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But he, in his last hallucination, had seen his old granny moving under a rain-laden sky, and on the contrary a joyous laughing spring-time mocked her on all sides. Nearing Paimpol, she became more and more uneasy, and improved her speed.
Without seeming to care much, she had questioned the girls of the country round about, who knew all the love stories going; but he had no recognized engagement with any one, he paid no more attention to one than another, but roved from right to left, to Lezardrieux as well as to Paimpol, to all the beauties who cared to receive his address.
What a wonderful change had come over her since then; and what a difference there was between that hubbub and the present tranquility! How quiet and empty Paimpol seemed to-night in the warm long twilight of May, which kept her still at her window alone, lulled in her love's young dream! Their second meeting was at a wedding-feast. Young Gaos had been chosen to offer her his arm.
On the market-place, where there were games and acrobats, she walked up and down with her friends, who named and pointed out to her from time to time the young men of Paimpol or Ploubazlanec. And directly Gaud was struck with one of them, tall as a giant, with huge shoulders almost too broad; but she had simply said, perhaps with a touch of mockery: "There is one who is tall, to say the least!"
"The fjords," said Yann, "they are not broad bays, like Paimpol, for instance; only they are surrounded by high mountains so high that they seem endless, because of the clouds upon their tops. It's a sorry country, I can tell you, darling. Nothing but stones. The people of Iceland know of no such things as trees.
She neared the awful moment when this event, which had taken place in the so distant Chinese seas, was to be told to her; she was taking that sinister walk that Sylvestre had divined at his death-hour the sight of that had torn his last agonized tears from him; his darling old granny summoned to Paimpol to be told that he was dead!
"What difference can it make to him whether I am in Frélus or Paimpol?" "That's true," said Jeanne. Toinette bustled about the kitchen. Folks had to eat, whatever happened. But she went on talking, Madame Morin. One must not speak evil of the dead. They have their work cut out to extricate themselves from Purgatory.
Downstairs, of course, there was eating and cooking going on; the whole train of the wedding procession had gathered there in disorder; and the extra servants, hired from Paimpol, well-nigh lost their senses before the mighty lumbering up of the capacious hearth with pots and pans.
He tried to answer "yes," and faltered: "Oh! there was always plenty of rubbish babbled in Paimpol and Ploubazlanec." She asked what, but he could not answer her; so then she thought of something else. "Was it about my style of dress, Yann?" Yes, of course, that had had something to do with it; at one time she had dressed too grandly to be the wife of a simple fisherman.
Even her hands, without being conventionally small, were white and delicate, never having touched rough work. In those days she had been sheltered, during the fine summers, by poor Granny Moan, who used to give her Sylvestre to mind during her days of hard work in Paimpol. Gaud felt the adoration of a young mother for the child confided to her tender care.
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