"Are there any travellers for the Hôtel Pendreff?" pipes a small boy's voice.
The Hôtel Pendreff! Surely the name is familiar to me. And now I remember that nine years before, during my first year in the navy, I had rested there for an hour, on a day in June, when my ship, by chance, had anchored in a bay near by. I recollect it well; an old manor house, turreted and gabled, presided over by two aged sisters named Le Pendreff, both alike, in large white bonnets, making a picture of bygone days. We will get down at the Hôtel Pendreff.
In the house itself nothing is changed. But one of the Le Pendreff sisters is dead. She who remains was already so old nine years ago that she can scarcely have grown older since. Her type, her bonnet, the placid dignity of her bearing, are of a past generation.
It is good to dine before the great roaring fire, and cheerfulness returns to us.
Afterwards, the good dame Le Pendreff, armed with a copper candlestick, leads the way up a stone staircase and ushers us into a very large room, where there are two beds of an old-fashioned type hung with white curtains.
Yves, however, undresses himself very slowly and without conviction.
"Ah!" he says, suddenly putting on his blue collar again. "I am going to continue the journey! In the first place, you understand, I should not be able to sleep. It's true, I shall get home very late, I shall awaken them after midnight, and that will startle them a little—I did that in the year when I returned from the war. But I am so anxious to see them, I cannot wait here."
And I, too, decided that I would follow his example.
Paimpol is asleep when we leave in the pale moonlight. I am accompanying him for a part of his way, to help to pass the hours of the night. We are now in the fields.
Yves walks very quickly; he is very excited, and goes over in his mind the memories of his earlier returns.