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"M. Benest walked home and made inquiries; but his landlady could only tell him that the cottage was rented by two ladies, sisters, she had heard that they came from the West Indies, who saw nobody, but wished only to be let alone.
"She stamped her foot upon the flowers, and M. Benest turned and fled from her. Nay, in his haste, taking a short-cut towards the signpost, he plunged his wooden leg deep in the marsh, and tumbled helpless, overwhelmed with shame. "He never passed the signpost again, nor caught another glimpse of Mademoiselle Henriette's cap.
"It was M. Raoul; and he travelled across from Plymouth in the ship with this M. Benest, who happened to get his exchange at about the same time. It was clever of him to worm out the story if, indeed, he did not invent it. But that young man has genius for pathos." "I did not know that you corresponded." "Indeed, nor did I. He chose to write. I may answer; and, again, I may not.
One of them, who suffered from an incurable complaint, was never seen; the other could be seen on fine days in her garden, where she worked vigorously; and what the pair lived on was a mystery, for they bought nothing in the town or of their neighbours. "On learning this, M. Benest became very cunning indeed. He bought a fishing rod.
Three days later the Rector broke into the cottage and discovered her seated, dead and stiff, her hands stained with digging her sister's grave. "And the cottage had no new tenant. Only M. Benest continued to eye it wistfully, as he cast his flies and pondered on his offence, which she had died without forgiving.
"But one July, two years after her death, a patch of gold appeared on the marsh below the hedge a patch of the monkey-flower. Some seeds had been blown thither, or carried down by the stream. "Next July the patch had doubled its length. "'The flowers are travelling towards me, said M. Benest. "And year by year the stream brought them nearer.
"'Papa, les p'tits bateaux Qui vont sur I'eau, Ont-ils des jambes? Mais oui, petit beta, S'ils n'en avaient pas, ils n' march'raient pas! "In short, M. Benest, with his loose blue coat and three-cornered naval cap, endeared himself to the children, and through the children to everyone.
"My tale, Miss Dorothea, is of a certain M. Benest, who until a few weeks ago was a prisoner on parole in one of your towns on the south coast. In the action which lost her M. Benest lost a leg, and was placed in an English hospital, where they gave him a wooden one.
"It so happened that M. Benest had pretermitted his angling, that afternoon, for a stroll along the cliff: but he heard the news on his return, from his landlady, while he sat at tea that is to say, he heard a part of it, for before the story was out he had set down his teacup, caught up hat and stick, and stumped out of the house.
It may be that he had once borne another name than Benest, one to command privileges: since many of my countrymen, as you know, have found it prudent in recent years to change their names and take up with callings below their real rank.
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