"I will come back," I said--"yes, I promise to come back in a week's
time. Make haste and get well before then, mam'zelle. Good-by, now;
good-by."

I was going to sleep at Vaudin's Inn, near to Creux Harbor, from which
the cutter would sail almost before the dawn. At five o'clock we started
on oar passage--a boat-load of fishermen bound for the market. The cold
was sharp, for it was still early in March, and the easterly wind
pierced the skin like a myriad of fine needles. A waning moon was
hanging in the sky over Guernsey, and the east was growing gray with the
coming morning. By the time the sun was fairly up out of its bed of
low-lying clouds, we had rounded the southern point of Sark, and were in
sight of the Havre Gosselin. But Tardif's cottage was screened by the
cliffs, and I could catch no glimpse of it, though, as we rowed onward,
I saw a fine, thin column of white smoke blown toward us. It was from
his hearth, I knew, and, at this moment, he was preparing an early
breakfast for my invalid. I watched it till all the coast became an
indistinct outline against the sky.




CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.

THE SIXTIES OF GUERNSEY.


I was more than half-numb with cold by the time we landed at the quay,
opposite the Sark office. The place was all alive, seeming the more busy