He shrugged his shoulders and sighed. "Those, I find, are the toughest laws of all! Come, darling, let us ask the boy yonder about the fishing boats."
They were informed that one might possibly pass on the following night. He borrowed from the youth a piece of hard chalk that acted in lieu of pencil, and begged Leonie to write with it on some rough paper which had served to wrap stores from the land.
"Tell your mother that we have decided, after three days on this island, to leave for Brighton, on the British coast, there to marry. A year ago we asked her blessing on our love, and she refused it; we pray that she will now be more lenient."
"No good," murmured Leonie, translating, however, what he had dictated.
Below, he scribbled the address of an hotel in England, where a reply might meet them.
"She is sure," he said, folding the note, "to call me a blackguard, and as certain, I hope, to consent."
"My best and dearest," cried the girl in prospective contradiction of anything that might be pronounced against him.
Twenty-four hours later, when the fishing smack alluded to hove in sight, the missive was handed to the coastguard's son. He was ordered to take it inland on the morrow, and deliver it without fail, at "La Chaumais."
"But supposing my brother should not write? Supposing he should come?"
"That is what I hope. Le Sieur will support the dignity of the De Quesnes—he will engage with the law and leave us to engage with only love."