n to superstition. "It is only one
thing you have to tell--how did you frighten Marie so that she is ready
to go out of her wits at the sight of Antoine?"

"Nay, it was Geoffroi that frightened her, as they went up the ravine
together. I had but told her not to go alone, for that They were abroad
that night." The old woman broke into a curious chuckle. "How she
shivered, like a chicken in the wind! H'ch, h'ch! Then _he_ took hold of
her arm and led her away, for I had told her _he_ was a safe protector
against the spirits, not like some that wear the face of man and go up
and down in the village, saying that the people should not believe in
Jeanne the sorceress, for that she tells that which is untrue--while
they themselves have dealings such as none can know with the Evil Ones."

Aimee looked at her keenly for some moments with a curious expression on
her tightly-folded lips.

"You would have me believe that Marie went into the ravine when she knew
the spirits were about, and went on the arm of Geoffroi?"

"I tell you, Grandmere, that she did so. It was Jeanne that compelled
her. For Jeanne knows when a man is in league with Them, and she said to
Marie, 'Thou wilt wed Antoine, but thou knowest not what he is; go to
the Black Stone to-night, and thou shalt see.' H'ch! Jeanne knows
nothing, does she? But Marie went, for she knew that Jeanne was wise.
And what she saw, she saw."

It was strange to see the conflict between superstition and natural
affection in the face of Aimee. Her thoughts seemed to be rapidly
scanning the past, and there was fear as well as anger in her look.
Could it be that this child, flung into her arms, as it were, from the
shipwreck, born before his time of sorrow, the very offspring of
death,--that had always lived apart from the other lads, with strange,
quiet ways of his own--that had astonished her by his wise sayings as a
child--and that, growing up had brought unnatural prosperity to the
home, as though some higher hand were upon him--could it be that there
was something in him more than of this earth? Her hand trembled so that
it shook the stick on which she leant: she made one or two attempts to
speak, then dropped the two halfpence on the table, as if they burnt
her, and went out.

When Marie was a little better, they sent her away to her married
sister's at Cherbourg, for the doctor said that the only chance of
recovering her balance of mind, lay in removing her from everything tha