In a hotel near the Arc de Triomphe Alice Wingfield read the news. It
was she who tenderly prepared the body for burial, who telegraphed to
Gaston at Audierne, getting a reply from Jacques that he was not yet
back from London. The next day Andree was found a quiet place in the
cemetery at Montmartre.

In the evening Alice and her relative started for Audierne.

.........................

On board the Fleur d'Orange Gaston struggled with the problem. There was
one thought ever coming. He shut it out at this point, and it crept in
at that. He remembered when two men, old friends, discovered that one,
unknowingly, had been living with the wife of the other. There was one
too many--the situation was impossible. The men played a game of cards
to see which should die. But they did not reckon with the other factor.
It was the woman who died.

Was not his own situation far worse? With his uncle living--but no,
no, it was out of the question! Yet Ian Belward had been shameless, a
sensualist, who had wrecked the girl's happiness and his. He himself
had done a mad thing in the eyes of the world, but it was more mad than
wicked. Had this happened in the North with another man, how easily
would the problem have been solved!

Go to his uncle and tell him that he must remove himself for ever from
the situation? Demand it, force it? Impossible--this was Europe.

They arrived at Douarnenez. The diligence had gone. A fishing-boat was
starting for Audierne. He decided to go by it. Breton fishermen are
usually shy of storm to foolishness, and one or two of the crew urged
the drunken skipper not to start, for there were signs of a south-west
wind, too friendly to the Bay des Trepasses. The skipper was, however,
cheerfully reckless, and growled down objection.

The boat came on with a sweet wind off the land for a time. Suddenly,
when in the neighbourhood of Point du Raz, the wind drew ahead very
squally, with rain in gusts out of the south-west. The skipper put the
boat on the starboard tack, close-hauled and close-reefed the sails,
keeping as near the wind as possible, with the hope of weathering the
rocky point at the western extremity of the Bay des Trepasses. By that
time there was a heavy sea running; night came on, and the weather grew
very thick. They heard the breakers presently, but they could not make
out the Point. Old sailor as he was, and knowing as well as any man
the perilous ground, the skipper lost his drunk