"Brittany—"
"Yes. A little place on the coast that she knew. She said she wanted the sea. I thought perhaps that she had written to you—"
"Not since May," said John Fay. "There was a proposed extension of a piece of work of mine in the West. I was called out there to see about it, and I had to go. I was kept for weeks. I tried to get back, but I couldn't—I was in honour bound. Then when I came her boat had sailed. And now I—"
He measured the table with his fingers. "Do you think she would hate me if I turned up in that place in Brittany?"
Molly considered it. "She's a reasonable being. Brittany isn't for the benefit of just one person."
"Ah, but you see I should want to talk to her."
Molly pondered that, too. "Well, I should try, I think. If she doesn't want to talk she will tell you so...."
Hagar's village was a small village, a grey patch of time-worn houses, set like a lichen against a cliff with a heath above. Before it ran a great and far stretch of brown sands. There was a tiny harbour where the fishing-boats came in, and all beyond the thundering sea. The place boasted a small inn, but she did not stay there. The widow of the curé had to let a clean large room, overlooking a windy garden, and the widow and her one servant set a table with simple, well-cooked fare. Hagar stayed here, though most of the time, indeed, she stayed out upon the brown, shell-strewn, far-stretching sands.
She walked for miles, or, down with the women at evening, she watched the boats come one by one to haven, or, far from the village, beneath some dune-like heap of sand, she sat with her hands about her knees and watched the shifting colour of the sea. She had a book with her; sometimes she read in it, and sometimes it lay unopened. All the colours went over the sea, the surf murmured, the sea-birds flew, the salt wind bent the sparse grass at the top of the dune. On such an afternoon, after long, motionless dreaming, she changed her posture, turning her eyes toward the distant village. A man was walking toward her, over the firm sand. She watched him at first dreamily, then, suddenly, with a quickened breath. While the distance between them was yet great, she knew it to be Fay.
He came up to her and held out his hand. She put hers in it. "Did I startle you?" he said. "If you don't want me, I will go away."