Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/313

 nothing beautiful this afternoon, she thought, and the white heat beat up from the road into her eyes and the yellow heat from the sun beat down into her brain. She paused at a wayside buvette to raise her hood so that she might drive in shelter and went inside and sat down at a rustic table on the sanded floor to rest and drink a glass of beer. The woman who came to serve her had eyes swollen with weeping, and as Jill looked up at her kindly, she told her suddenly that her little girl lay dead in the next room. Would Madame like to see her—she was as beautiful as an angel. Jill did not want to see her at all, but she followed the mother into the dark, airless inner room and saw lying on the bed, a candle burning beside it, the pathetic small body; very beautiful, indeed, with waxen face and earnest, gentle smile. The mother stood, holding her apron to her lips, gazing and weeping, and Jill felt that her own tears fell. It was not only the sight of the dead child that made her cry. Her personal sorrow thus found relief.

Now she went on and came to unknown sign-posts, marking hamlets scattered far inland, with names that smelt of wine and garlic. But the sun had begun to dip down in the sky and she took the turnings to the left so that she should not lose herself too completely. However far away it might be, she was now heading for Buissac.

For some little time she had been aware of ominous noises and falterings in her engine and had disregarded them, and when the car stopped suddenly she got out