As he stood there by the fire, watching their departure, he seemed a heroic figure, this wandering philosopher.
“Surely,” Florence whispered to herself, “it is not always the rich, the famous, the powerful who most truly serve mankind.”
Once more she was reminded of the little old lady and her one treasure, the priceless cameo fashioned by skilled and loving fingers so many years ago.
“And I promised to return it to her!” This thought was one almost of despair.
“And yet,” she murmured, “I made that promise out of pure love. Who knows how Providence may assist me?”
There appeared to be, however, little time for thoughts other than those of escape from the storm. Their hurried march south began at once.
* * * * * * * *
As for the man who had so inspired them with terror, the one of the evil eye, he had not followed them. There is some reason to doubt that he so much as saw them. Had his attention been directed toward them, it seems probable that he would have passed them by as unknown to him and quite unimportant for he, as we must recall, knew Jeanne only as the boy usher, Pierre.
Truth was, this young man, who would have laughed to scorn any suggestion that his home might be found in this tumbled place, was engaged in a special sort of business that apparently required haste; for, after passing down the winding path at a kind of trotting walk, he hastened past a dark bulk that was a building of some size, turned to the right, crossed a temporary wooden bridge to come out at last upon the island which was also a part of the city’s “made land.” It was upon this island that Florence, a few evenings before, had discovered the mysterious girl and the more mystifying house that was so much like a ship, and yet so resembled a tiny church.
Even while the two girls talked to the ragged philosopher, this evil-eyed one with the dark and forbidding face had crossed the island and, coming out at the south end, had mounted the rock-formed breakwater where some frame-like affair stood.