, and the town was as silent as on a Sunday morning during the time of high mass. A few of the fishermen and of the coastguard had indeed remained behind, but these were slumbering in the shadow of the sardine-boats drawn high up on the beach. From these slumberers must be excepted old Baptiste Malet, who throughout the day glided to and fro along the shore, now and then dropping behind a rock to take a scrutiny of the yacht by the aid of a telescope nearly as long as himself.
The Nemesis still remained at the point where the anchor had first been cast. She was certainly a mysterious vessel; none of her occupants had come ashore: none could be seen on deck. It was quite clear that for some reason or other the crew shrank from the observation of those on land.
A gala-day it may have been for others, but for Idris it proved a somewhat dull time. His mother seemed too much preoccupied to set him his regular lessons: or perhaps she did not deem it fair to put him to study while others were festively engaged. She sat during the greater part of the day turning over the leaves of a large scrapbook filled with newspaper cuttings—a book which Idris was never permitted to see, Mrs. Breakspear being accustomed, as soon as her readings were ended, to lock the volume within a drawer of the old oak press. She had read these extracts so often as to be able to recite the greater part of them by heart: nevertheless, she continued to con them daily, as if they were quite new to her, though their perusal must have given her pain.
The first of these newspaper extracts was a long article from the journal L'Étoile de la Bretagne, worded as follows:—
"Let us review the facts of this remarkable case.
"Eric Marville is a gentleman of English birth who settled at Nantes in the spring of 1866. Of handsome person and polished manners, speaking our language with the ease of a native, and recently married to a rich and beautiful wife, M. Marville soon became a favourite in the higher circles of Nantes society. The Armorique Club, the most fashionable of its kind, admitted him to membership. It would have been well had M. Marville never entered the salons of this establishment, since it was here that he first met Henri Duchesne. The latter by all accounts was a professional gamester, though up to the present time nothing dishonourable has been proved in connection with his play.
"From the very first these two men, Eric Marville and Henri Duchesne, for some unknown reason, appear to have been in a state of secret hostility to each other, hostility which finally developed into open rupture. A remark uttered by Marville one evening, and doubtless uttered with no ill intent, on the wonderful luck attending M. Duchesne at cards, was interpreted by the latter as a reflection upon his mode of playing, and he immediately challenged the other to a duel. M. Marville merely shrugged his shoulders with the words:—'It is not the fashion of my countrymen, monsieur, to fight a duel over trifles.' 'Do you call the honour of my name a trifle?' exclaimed Duchesne, at the same time contemptuously flinging a glass of wine in Marville's face.