Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/194

186 to rise and have supper. And after supper—are you sorry?—another journey for you. At midnight you start in the gig with Farmer Ellory, who will drive you to the coast, to a town called Fowey, where some friends of his 'in the trade' are starting for Roscoff. In six hours you will be aboard ship again; and in another twenty, perhaps, you will see your mother—and your father too, if he escaped clear away. In little more than a day you will be back in Brittany. But first you must lie quite still, and I will show you something."

"To be sure I will, madame."

"You must not call me that. I am the Demoiselle Heloïse Kéranguin. You know St. Pol de Léon, Yann?"

"Almost as well as my own town, mademoiselle."

"And the Convent of the Grey Nuns, on the road to Morlaix, a little beyond the town?"

It was on my tongue to tell her that fire and soldiery had wiped it even with the ground, during the "Terror." But she interrupted me. Setting down her work-basket, which was heaped high with reels and parti-coloured rags of silk, she pushed a small table over to the big bed and loaded it with candlesticks. There were three candles already alight in the room, but she lit others and set them in line—brass candlesticks, plated candlesticks, candlesticks of chinaware—fourteen candlesticks in all, and fresh candles in each. Laying a finger on her