erty, owing to his apparent calmness, and that when the
train stopped at Le Mans he had slipped from him and utterly vanished.

During the summer, word came occasionally that no trace had been found
of the unhappy man, and at last the Pontivy colony realized that the
merry boy was dead. Had he lived he _must_ have been found, for the
exertions of the police were perfect; yet not the slightest trace was
discovered, and his lamentable death was acknowledged, not only by Mme.
de Bergerac and Jean's family,--sorrowing for the death of their
first-born, away in the warm hills of Lozere,--but by Dr. Charpentier as
well.

So the summer passed, and the autumn came, and at last the cold rains of
November--the skirmish line of the advancing army of winter--drove the
colony back to Paris.

It was the last day at Pontivy, and Mlle. Heloise had come down to Notre
Dame for a last look at the beautiful shrine, a last prayer for the
repose of the tortured soul of poor Jean d'Yriex. The rains had ceased
for a time, and a warm stillness lay over the cliffs and on the creeping
sea, swaying and lapping around the ragged shore. Heloise knelt very
long before the Altar of Our Lady of the Waters; and when she finally
rose, could not bring herself to leave as yet that place of sorrowful
beauty, all warm and golden with the last light of the declining sun.
She watched the old verger, Pierre Polou, stumping softly around the
darkening building, and spoke to him once, asking the hour; but he was
very deaf, as well as nearly blind, and he did not answer.

So she sat in the corner of the aisle by the Altar of Our Lady of the
Waters, watching the checkered light fade in the advancing shadows,
dreaming sad day-dreams of the dead summer, until the day-dreams merged
in night-dreams, and she fell asleep.

Then the last light of the early sunset died in the gleaming quarries of
the west window; Pierre Polou stumbled uncertainly through the dusky
shadow, locked the sagging doors of the mouldering south porch, and took
his way among the leaning crosses up to the highway and his little
cottage, a good mile away,--the nearest house to the lonely Church of
Notre Dame des Eaux.

With the setting of the sun great clouds rose swiftly from the sea; the
wind freshened, and the gaunt branches of the weather-worn trees in the
churchyard lashed themselves beseechingly before the coming storm. The
tide turned, and the waters at the foot of the rocks swept uneasi