Véronique continued:
"What do you propose to do, Honorine?"
"I shall go in by myself and speak to your father. Then I shall come back and fetch you at the garden-gate; and in François' eyes you will pass for a friend of his mother's. He will guess the truth gradually."
"And you think that my father will give me a good welcome?"
"He will receive you with open arms, Madame Véronique," cried the Breton woman, "and we shall all be happy, provided . . . provided nothing has happened . . . It's so funny that François doesn't run out to meet me! He can see our boat from every part of the island . . . as far off as the Glenans almost."
She relapsed into what M. d'Hergemont called her crotchets; and they pursued their road in silence. Véronique felt anxious and impatient.
Suddenly Honorine made the sign of the cross:
"You do as I'm doing, Madame Véronique," she said. "The monks have consecrated the place, but there's lots of bad, unlucky things remaining from the old days, especially in that wood, the wood of the Great Oak."
The old days no doubt meant the period of the Druids and their human sacrifices; and the two women were now entering a wood in which the oaks, each standing in isolation on a mound of moss-grown stones, had a look of ancient gods, each with his own altar, his mysterious cult and his formidable power.
Véronique, following Honorine's example, crossed herself and could not help shuddering as she said: