d Gard feelingly.

"I'd like to get into that inner cave," said the Doctor longingly.

"You couldn't," said Gard, looking at his size and girth. "It's a mighty
tight squeeze under the slab, and that tunnel would beat you. Unless
you've been brought up to that kind of thing, you couldn't stand it. It
would give you nightmares for the rest of your life."

"That's a rare lass, that little Nance," said the Senechal. "There's
some good in Sark after all, Mr. Gard."

"She was an angel to me," said Gard with feeling. "If it had not been
for her, I could never have held out. Not for what she brought me, but
the fact that she came. But it was terrible to me to think of her coming
through that Race. I begged her not to, but she would have her way.
Three times she risked her life for me--"

"Three times!" said the Senechal. "Ma fe, but she's a garche to be proud
of!"

"Ay, and to be more than proud of," said Gard. "She has given me my
life, and I will give it all to making her happy."

"I wouldn't swim across to L'Etat for any woman in the world," said the
Doctor. "Because, in the first place, I couldn't. She must have nerves
of steel, to say nothing of muscles. In the dark, too! And you wouldn't
think it to look at her."

"It needed more than nerves or muscles," said Gard quietly.

Not a man among the Islanders--much less a woman--would go anywhere near
the Coupee after dark. Even Nance confessed to a preference for daylight
passages. And Gard, when he went down into Little Sark for a walk, as
part of his cure, could not repress a cold shiver whenever he passed the
fatal spot where two men had gone over to their deaths.

All the old wives' tales were dug up and passed along, growing as they
went. Little eyes and mouths grew permanently rounded with horrors, and
the ground was thoroughly well spaded and planted with sturdy shoots
warranted to yield a noisome harvest of superstition for generations to
come.

The occupants of Clos Bourel and Plaisance carefully locked their doors
of a night now.

Old Mrs. Carre at Plaisance vowed she had heard the White Horses go
past, on the nights before Tom Hamon and Peter were found. And every one
knew that when the ghostly horses were heard, some one was going to die.
But as she had said nothing about it before, her contribution to the
general uneasiness was received with respect before her face but with
open doubt behind her back.

Old Nikki Never-mind-his-name--lest his descen