It was not till the middle of November that Alixe learned of the hope of Crépuscule; but when she did know, her tenderness for Lenore became something beautiful to see, and she partook both of Eleanore’s deep joy and of Lenore’s quiet content. Three or four days after the knowledge had come to her, Alixe was pacing up and down the terrace in front of the Castle, side by side with Lenore. It was a blustering, chilly day, and both young women drew their heavy mantles close around them as they watched the great flocks of gulls wheel and dip to the sea, looking like flurries of snowflakes against the sombre background of the sky. Far out in the bay one or two of the crude fishing-boats from St. Nazaire were beating their way southward toward their harbor, and then Lenore watched with eyes that dilated more and more with interest and desire.
“Alixe,” she said suddenly, “canst thou sail a boat?”
“Why dost thou ask?”
“Certes, for that I would know.”
Alixe laughed. “’Tis a reason,” she said.
“Tell me, Alixe! Make me answer!”
“Knowest thou not that, after the drowning of the demoiselle Lenore, it was forbidden any one in Crépuscule to put out upon the sea in any boat, though he might be able to walk the water like Our Lord?”
“Hush, Alixe! But yet—thou’st not replied to me.”
“Well, then, if thou wouldst know, I can sail a boat, and withal skilfully. In the olden days, Laure—’twas Gerault’s sister—and I have gone out in secret an hundred times in a fisherman’s boat anchored a mile down the shore, in front of some of the peasants’ huts. Laure and I paid the fisherman money to let us take the boat; for she loved it as well as I. Indeed, I have been lonely for it since her going.”
“Ah! Since her going thou’st not known the sea?”