Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/250

 breeze crept, in at the loopholes of his raggedness, and nipped his gaunt body. He did not beg, or seem about to. The impulse was self-prompted that stretched Fenella's hand to him with a silver coin in it.

"Take this. You look ill or hungry."

"Hungry, madame," said the man softly. "A thousand thanks." He hid the coin about him furtively, and saluted Lady Onslow again. The lifted cap revealed a narrow head shaved almost to the skin. Upon the temples was a livid scar, new-healed and ugly.

"You are a stranger to Guernsey?" Fenella hazarded.

"A stranger, madame. I came from Cherbourg yesterday. A fisherman brought me in his boat. I am not particular as to my accommodation, as madame will guess, nor was the boatman extortionate. Yet he took all my money, and left me without enough to buy a meal."

"You have friends in the island?"

"No and yes," the man returned. "The little daughter of one who was an old comrade of mine lives here in charge of a woman who was her foster-mother, and has married a foreman of the stone works. Madame has seen her playing with the children of the good carrier. She did not know who looked at her and questioned of her name just now. When last I saw her (five years ago), she was but four years old. At four years