sieur?"

"Not for ten days or so. As soon as she is well enough I shall carry her
over to Mistress Falla's. Then you can see her."

"Thank you, m'sieur. I think I will go now."

"Going back same way?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll see you off. Sure you can manage it?"

"Oh yes. Good-bye, Carette!" as he moved towards the door.

"Good-bye, Phil! I'll be at Aunt Jeanne's just as soon as I can," piped
Carette, out of the darkness of her inner room.

And Jean Le Marchant led me back across the Island to the Gale de Jacob,
and stood watching me from Beleme till I scrambled in among the rocks at
the foot of Saut de Juan.

That was the first time I visited Carette's home and met her father, though
her brothers I had seen at times on Sercq, viewing them from a distance
with no little awe on account of the many strange stories told about them.
They were not in the habit of mixing much with the Island men, however.
They kept their own counsel and their own ways, and this aloofness did not
make for good comradeship when they did come across.

It was years before I set foot on Brecqhou again.

These brief glimpses of those bright early days I have set down that you
might know us as we were. For myself I delight to recall them, but if I
were to tell you one quarter of all our doings and sayings when we were boy
and girl together, with but one will--and that Carette's--it would make a
volume passing bounds.

And it is possible that my recollection of these things is coloured
somewhat with the knowledge and feeling of the later times, for a man may
no more fully enter again into the thoughts of his childhood than he may
enter full grown into his childhood's clothes. I have told them, however,
just as they are present in my own mind, and they are at all events true.

CHAPTER IX

HOW WE BEGAN TO SPREAD OUR WINGS

Ten years make little change in the aspect of Sercq, nor ten times ten for
that matter, though the learned men tell us that the sea and wind and
weather take daily toll of the little land and are slowly and surely
wearing it away. It has not changed much in my time, however, and I have no
doubt it will still stand firm for those who are to follow.

But ten years in the life of a boy and girl--ten years, which about double
in number those that have gone, and increase experiences tenfold--these
indeed bring mighty changes.

In those ten years I grew from boy to man, and Carette Le Marchant grew
into a gracious