"Did I say I live in Brittany?" She caught up the robe and flung it around her shoulders, and then she said, "All right, Michael, follow me. I'd like that. Follow me as far as you can!"
She left him, going swiftly over the tumbled rocks. Trehearne watched her until she was out of sight, not moving from where he stood. After a long while his gaze was drawn to the sand and the patterns that Shairn had traced there. Amid the aimless, rambling lines a word stood out in large clear letters.
KEREGNAC.
THREE
A hired car and driver took Trehearne, for an exorbitant price, to Keregnac. On the first day they had roads, and made excellent time. On the second the tiny Fiat labored in agony along rutted cart tracks. The sea was far behind them, and the driver complained incessantly of the mad desires of Americans. Why should anyone wish to go to Keregnac, a place that even the Bretons had forgotten?
Trehearne was in a strange and savage mood. The sound of Shairn's name was in his ears, and all the things that she had said and done went round and round in his head, and the more he thought of them the more he hated her, and the more he wanted her. And the more he hated Kerrel, who had her, and who was part of whatever secret life she lived. But Shairn and her affairs were only part of it. He had come close to the end of his quest. He had almost grasped it, only to be denied at the last by a woman's fickle impulse. He would not be denied any longer. Shairn had started something that could not be stopped, no matter where it led.
The driver lost his way among the ruts and the stony hamlets. When he begged directions, the peasants regarded Trehearne in dour silence and could not be compelled to answer. It was impossible even to learn whether others had gone this way before them.
Trehearne had foreseen this possibility. He had had enough such difficulties in Cornwall. He had got a map and directions in St. Malo, and he forced the luckless driver on by dead reckoning. It was night before they came wallowing into a muddy square half paved with ancient stones and saw the lights of half a dozen dwellings clustered around it.
"Go there, to the largest house," said Trehearne. "Ask if this is Keregnac, and tell the master we'll pay well for lodging."