‘Naturally. Since September now—the end of September—can you recall any English visitors, ladies, who have been with you?’
‘But no, Monsieur. After September our season is over. It is late. We have had no English ladies since then.’
‘There are other hotels at Dol, I suppose?’
‘Yes, Monsieur, but this is the first.’
Cyril dined with a few sleepy-looking inhabitants, and a couple of sub-lieutenants from the neighbouring barracks, and after his dinner went to look at the cathedral, which had a shadowy grandeur by the light of a few solitary lamps burning here and there before a shrine.
After this he was glad to go to bed, having slept very little on board the St. Malo steamer. He put Christian Harefield’s letter under his pillow.
He was up before daybreak next morning, and was out with the first streak of pallid light in the east. He went first to look at the house which had swallowed up the lady in the gray mantle. He made a circuit of the garden-wall, but discovered nothing except that there were poultry on the premises, a fact imparted to him shrilly by a peculiarly energetic cock, apparently of the bantam breed, so eager was he, like all small creatures, to assert his importance. There was no indication of the life within to be drawn from the blank white wall, the closed venetians of the upper windows, or the gilded vane upon the roof. Neighbours there were none. So he left the spot no wiser than when he had approached it.
The morning was lovely, the air balmy, despite the lateness of the season. It was just that calm, delightful hour when earth seems as fresh as if the Creator’s work were but newly finished. Cyril set out on a perambulation of the neighbourhood of Dol. His hostess had talked to him last night of a certain Mont Dol, as a thing to be seen, so he went to see what this Mont Dol was like.
He walked for about a couple of miles through a level country, somewhat Flemish in its character, a country that had only the charm of rusticity to recommend it. Then he came all at once upon a raw-looking church, of a commonplace order, a few straggling cottages, and a steep rugged-looking hill, which rose out of the level plain with an extraordinary suddenness. He climbed this hill by a rough road, which dwindled by and by into a narrow winding track, and mounted in the early sunlight to an undulating heathy hill-top looking wide over the blue waters of the Channel. On this hill-top there was no human habitation, only a votive chapel and the white statue of a saint, looking down upon the quiet hillocks and hollows, the clumps of furze, and tranquil sheep cropping the dewy grass in the sweet morning air. He had never looked on a more pleasant scene. The world, life, and all its cares lay far below him—the blue wood smoke was curling up from the chimneys of many-gabled Dol, the church tower and its stunted twin brother, the tower that had never been finished, rose darkly above all meaner things on the level plain, white sails of passing vessels were shining yonder against the blue horizon. He felt himself alone upon this lonely hill, in a serener atmosphere than the air of every-day life. A saintly hermit of old time might have passed his contemplative days pleasantly enough in a cell adjoining the chapel yonder.
He rambled round the hill-top, lingering every now and then to look landward or seaward, for on either side the prospect was full of beauty. It was a spot where any man, with a genuine love of nature, might feel that he could spend hours and days of life, alone with his own thoughts and the peaceful beauty round him. The big bell of Dol chimed nine, the bright autumn sun climbed higher in the blue clear sky, a sheep-bell tinkled, an elderly lamb bleated, a little shepherd boy sang his little nasal song, a late bumble-bee buzzed among late furze bloom. There were no other sounds.