hobbled to the edge of the forest and stood knee deep in discoloured
ferns, listening. The sombre beech-woods spread thick on either hand, a
wilderness of crossed limbs and meshed branches to which still clung great
clots of dull brown leaves.

He listened, peering into sinister, grey depths. In the uncertain light
nothing stirred except the clashing branches overhead; there was no sound
except the wind's flowing roar and the ghostly noise of his own voice,
hallooing through the solitude--a voice in the misty void that seemed to
carry less sound than the straining cry of a sleeper in his dreams.

If the aeroplane had landed, there was no sign here. How far had it
struggled on, sheering the tree-tops, before it fell?--if indeed it had
fallen somewhere in the wood's grey depths?

As long as he had sufficient strength he prowled along the forest,
entering it here and there, calling, listening, searching the foggy
corridors of trees. The rotting brake crackled underfoot; the tree tops
clashed and creaked above him.

At last, having only enough strength left to take him home, he turned
away, limping through the blotched and broken ferns, his crippled leg
hanging stiffly in its splints, his gun and the dead ducks bobbing on his
back.

The trodden way was soggy with little pools full of drenched grasses and
dead leaves; but at length came rising ground, and the blue-green,
glimmering wastes of gorse stretching away before him through the
curtained fog.

A sheep path ran through; and after a little while a few trees loomed
shadowy in the mist, and a low stone house took shape, whitewashed,
flanked by barn, pigpen, and a stack of rotting seaweed.

A few wet hens wandered aimlessly by the doorstep; a tiny bed of white
clove-pinks and tall white phlox exhaled a homely welcome as the lame man
hobbled up the steps, pulled the leather latchstring, and entered.

In the kitchen an old Breton woman, chopping herbs, looked up at him out
of aged eyes, shaking her head under its white coiffe.

"It is nearly noon," she said. "You have been out since dawn. Was it wise,
for a convalescent, Monsieur Jacques?"

"Very wise, Marie-Josephine. Because the more exercise I take the sooner I
shall be able to go back."

"It is too soon to go out in such weather."

"Ducks fly inland only in such weather," he retorted, smiling. "And we
like roast widgeon, you and I, Marie-Josephine."

And all the while her aged blue eyes were fixed on him