"What's the matter?"

Véronique, in a trembling voice, replied:

"That song! Who taught it you? Where do you get it from? . . . It's a song my mother used to sing, a song of her own country, Savoy . . . . And I have never heard it since . . . since she died . . . . So I want . . . I should like . . ."

She stopped. The Breton woman looked at her in silence, with an air of stupefaction, as though she too were on the point of asking questions. But Véronique repeated:

"Who taught it you?"

"Some one over there," the woman called Honorine answered, at last.

"Over there?"

"Yes, some one on my island."

Véronique said, with a sort of dread:

"Coffin Island?"