'Why? We were absent, but if you had gone to the house there and written to me—or to my wife.'
'No. I could not have done that. When I was there I was a burden to her. Besides, you had no right to do anything for me. You were a stranger.'
'I had the right I have now—that of a friend. You were ill treated in my house, that I know, but it was no fault of mine.'
'It was no one's fault. Only my own, for being foolish enough to go there. But let me tell you the rest as quickly as I can, or you will be tired——'
The colour rose over her face, and her voice grew lower, and her words more rapid as she hastened on the course of her narrative.
'I knew he would do as he said, for he stood above with his musket levelled downward at me. I took up the oars and I rowed away from the island, steering with my foot. I felt quite stunned; I did not think of resisting: when once he said I was nothing to him, and ought not really to bear his name, I did not feel as if I had any business there ever any more. Only I could not understand it, because after all he said that I was his son's child; and I have been all the days of my life on the island, and I thought my heart would break. Well—I got into the boat. It was quite light because the moon was now at the full. The sea was still. I did not feel in any way afraid. Yet I had never felt the sea so solitary as it seemed that night. Far away there were the lights of steamers moving steadily. I could smell the smell from the orange trees for a long, long while, and the last sound I heard from home was the cry of Clovis. He was howling because I was gone——'
Tears choked her voice; but she only paused a moment.
'Of course,' she continued, 'I had never been alone at sea in the night time before. One feels so small, so weak, so very lonely, all by oneself between the water and the sky. I was afraid, but I was not frightened. Do you know what I mean? I mean that I was not a coward, but I felt very near death. The boat was so small, and the sea was so large. It had never seemed so large to me before. Well, I could steer by this compass you gave me, which I had never let anyone see lest they should take it; and the wind was southerly and drove me northward.
'After many hours, and when my arms were very tired, and the day was breaking, I came to the coast.
'I landed at St. Jean; no one saw me land, and I avoided the fisher-people whom I knew there, because I could not bear to tell them how my grandfather had dealt with me. There were a few of them on the beach, getting their cobles ready to go out, but it was only dawn, and I did not let the few there were astir see me. I left the boat tied to some piles and went inland. I have never seen the sea since!——'