ead by the presence of the
poor old woman, who was almost as one of them herself.

Suddenly she shivered from head to foot, as she heard a thin, cracked
voice, as if stifled under the earth, proceed from the chimney corner.

In a chirping tone, which chilled her very soul, the voice sang:

"Pour la peche d'Islande, mon mari vient de partir, Il m'a laissee sans
le sou, Mais--trala, trala la lou!"

Then she was seized with that peculiar terror that one has of mad
people.

The rain fell with an unceasing, fountain-like gush, and streamed down
the walls outside. There were oozings of water from the old moss-grown
roof, which continued dropping on the self-same spots with a monotonous
sad splash. They even soaked through into the floor inside, which was of
hardened earth studded with pebbles and shells.

Dampness was felt on all sides, wrapping them up in its chill masses; an
uneven, buffeting dampness, misty and dark, and seeming to isolate the
scattered huts of Ploubazlanec still more.

But the Sunday evenings were the saddest of all, because of the relative
gaiety in other homes on that day, for there are joyful evenings even
among those forgotten hamlets of the coast; here and there, from some
closed-up hut, beaten about by the inky rains, ponderous songs issued.
Within, tables were spread for drinkers; sailors sat before the smoking
fire, the old ones drinking brandy and the young ones flirting with the
girls; all more or less intoxicated and singing to deaden thought. Close
to them, the great sea, their tomb on the morrow, sang also, filling the
vacant night with its immense profound voice.

On some Sundays, parties of young fellows who came out of the taverns
or back from Paimpol, passed along the road, near the door of the Moans;
they were such as lived at the land's end of Pors-Even way. They passed
very late, caring little for the cold and wet, accustomed as they were
to frost and tempests. Gaud lent her ear to the medley of their
songs and shouts--soon lost in the uproar of the squalls or the
breakers--trying to distinguish Yann's voice, and then feeling strangely
perplexed if she thought she had heard it.

It really was too unkind of Yann not to have returned to see them again,
and to lead so gay a life so soon after the death of Sylvestre; all
this was unlike him. No, she really could not understand him now, but
in spite of all she could not forget him or believe him to be without
heart.

The fact wa