st-guard cutter about to
lie in ambush behind the Great Hanway. But the sail left the Hanways
behind, passed to the north-west of the Boue Blondel, and was lost in
the pale mists of the horizon out at sea.

"Where the devil can that boat be sailing?" asked the smuggler.

That same evening, a little after sunset, some one had been heard
knocking at the door of the old house of the Bu de la Rue. It was a boy
wearing brown clothes and yellow stockings, a fact that indicated that
he was a little parish clerk. An old fisherwoman prowling about the
shore with a lantern in her hand, had called to the boy, and this
dialogue ensued between the fisherwoman and the little clerk, before the
entrance to the Bu de la Rue:--

"What d'ye want, lad?"

"The man of this place."

"He's not there."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know."

"Will he be there to-morrow?"

"I don't know."

"Is he gone away?"

"I don't know."

"I've come, good woman, from the new rector of the parish, the Reverend
Ebenezer Caudray, who desires to pay him a visit."

"I don't know where he is."

"The rector sent me to ask if the man who lives at the Bu de la Rue
would be at home to-morrow morning."

"I don't know."

III

A QUOTATION FROM THE BIBLE

During the twenty-four hours which followed, Mess Lethierry slept not,
ate nothing, drank nothing. He kissed Deruchette on the forehead, asked
after Clubin, of whom there was as yet no news, signed a declaration
certifying that he had no intention of preferring a charge against
anyone, and set Tangrouille at liberty.

All the morning of the next day he remained half supporting himself on
the table of the office of the Durande, neither standing nor sitting:
answering kindly when anyone spoke to him. Curiosity being satisfied,
the Bravees had become a solitude. There is a good deal of curiosity
generally mingled with the haste of condolences. The door had closed
again, and left the old man again alone with Deruchette. The strange
light that had shone in Lethierry's eyes was extinguished. The mournful
look which filled them after the first news of the disaster had
returned.

Deruchette, anxious for his sake, had, on the advice of Grace and Douce,
laid silently beside him a pair of stockings, which he had been
knitting, sailor fashion, when the bad news had arrived.

He smiled bitterly, and said:

"They must think me foolish."

After a quarter of an hour's silence, he added:

"These thin