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Bauzy had but a hazy idea of her meaning, but he nodded gravely. "She is a tourist. She wants to go out of Vannes to see the chateaux, the dolmens. I'm her man. I'll drive her to Larmor Baden," he said to his wife. "I have to go there to-day, and I may as well make a franc or two. Keep her until I bring the voiture." But Frances stood motionless until the old wagon rattled up to the water's edge.
There was a sudden silence. "Here she is again," they whispered, as a slight, delicate woman crossed the bridge with steady steps. "She is blind and deaf," said old Barbe. "I met her an hour ago and asked her whom she sought. She did not see nor hear me, but walked straight on." Oliver Bauzy was lounging near, as usual, watching his wife work. "She is English.
"She has a dear old face," Bauzy's wife whispered. "She is blind and deaf, I tell you," old Barbe grumbled, peering up at her. "Make her pay, Oliver, before you go." Bauzy nodded, and when Frances was seated held out his hand. "Twenty francs," he said. She opened her bag and gave them to him. "She must be folle!" he said uneasily. "I feel like a thief.
They drove through great red fields of sarasson, hedged by long banks of earth, which were masses of golden gorse and bronzed and crimson ferns. The sun shone, the clover-scented air was full of the joyous buzzing of bees and chirp of birds. "It is a gay, blessed day!" Bauzy said, "thanks to the good God!" He waited anxiously for her reply, but she stared into the sunshine and said nothing.
Frances laughed. "That is the place for me," she said to Selo. "Take me there." The old man looked at her with shrewd, friendly eyes, and then beckoned Bauzy aside. "Who is she? She has the bearing of a great lady, but her face hurts me. What harm has come to her?" "How do I know?" said Bauzy. "Go for your boat. The sea is rising."
She only spoke once during the morning, and then told him something about a woman "whom no child could touch. No man or woman could touch her as long as she lived. Not even her son." As Bauzy could make nothing of this, he could only nod and laugh civilly. But presently he, too, grew silent, glancing at her uncomfortably from time to time.
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