“And yet—it isn’t,” he went on, with sudden discouragement; “no, we’ve made a mistake again, the boom isn’t the same, and they have a flying jib. Well, well, it isn’t them this time, it’s the Marie-Jeanne. Oh! but very surely, my girl, they’ll not be long now.”
And day followed day, and each night came at its appointed hour, with inexorable tranquillity.
Gaud continued to dress every day, somewhat like a mad woman, always in fear of seeming to be the widow of a shipwrecked sailor, exasperated when others glanced at her compassionately and furtively, and looking aside so that she might not meet those glances that froze her very blood.
Now she had fallen into the habit of going of mornings right to the end of the headland on the high cliffs of Pors-Even, passing behind Yann’s paternal home so as not to be seen by his mother or his little sisters. She went all alone to the extreme point of the Ploubazlanec land, which is outlined in the shape of a reindeer’s horn against the gray Channel, and sat there all day long at the foot of a lonely cross, which rises above the immense expanse of waters.
There are many of these granite crosses hereabout, set up on the uttermost cliffs of this land of mariners, as though to implore mercy,—as though to appease that restless, mysterious thing that lures men away and never gives them back, and by preference keeps the bravest, the noblest.
Around this cross of Pors-Even stretched evergreen moors, carpeted with short rushes; and at this great height the sea air was very pure, having scarcely any of the briny smell of the seaweed, but perfumed with the delicious ripeness of September.
Outlined in the far distance could be seen, one after another, all the indentations of the coast, the land of Brittany terminating in ragged edges which stretched far out into the tranquil void of the waters. Near at hand the reefs riddled the sea, but out beyond nothing troubled its polished mirror. There sounded over all a soft, caressing murmur, light and infinite, arising from the deeps of its every bay. And the distance seemed so calm, and the depths so soft! The great blue void, the tomb of the Gaos family, guarded its inscrutable mystery while the breezes, faint as human sighs, wafted here and there the perfume of the gorse, which had bloomed again in the latest autumn sun.
At certain hours regularly the sea retreated, and shallow places grew larger everywhere, as if the Channel were slowly emptying itself; then, with the same lazy slowness, the waters rose again, and continued their eternal going and coming without any heed of the dead.
And Gaud, seated at the foot of the cross, remained there, in the midst of these tranquil scenes, gazing ever before her, until the night fell, until she could see no more.