usually sat as though
he had taken root there, and leant tottering on his stick, as he
strained his blear eyes against the sunbeams: all stopped as if by one
impulse: all seemed absorbed by one expectation, and stood gazing up the
long, white road to the West.

The road was like a sensitive thing to ears long familiar with its
various sounds, and vibrated at a mile's distance with the gallop of
unwonted hoofs, or the haste of a rider that told of strange news.
Moreover, all hearts were open to the touch of fear that October
evening, when at any hour word might be brought of the fishing fleet
that should now be returning from its long absence in distant seas: and
one dare hardly think whether Jean and Pierre and little Andre would all
be restored safely to the vacant places around the cottage fire: one
dared not think: one could only pray to the Saints, and wait.

The girl with the mute, patient face had been the first to catch the
sounds of galloping hoofs. She had from birth been almost speechless,
with a paralysed tongue, but as if to compensate for this, her senses of
touch and hearing were extraordinarily acute. The daughter of the
aubergiste, she knew all who came and went along the road: the sights
and sounds of the road were her interest the life of it was her life.
She had heard in the faint, faint distance the galloping hoofs to the
West: off the great rocks to the West the fleet should first be
sighted: towards the West all one's senses seemed strained, on the alert
for signals of danger, or hope: and at the sound, the heart within
Annette's breast leaped with a sudden certainty of disaster.

Annette had never thought of love and marriage as possible for herself,
but Paul Gignol had gone with the fleet for the first time this summer,
and, for Annette, danger to the fleet meant danger to Paul. Paul and
Annette were kin on her mother's side, and he being an orphan and
adopted by her father, they had been brought up together like brother
and sister. This summer had separated them for the first time, and when
he bade her good-bye and sailed away, Annette felt like an uprooted
piece of heather cast loose on the roadside, and belonging nowhere. And
the first faint sounds of the hoofs on the road had struck on her ear as
a signal from Paul. She made no sign, only stood still with a beating
heart. And when the neighbours saw the dumb girl listening, they too
came out into the road, and heard the galloping, now growi