He! Oh! joy of heaven, he! Some one had knocked, could it be any other! She was up, barefooted; she, so feeble for so many days, had sprung up nimbly as a cat, her arms outstretched to wind round her well-beloved. Without doubt the Léopoldine had come in at night, and anchored opposite Pors-Even Bay; and he—he had rushed home; she arranged all this in her mind with the swiftness of lightning. And now she tore her fingers upon the spikes of the door—in her fury to draw the bolt it had stuck.
Ah!... And now she slowly moved back, crushed, her head fallen upon her breast. Her sweet mad dream was over. It was no one but Fantec, their neighbor. She could just comprehend that it was not he, her Yann, that no part of his being had passed through the air; she felt herself plunged again into her old abyss, to the uttermost depths of her same awful despair.
He apologized, poor Fantec: his wife, as Gaud knew, was very ill, and now their baby was suffocating in its cradle, seized with a malignant sore throat; so he had come to beg for help, while he ran to hunt up the doctor at Paimpol.
What did all this matter to her? She had gone mad in her grief, she had nothing left to offer to others in distress. Huddled on a bench, she sat before him with eyes glazed, as one dead, not answering him, not hearing him, not even looking at him. What were these things to her that the man was saying!
He understood it all; he divined why the door had been opened to him so quickly, and he had pity for the pain he had brought about.
He stammered out an apology: Just so; he ought never to have disturbed her—her especially.
“I!” replied Gaud quickly, “and why not I, Fantec?”
Life had returned to her suddenly, for still she did not want to appear despairing before the eyes of others—for that she was quite unwilling. And besides, in her turn she pitied him; she dressed to accompany him and found strength to go see his little child.
When she returned to throw herself upon her bed, at four o’clock, sleep laid hold upon her in a moment, for she was utterly fatigued. But that moment of immense joy had left upon her mind an impression which, in spite of all, was persistent; she awoke soon with a shudder, rising a little, as remembering something.... She had some news concerning her Yann.... In the midst of this confusion of ideas which came back to her, rapidly she searched and searched her mind for what it could have been.