“Father!� said Jean-Marie, stepping forward out of the darkness, the dimly-seen, shrinking figure of Gaud behind him.
Yann rose up, threatening and formidable, his clenched fist ready to strike. Gaud cried out in fear; but Yvonne, the silvery moonlight filling the hollows of her quiet eyes and resting in the curves of her white cheeks, and kissing her closed, patient lips into the semblance of a smile, never stirred. The night wind played with a little lock of hair escaping from the edge of her shell-fluted cap, and her bosom neither rose nor fell.
“Pretty goings on.... Look here, you cub!� Yann was beginning, but his son’s eyes looked past his at the placid face of the sleeper on the bench, and the fear and awe in them were not inspired by his father. Yann looked round then, and a hoarse cry broke from him.
“Speak to her,� whispered Jean-Marie, and Gaud tremblingly touched Yvonne’s clasped hands. They were cold as the smiling lips and the sealed eyes on which rested the white peace that is the kiss of Death.
The cricket chirped within the cottage, and the deep slumbrous breathing of the sea came from beyond a curtain of chill white mist. Yvonne’s long time of waiting had ended at last.
THE DELUSION OF MRS. DONOHOE
In Two Parts
I
IT was in the spring of 19— that the Dapple Grays returned from South Africa, covered with wounds, glory, boils, and khaki, this last presenting many solutions of continuity. One finds the arrival of H. M. troopship Paradise at Porthampton Dockyard referred to in the newspapers bearing the date of that occurrence as an event calculated to awaken emotions of gratitude and enthusiasm in the bosom of every Briton. An illuminated address was presented to the Chief by the Mayor and Corporation of the borough, and the Dapple Grays were subsequently entertained, the Colonel and officers to a banquet, and the rank and file to a blowout.
“You return to us, Captain,� the Mayor is reported to have said in a complimentary rider addressed to the commanding officer of the Paradise, “with a freight of heroes.�