ken to Deruchette; he knew her from having seen
her at a distance, as men know the morning star.

At the period when Deruchette had met Gilliatt on the road leading from
St. Peter's Port to Vale, and had surprised him by tracing his name in
the snow, she was just sixteen years of age. Only the evening before
Mess Lethierry had said to her, "Come, no more childish tricks; you are
a great girl."

That word "Gilliatt," written by the young maiden, had sunk into an
unfathomed depth.

What were women to Gilliatt? He could not have answered that question
himself. When he met one he generally inspired her with something of the
timidity which he felt himself. He never spoke to a woman except from
urgent necessity. He had never played the part of a "gallant" to any one
of the country girls. When he found himself alone on the road, and
perceived a woman coming towards him, he would climb over a fence, or
bury himself in some copse: he even avoided old women. Once in his life
he had seen a Parisian lady. A _Parisienne_ on the wing was a strange
event in Guernsey at that distant epoch; and Gilliatt had heard this
gentle lady relate her little troubles in these words: "I am very much
annoyed; I have got some spots of rain upon my bonnet. Pale buff is a
shocking colour for rain." Having found, some time afterwards, between
the leaves of a book, an old engraving, representing "a lady of the
Chaussee d'Antin" in full dress, he had stuck it against the wall at
home as a souvenir of this remarkable apparition.

On that Christmas morning when he had met Deruchette, and when she had
written his name and disappeared laughing, he returned home, scarcely
conscious of why he had gone out. That night he slept little; he was
dreaming of a thousand things: that it would be well to cultivate black
radishes in the garden; that he had not seen the boat from Sark pass
by; had anything happened to it? Then he remembered that he had seen the
white stonecrop in flower, a rare thing at that season. He had never
known exactly who was the woman who had reared him, and he made up his
mind that she must have been his mother, and thought of her with
redoubled tenderness. He called to mind the lady's clothing in the old
leathern trunk. He thought that the Reverend Jaquemin Herode would
probably one day or other be appointed dean of St. Peter's Port and
surrogate of the bishop, and that the rectory of St. Sampson would
become vacant. Next, he remembered tha