ent about his strong neck and she kissed him as tenderly as a sister.

"Child!" I heard him murmur.

"We shall give another concert," she whispered in his ear.

[Illustration: bell]

* * * * *

[Illustration: The miser--Garron]

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE MISER--GARRON

We've had a drowning at Pont du Sable. Drownings are not infrequent on
this rough Norman coast of France. Only last December five able
fishermen went down within plain sight of the dunes in a roaring white
sea that gave no quarter. This gale by night became a cyclone; the sea a
driving hell of water, hail and screaming wind. The barometer dropped to
twenty-eight. The wind blew at one hundred and twenty kilometers an
hour. Six fishing boats hailing from Boulogne perished with their crews.
Their women went by train to Calais, still hoping for news, and returned
weeping and alone.

At Boulogne the waves burst in spray to a height of forty feet over the
breakwater--small wonder that the transatlantic liner due there to take
on passengers, signalled to her plunging tender already in
danger--"Going through--No passengers--" and proceeded on her way to New
York.

The sea that night killed with a blow.

This latest drowning at Pont du Sable was a tragedy--or rather, the
culmination of a series of tragedies.

"Suicide?"

"_Non_--_mon ami_--wait until you hear the whole truth of this plain
tale."

On my return from shooting this morning, Suzette brought me the news.
The whole fishing village has known it since daylight.

It seems that the miser, Garron--Garron's boy--Garron's woman, Julie,
and another woman who nobody seems to know much about, are mixed up in
the affair.

Garron's history I have known for months--my good friend the cure
confided to me much concerning the unsavory career of this vagabond of a
miser, whose hut is on the "Great Marsh," back of Pont du Sable. Garron
and I hailed "_bonjour_" to each other through the mist at dawn one
morning, as I chanced to pass by his abode, a wary flight of vignon
having led me a fruitless chase after them across the great marsh. At a
distance through the rifts of mist I mistook this isolated hut of
Garron's for a _gabion_. As I drew within hailing distance of its owner
I saw that the hut stood on a point of mud and wire grass that formed
the forks of the stream that snakes its way through the centre of this
isolated prairie, and so on out to the